## Facts

- Jennie Bain Ducker drove with her two sons (23 months and 12 months old) to a hotel in McMinnville, Tennessee, around 3:45 a.m.
- She fastened both children into car seats, closed the windows, locked the doors, and left them alone in the car while she went to her boyfriend’s hotel room.
- In the room, she socialized, drank wine, and later fell asleep; expert testimony supported a high blood alcohol level that morning.
- Although she claimed she checked on the children multiple times, she did not tell others the children were in the car.
- Around noon to 1:00 p.m., she returned to the vehicle and found both children unresponsive, drove them to a hospital, and they were pronounced dead at about 1:20 p.m.
- Medical proof showed death by systemic hyperthermia; evidence supported that the car’s interior temperature exceeded 120 degrees by around noon and that the children died between about 6:00 a.m. and noon.
- The defense presented proof of bipolar disorder and a severe sleep disorder, arguing these conditions affected her awareness and judgment.

## Issues

1. Whether aggravated child abuse is a lesser-included offense of first-degree murder for the reckless killing of a child.
2. Whether the “knowing” mens rea in aggravated child abuse applies to the defendant’s conduct or the result (serious bodily injury/death).
3. Whether the evidence was sufficient to support convictions for aggravated child abuse.
4. Whether Class A felony convictions were valid when the jury was not specifically instructed on the statutory age element (victims six years old or younger).

## Decision

- The Tennessee Supreme Court affirmed the convictions and sentences.
- Aggravated child abuse qualified as a lesser-included offense of the charged first-degree murder offenses.
- The “knowing” mens rea for aggravated child abuse applied to the defendant’s conduct, not to knowledge of the resulting serious bodily injury or death.
- The evidence permitted a rational jury to find beyond a reasonable doubt that Ducker knowingly engaged in the conduct constituting aggravated child abuse.
- The failure to instruct the jury on the age element was harmless because the victims’ ages were conclusively established and undisputed, supporting Class A felony grading.

## Legal Principles

- A defendant may be convicted of a lesser-included offense when its elements are necessarily included within the charged greater offense under Tennessee’s lesser-included offense framework.
- For aggravated child abuse, “knowing” can be construed to require awareness of the nature of the conduct (e.g., leaving very young children unattended in a locked vehicle for an extended period), without requiring awareness that serious bodily injury or death will occur.
- Sufficiency review asks whether, viewing the proof in the light most favorable to the State, any rational trier of fact could find the elements beyond a reasonable doubt.
- Omission of a jury instruction on an offense-grading element may be harmless beyond a reasonable doubt when the missing element is conclusively proven and not contested at trial.

## Conclusion

The court upheld Ducker’s aggravated child abuse convictions, holding that the statute’s “knowing” mens rea concerns awareness of the abusive or neglectful conduct rather than the resulting injury, and that the lack of an explicit jury instruction on the victims’ ages did not invalidate Class A felony convictions where the children’s ages were undisputed and plainly established by the evidence.


State v. Ducker, 27 S.W.3d 889 (Tenn. 2000)