## Facts

- Santos Miranda lived with his sixteen-year-old girlfriend and her two children, including a four-month-old infant, and held himself out as the children’s “stepfather.”
- After the infant was injured, Miranda called 911 claiming the child was choking and brought her to a hospital.
- Physicians found severe, multi-stage injuries, including multiple rib fractures, skull fractures, a brachial plexus injury, a rectal tear, and hemorrhages.
- The trial court found the injuries resulted from ongoing abuse by the child’s mother and that Miranda, having assumed a parental and familial role, recklessly failed to protect the infant from that abuse.

## Issues

1. Whether a non-biological, non-legal parental figure who voluntarily assumes a familial relationship and responsibility for a child’s welfare has a legal duty to protect the child from abuse by a parent, such that omission can constitute “conduct” supporting first-degree assault under Conn. Gen. Stat. § 53a-59(a)(3).

## Decision

- The Connecticut Supreme Court reversed the Appellate Court’s judgment that Miranda had no legal duty to act.
- The Court held that, on these facts, Miranda had a legal duty to protect the child arising from his voluntarily assumed familial relationship and responsibility for the child’s welfare.
- The Court ruled that breach of that duty could support first-degree assault liability under § 53a-59(a)(3) based on reckless omission.
- The case was remanded for consideration of remaining claims, including evidentiary sufficiency challenges to the assault convictions.

## Legal Principles

- Criminal liability may be based on an omission when the defendant has a legal duty to act.
- Under § 53a-59(a)(3), “conduct” can include a reckless failure to act where a legal duty exists and the omission creates a risk of death and results in serious physical injury under circumstances showing extreme indifference to human life.
- A legal duty to protect a child may arise from a voluntarily assumed, functionally parental relationship and responsibility for the child’s care and welfare, even without formal legal parent status.
- The absence of a specific statutory duty, and legislative inaction on unrelated proposed legislation, does not foreclose recognizing a duty grounded in established principles of omission liability and the facts establishing a de facto parental role.
- The duty recognized was fact-dependent, requiring proof of a sustained familial relationship and assumed responsibility, not merely cohabitation.

## Conclusion

The court held that an adult who functioned as a de facto parent and assumed responsibility for an infant’s welfare had a legal duty to protect the child from the mother’s abuse; a reckless failure to do so could satisfy the conduct element of first-degree assault, and the case was remanded for further review of remaining issues.


State v. Miranda, 245 Conn. 209, 715 A.2d 680 (Conn. 1998)