David, J.
The Indiana Code requires certain school officials to immediately report instances of suspected child abuse occurring within their institutions to the Department of Child Services or law enforcement. Here, a high school principal was convicted for failing to comply with this requirement after a student at his school told him she had been raped by a fellow student, and he did not notify the police or the Department of Child Services for four hours. We affirm.
. . . .
Therefore, in order for the State to successfully convict Smith of the class B misdemeanor offense of failure to report child abuse or neglect, it was required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Smith:
(1) had reason to believe;
(2) that G.G. was a victim of child abuse or neglect as
(a) a victim of rape
(b) who needed care, treatment, or rehabilitation that she was not receiving and that was unlikely to be provided or accepted without the coercive intervention of the court; and
(3) Smith knowingly;
(4) failed to immediately make a report to
(a) DCS or
(b) a local law enforcement agency.
. . . .
Because Smith’s claim hinges upon how ordinary people understand statutory language, we will also look to ordinary dictionaries for assistance. And those dictionaries tell us that “immediately” means without any intermediate intervention or appreciable delay. [Footnote omitted.] In other words, when considered within the context of Indiana’s reporting statutes, the use of the word “immediately” in Indiana Code § 31-33-5-4 conveys a required strong sense of urgency in action and primacy of purpose in fulfilling the duty to report. . . . .
. . . .
Under the facts of this case, no reasonable person of ordinary intelligence would have difficulty determining whether or not Smith acted with a sense of urgency or primacy of purpose when his report came after a four-hour delay that included doing intermediary tasks such as conducting a personal interrogation of the alleged rapist, ordering the search of the involved students’ lockers for evidence corroborating the alleged rapist’s defense, declining to contact the police when asked (even though there were multiple officers in the building), and—most notably—conducting two hours’ worth of unrelated and purely administrative job interviews. Nor do we think this case indicates that the statute was arbitrarily enforced by the police when the perpetrator of a sex crime was allowed to remain in the general student population and eventually returned home, and the scene of the assault was unsecured and left open for other students to use—all things resulting directly from the delay, which threatened to contaminate (or destroy) evidence of the crime, and all things which were imminently avoidable by the more prompt involvement of law enforcement. We therefore reject Smith’s claim that Indiana Code § 31-33-5-4 is unconstitutionally vague as it was applied to him.
. . . .
Clearly Smith, Sloan, Samuels, Jarvis, McCowan and McCord were all wrong in their belief that G.G.’s allegation of rape by another minor could not constitute child abuse—likewise, the training pamphlet available at the school was incorrect. [Footnote omitted.] As the statutory scheme we outlined above makes clear, rape is one of the predicate sex crimes that supports a CHINS determination and therefore, in turn, would constitute an instance of child abuse. See Ind. Code §§ 31-9-2-133(a), 31-34-1-3(a), 35-42-4-1(a). And the crime of rape has no limitation or qualification with respect to the ages of either the victim or the perpetrator. See Ind. Code § 35-42-4-1. A sixteen-year-old perpetrator commits the same crime as a forty-year-old perpetrator, so the minor victim of the sixteen-year-old would be a victim of child abuse just the same as the victim of the forty-year-old. Smith does not contest his mistake of law.
The real issue in his claim is whether (or how) his error—shared as it was by the training pamphlet and his peers—impacts his culpability for the offense. Does the required “reason to believe” refer to the defendant’s awareness that the committed conduct satisfies the statutory definition of child abuse? Or does the phrase refer to the defendant’s “reason to believe” that the conduct alleged actually occurred as a factual matter?
The State argues for the latter perspective. Because rape, as a matter of law, is a predicate offense to child abuse with no age qualification, the State interprets the statutory reporting scheme to mean that “Smith had a duty to immediately report that G.G. may be a rape victim when he knew information which would cause ‘individuals of similar background and training . . . to believe that’ G.G. had been raped.” (Appellee’s Br. at 11–12.)
. . . .
On one hand, Smith’s claim has merit in that a person would only “knowingly” fail to report child abuse or neglect when they actually knew that the conduct constituted child abuse or neglect under the statutory scheme. And the State’s position would then criminalize ignorance – that is, if a defendant in good faith did not know that the conduct complained of constituted child abuse or neglect (perhaps a question of negligent behavior on the part of the defendant), they would be subjected to criminal liability. In some cases, Smith’s position might be proper. [Footnote omitted.]
In light of the purpose of the reporting statutes, however, we think the State’s view is correct. As we mentioned above, the General Assembly has expressly charged particular individuals—like Smith—with a significant responsibility: to serve as the first responders to incidents of child abuse and neglect, and to act swiftly to ensure the child is protected from further harm. In furtherance of this responsibility, it has imposed a particular duty, with particular consequences for failure in that duty. Smith does not challenge the existence or propriety of that duty—only whether he can be punished for not knowing its scope.
But if Smith’s mistaken interpretation of the law were a defense to his criminal liability, it would remove all incentives from any such professionals to understand the scope of that statutory duty. And it would, in effect, vitiate the duty entirely. . . . .
Massa and Rush, JJ., concur.
Rucker, J., dissents with separate opinion in which Dickson, C.J., concurs:
The charged offense requires reference to no fewer than five separate statutory provisions contained in two different titles and four different articles of the Indiana Code. [Footnote omitted.] To begin, Smith was prosecuted pursuant to Indiana Code section 31-33-22-1(a) which provides: “A person who knowingly fails to make a report required by IC 31-33-5-1 [Chapter 5] commits a Class B misdemeanor.” In turn Chapter 5 (entitled “Duty to Report Child Abuse or Neglect”) includes Section 1 entitled “Duty to make report” which provides in relevant part: “[A]n individual who has reason to believe that a child is a victim of child abuse or neglect shall make a report as required by this article.” I.C. § 31-33-5-1. This section does not include a definition of “child abuse or neglect” or tell us the meaning of “reason to believe,” but in a different article (Article 9, entitled “Definitions”) contained within Title 31 we pick up the trail: “‘Child abuse or neglect’, for purposes of IC 31-32-11-1, IC 31-33, IC 31-34-7-4, and IC 31-39-8-4, refers to a child who is alleged to be a child in need of services as described in IC 31-34-1-1 through IC 31-34-1-5. . . .” I.C. § 31-9-2-14. Next, “‘[r]eason to believe’, for purposes of IC 31-33, means evidence that, if presented to individuals of similar background and training, would cause the individuals to believe that a child was abused or neglected.” I.C. § 31-9-2-101. For further elucidation on the definition of “child abuse or neglect” we are referred to Article 34 in the same title, entitled “Juvenile Law: Children in Need of Services.” Within that article we find Chapter 1 (“Circumstances Under Which a Child Is a Child in Need of Services”) and therein find Section 3 (“Victim of sex offense; living in household with victim of sex offense”). [Footnote omitted.]
And finally, when we examine Title 35 (“Criminal Law and Procedure”), Article 42 (“Offenses Against the Person”) we find in Chapter 4 (“Sex Crimes”), Section 1 (“Rape”) the following relevant language: “[A] person who knowingly or intentionally has sexual intercourse with a member of the opposite sex when . . . the other person is compelled by force or imminent threat of force . . . commits rape, a Class B felony.” I.C. § 35-42-4-1.
After painstakingly parsing the multiple statutes involved, the majority concludes that the “reason to believe” language in section 31-33-5-1 refers only to the existence of the underlying facts and not to whether those facts constitute child abuse. The latter question, the majority contends, is clearly answered by dissecting the numerous statutory provisions cross-referenced from section 31-33-5-1. Thus, the majority confines the question to whether “Smith had reason to believe G.G. was a victim of rape.” Slip op. at 17. I disagree. In my view the real question is whether “the evidence was sufficient to show that Smith had reason to believe G.G. was the victim of child abuse by virtue of her rape allegation.” Slip op. at 23. And though the majority views this as a typical sufficiency question—viewing the evidence and all reasonable inferences drawn from it in the light most favorable to the conviction—I believe it involves a matter of statutory interpretation, which we review de novo. See N.L. v. State, 989 N.E.2d 773, 777 (Ind. 2013).
The statutes at issue are ambiguous, confusing, complex, and interwoven. Under the rule of lenity we construe criminal statutes strictly against the state and resolve ambiguities in favor of the accused. . . . Here, the evidence at trial demonstrated: (1) all witnesses with “similar background and training” to that of Smith did not think the rape of a minor student by another minor student constituted “child abuse”; (2) the DCS itself did not interpret the report of this event to be child abuse; and (3) a “Child Abuse Prevention & Reporting” pamphlet funded by the local DCS and revised with input of the very prosecutor’s office prosecuting this case instructs that child abuse can include “[s]exual abuse” which it defines as “[a]ny sexual act between an adult and child.” Defendant’s Ex. A at 5. This evidence compels me to conclude that as applied to this case the critical inquiry is whether Smith knew or should have known that rape of a minor student by another minor student constituted “child abuse.” In my view the evidence is clear. He did not.