Feeding the animals was one of the main chores that Del. Rick Morris’ 11-year-old stepson had to do around the family farm.
But one day in September 2016, the boy failed to feed the goats and turkeys — and then lied to his parents about it.
According to court testimony at a December hearing in Suffolk juvenile court, that lie led Morris to whack the boy on his hands with a wooden kitchen stirring spoon, a red spatula and a folded-over leather belt. The belt apparently caused bruising on the boy’s wrists, leading to a police investigation into that and other allegations of abuse.
Suffolk Juvenile and Domestic Relations Judge Robert S. Brewbaker Jr. barred the media from attending that December hearing, given that “the key witness in these charges is a child.”
The Daily Press, joined by The Virginian-Pilot and Smithfield Times, mounted a legal challenge to the closed hearing. Last week, a Circuit Court judge ordered that the transcript of the hearing be released, and the 230-page document was finally made public on Wednesday.
At the seven-hour December hearing, Morris faced seven felony charges stemming from four separate incidents in 2016. But Brewbaker certified only one of the charges — from the September hand-whacking — to a grand jury.
Yet the judge voiced skepticism about the entire case, making clear he thought the prosecution was overcharging Morris.
Morris was also accused of waking up his stepson and punching him in the stomach in early 2016. The boy couldn’t remember what Morris was angry about but said his stepfather’s punch “knocked the wind out of me … and made me not be able to breathe for a second.”
The boy also testified about an August 2016 incident in which he was doing pushups for punishment and that Morris — apparently mad that the boy left a hose nozzle on the ground — threw the metal nozzle at him, striking him in the back. Then there was another hand-whacking incident.
Four of the seven felony charges were filed under the state’s “child endangerment statute,” in which a custodian “willfully or negligently” causes a child’s “life, health or morals to be endangered” or causes the child to be “overworked, tortured, tormented, mutilated, beaten or cruelly treated.”
Morris was also charged with three counts of felony child abuse, in which a parent or guardian causes or permits serious injury “to the life or health of the child,” including anything that’s “so gross, wanton, and culpable as to show a reckless disregard for human life.”
“Is the commonwealth saying that picking up a hose nozzle and throwing it at a child is so gross, wanton, and culpable as to show a reckless disregard for human life, a Class 6 felony?” Brewbaker asked skeptically.
Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Shukita W. Massey replied: “Your honor, the court hasn’t had an opportunity to actually hold this nozzle.”
Brewbaker: “I have one exactly like it.”
Massey: “OK. Well, your honor. It’s not very light. It’s not like a paper or this water bottle. It has some weight to it. And if it’s thrown at a child who is 11 — and the court had an opportunity to view his stature, view his body frame — if it’s flown at the back of a child who is 11, and it did cause an injury as to that, that was a willful act.”
Brewbaker: “What was the injury? It hit him?”
The judge then pointed out that Katherine Morris, the delegate’s wife and the boy’s mother, testified she didn’t see a back bruise. “That is not sufficient evidence, even for probable cause,” Brewbaker said, in tossing the charge.
Brewbaker said the state child endangerment statute is overly broad, contending that it could be used to prosecute a parent who puts an asthmatic child in the presence of smoke, “giving the child a French fry or any other fried food,” or “taking a child to a Chinese or Mexican restaurant” and the child gets diarrhea.
“I can’t fathom what the limits of that statute are to an aggressive state prosecutor,” Brewbaker said. “I would expect I’ve been guilty of that statue probably 60 times in my parenting.”
In his testimony, the 11-year-old boy described his relationship with Morris as “terrible.” He acknowledged lying to his parents about various things, so as not to get in trouble, and said the incident with the spoon, spatula and belt lasted about 30 minutes — including some time standing in the corner — and that he was hit with the belt “too many (times) to count.”
The boy was one of five children living in the home, from two marriages. At the time of the December hearing, the couple’s three-year-old marriage was breaking up.
Katherine Morris, for her part, testified that she was there when Morris hit her son with the spoon and belt. She said her son had been making a habit of “lying, not being honest,” and “being disrespectful,” about several kinds of issues. She said that she and her son’s father agreed that Rick Morris could discipline the child. She said Morris signed her son up for the Boy Scouts, included him in family events and tried to turn him around.
The couple’s discipline of the children, she said, included having them “write sentences,” do jumping jacks and stand in corners but that the children were spanked or hit on their hands for more serious offenses. Katherine Morris said she “didn’t see eye to eye” with her husband on “the strictness of it” — saying he sometimes was too rough. But, she said, “it wasn’t a matter of me thinking that he was necessarily … abusing anyone.”
One of the couple’s neighbors testified she saw the boy running down the road, hiding behind trees, and that “he was very scared.” She said he showed her the red bruises on each arm and his swollen knuckles. A case worker at Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughters also testified that the boy had “multple bruises on his forearms” after the case was referred “due to concerns of physical abuse.”
A few weeks after the December hearing, prosecutors asked a grand jury to indict Morris not only on that charge but also to resurrect one of the charges that Brewbaker tossed — pertaining to the January 2016 stomach punching. Morris will go to trial Aug. 23 on those two felony child endangerment charges, plus two misdemeanor assault charges from the same incidents.
The court transcriptionist didn’t record the initial request by Morris’ lawyer to bar media from the hearing. Nor did she take down a Daily Press’ lawyer’s argument at the hearing that the hearing should be open. Moreover, during a discussion toward the end of the hearing about Morris’ bond conditions — after he showed up at the home and encountered his stepson — Brewbaker asked that the discussion be “off the record,” not taken down by the court reporter.
Dujardin can be reached by phone at 757-247-4749.
