Crime of False Report of Child Abuse Includes False Report to School and Child Services Agency Officials,

not just false reports directly to the police.

Wednesday's Pennsylvania Superior Court decision in Commonwealth v. Krankowski (opinion by Judge Alice Beck Dubow, joined by Justices Maria McLaughlin & Daniel McCaffery) upheld a conviction for falsely reporting child abuse. Defendant had sent the principal and vice-principal at her son's high school an email linking to one of her Facebook posts, which alleged that a caseworker at the Snyder County Children and Youth Services Agency "subjected my son to physical and sexual abuse of his person and giggled/laughed about it. Later, Shambaugh was elevated to supervisor at Children and Youth." The recipients were "both mandated reporters, who proceeded to make a report of suspected child abuse to the Agency." Defendant had also made the same accusation in a call to the Agency. Defendant was found guilty, and sentenced "to two years' probation and, as a condition of probation, ordered … to submit to a mental health evaluation and follow all recommendations."

This, the court held, was a criminal false report even though it wasn't made directly to the police. The statute makes it a crime to "intentionally or knowingly make a false report of child abuse under 23 Pa.C.S. Ch. 63 (relating to child protective services)," and the court reasoned:

Since the purpose of the [child protective services law] is to encourage more complete reporting of child abuse and Section 6312 includes both a person making a report and a person causing a report of child abuse "to be made," we are guided by legislative intent to embrace a common-sense interpretation of the word "report" in 18 Pa.C.S. § 4906.1…. [W]e hold that the term "report" in Section 4906.1 of the Crimes Code includes 1) making a disclosure to a mandated reporter, who is required by law to make a Childline Report and 2) making a disclosure directly to a child protective services agency employee and consequently prompting an investigation….

[O]nce an individual "gets the ball rolling" by disclosing false allegations of child abuse to a mandated reporter, the mandated reporter is required to make a Childline report, and the child protective services agency is required to investigate the allegation. Thus, the reporting of false allegations of child abuse to any mandated reporter [or child protective services agency employee] has the same effect as making a direct disclosure to Childline or law enforcement…. To hold otherwise would mean that an individual could contact a mandated reporter or a child protective services agency, make false allegations of child abuse which trigger an investigation, and suffer no consequence. This is an absurd and unreasonable result.

Mathew R. Cravitz represents the government in this case.

 

Comments

[John F. Carr]

I remember a Florida case involving criminal liability for a social media post because it was foreseeable in hindsight that the contents of the post would be brought to the attention of police.

[Rossami]

I'm not sure about the court's reasoning on this one. On the one hand, yes, prohibiting false reports to police but not to the mandated reporters who must tell the police creates a scenario where a false reporter could intentionally game the systems and trigger all the harms of a false report with no consequences. On the other hand, telling a random neighbor the same things generates no liability - and shouldn't. So is the person on proper notice of who is and is not a mandatory reporter? I would argue that you can't be on such proper notice. And that would make this extended interpretation of a "report" too vague to be enforceable.

Sue the "false reporter" for defamation if they say wrong things to the non-police but the criminal penalties of a false report should be reserved for very clear cases. Either a direct report to the police or situations where the government can show that the false reporter knew that the person they told was a mandatory reporter and that they intended to trigger the false criminal investigation.

[David Nieporent]

I would argue that you can’t be on such proper notice.

Why would you argue that? Mandatory reporter is a defined term in law.

[Rossami]

First, not necessarily. As a Scout leader, I am a mandatory reporter by contract (a condition of my agreement to be a volunteer), not by law in my state. Second and more importantly, the fact that mandatory reporters are defined in the law does not guarantee that you know every specific individual in those roles.

Sure, it's easy when the law says "teachers" and you're at a parent-teacher conference. But the teacher is still a mandatory reporter when you're pouring your heart out to some stranger in a bar. Mandatory reporters (other than police and some medical folks) don't wear uniforms and certainly don't have "mandatory reporter" tattooed on their foreheads.

[David Nieporent]

First, yes necessarily. It's 23 Pa.C.S. Ch. 6311(a). I guess it's possible — though I find it extraordinarily unlikely — that you live in a state where there's no statutory definition. But if you do, then you don't live in Pennsylvania, so this decision wouldn't apply to you, so I'm not sure why it would matter.

(You will notice that Scout leader is included within that statutory definition in Pennsylvania — it's (a)(7) — but that "someone who contractually agreed to report" is not.)

First and second, your argument is silly. Of course there's a mens rea requirement. If you are talking to a random stranger and don't know this person's job, then you are not "knowingly and willfully" causing a false report to be made just because the person later turns out to have been a teacher, scout leader, or police officer. (That having been said, I don't have a lot of sympathy for someone making false allegations of child abuse to a stranger in a bar.)

[not guilty]

Will those who defend Donald Trump's right to make shit up claim that Ms. Krankowski should not have been prosecuted for merely exercising her First Amendment rights?