## Facts

- Two minors were adjudged to have violated New Hampshire OHRV (snowmobile) rules, including operating on a public way and operating at an unreasonable speed.
- The State also prosecuted the minors’ fathers under RSA 269-C:24 IV, which stated that parents or guardians “will be responsible” for violations of the OHRV chapter by persons under 18.
- The prosecutions against the fathers were based only on their status as parents, without allegations of any parental act or omission contributing to the violations.
- The fathers were found guilty in district court and reserved questions of law for appellate review.

## Issues

1. Whether RSA 269-C:24 IV was intended to impose criminal liability on parents for their minor children’s OHRV violations.
2. Whether imposing criminal liability on parents solely because they are parents, without specifying any parental voluntary act or omission, violates due process under the New Hampshire Constitution and the Fourteenth Amendment.

## Decision

- The court read RSA 269-C:24 IV as expressing legislative intent to impose criminal responsibility on parents for minors’ OHRV violations.
- The court set aside the fathers’ convictions, holding that the statute could not constitutionally impose vicarious criminal liability based solely on parental status.
- The court reasoned that New Hampshire’s Criminal Code requires criminal liability to be grounded in a voluntary act or a voluntary omission, and the statute identified no parental conduct that could satisfy that requirement.
- The court rejected reliance on “conduct of another” principles because the statute defining the offense still failed to specify any parental act or omission that would make parents accountable.
- A dissent would have sustained the statute on the theory that parental negligence in supervision could be inferred, but the majority refused to supply missing conduct elements.

## Legal Principles

- Criminal liability requires conduct that includes a voluntary act or a voluntary omission to perform an act the defendant is physically capable of performing.
- A statute that purports to punish a person for another’s offense must specify, in advance, the acts or omissions that constitute the person’s own basis for liability; courts may not create those elements by implication.
- Imposing criminal punishment solely on the basis of status (such as parenthood), without defining actionable conduct, violates due process.

## Conclusion

The court invalidated the parents’ convictions because the OHRV statute imposed vicarious criminal responsibility on parents without specifying any voluntary parental act or omission, making punishment turn on parental status alone in violation of due process and the state criminal code’s conduct requirement.


State v. Akers, 400 A.2d 38 (N.H. 1979)