Former Senior LA Prosecutor. Harvard Law School Educated. Although parents are permitted to use physical force in disciplining children, using excessive force is against the law.
To prove that the defendant committed child abuse, a prosecutor must be able to establish the following elements:. A child is as any person under A traumatic physical condition is a wound or other bodily injury, whether minor or serious, caused by the application of physical force. A man feels the need to discipline his disobedient child and so he spanks the child using a paddle.
Spanking even with an object is permissible under the child abuse law and the man would not be prosecuted under California Penal Code Section d PC. However, if the man hit the child excessively until the child passed out and caused massive bruising and swelling, then he could be prosecuted for child abuse. It is not uncommon for allegations of child abuse to arise in child custody disputes, where one or both parents use any means necessary to gain custody of the child, even if they make up false accusations regarding child abuse.
As mentioned above, parents have a right to use reasonable physical force to punish their children. Thus spanking or even striking a child with an object like a paddle or a belt would not necessarily violate the statute, as long as the force used was not excessive. In addition, children notoriously pick up lots of bumps and bruises as they make their way through life.
There may be incidents in which a child is inadvertently struck by a parent by accident. In these cases, the conduct was unintentional and there would be a strong accident defense. If charged as a felony, a defendant can be sentenced to up to six years in prison. If the defendant has a prior child abuse conviction, an additional four years in prison will be added on top of the sentence. This does not apply when 10 years have passed since the defendant served prison time on the prior offense and the defendant has not served any time in jail for any other felony offense in those 10 years.
