## Facts

- Sandra J. Nations owned and operated the “Main Street Disco.”
- Police entered the club and observed a scantily clad sixteen-year-old dancing on stage for tips.
- Officers watched the girl for several minutes and believed she appeared young.
- Nations told officers the girl was of legal age and that Nations had checked the girl’s identification when she was hired.
- The girl first told police she was eighteen, then admitted she was sixteen, and she had no identification with her.
- At trial, the girl testified Nations asked for identification and the girl said she would show it “in a minute,” but police intervened before she did.
- The charged conduct was endangering the welfare of a child under Mo. Rev. Stat. § 568.050 (1978), which requires that the defendant “knowingly” encourage, aid, or cause a child under seventeen to engage in conduct tending to injure the child’s welfare.
- Nations did not properly preserve her sufficiency claim; the appellate court reviewed for plain error to prevent manifest injustice from submission on insufficient evidence.

## Issues

1. Whether § 568.050 required the State to prove Nations knew the performer was less than seventeen years old.
2. Whether the evidence permitted a finding beyond a reasonable doubt that Nations had actual awareness of the performer’s being under seventeen, as required for acting “knowingly” under Missouri’s statutory definition.
3. Whether submitting the case to the factfinder on this record constituted plain error.

## Decision

- The court reversed the conviction.
- Knowledge that the child was under seventeen was a material element the State had to prove.
- Missouri’s definition of “knowingly” required actual awareness of the attendant circumstance (the child’s age), not mere suspicion or deliberate failure to confirm.
- The evidence showed, at most, that Nations did not know or refused to learn the girl’s age, which amounted to recklessness rather than knowledge.
- Because proof of the required mental state was insufficient, submission of the case resulted in manifest injustice warranting plain-error relief.

## Legal Principles

- When an offense requires that a defendant act “knowingly” regarding an attendant circumstance, the State must prove the defendant’s actual awareness that the circumstance existed, consistent with the statutory definition of knowledge.
- If a statute makes the victim’s being under a specified age part of the described circumstance, knowledge of that age status is an element unless the legislature clearly provides otherwise.
- Suspicion, awareness of risk, or failure to investigate may establish recklessness, but does not satisfy a statutory requirement of knowledge absent legislative adoption of a willful-blindness or “high probability” standard.
- An unpreserved sufficiency challenge may be reviewed for plain error when submitting the case on legally insufficient evidence would cause manifest injustice.

## Conclusion

The court reversed Nations’s conviction because the child-endangerment statute required proof that Nations actually knew the dancer was under seventeen, and the State’s evidence showed only nonverification and possible suspicion, which could support recklessness but not the statutorily required knowledge.


State v. Nations, 676 S.W.2d 282 (Mo. Ct. App. 1984)