The Massachusetts Appeals Court today upheld a man's conviction for assault and battery with a dangerous weapon for kicking his young daughter in the chest hard enough to send her flying to the floor in a drugstore.

Michael Rosa appealed his six-month jail sentence on the grounds his actions were permitted under a 2015 Supreme Judicial Court decision that allowed parents to use "reasonable force" to discipline their children.

But the appeals court said Rosa's actions on Jan. 17, 2017 in a Northampton CVS went far beyond the criteria set by the SJC. Before explaining its legal reasoning, the court first described the incident:

The surveillance video footage and testimony of the CVS employee demonstrate that the defendant's daughter approached him and grabbed his legs. He shoved her in her chest with his hand, causing her to take a step or two to regain her balance. She then attempted to cling to his lower legs with her arms, and he once again shoved her away, this time causing her to step back two or three steps before falling down onto her buttocks; she immediately got back up. According to the CVS employee's testimony, the daughter reacted to this pushing in a playful manner but showed signs of becoming agitated. The defendant then approached the counter to pay for his coffee. The CVS employee testified that, at this point, the defendant warned his daughter to stay away from him, telling her, "[G]et the fuck away from me. Trust me, you don't want to fucking be near me right now." His daughter came toward him again. In response, the defendant lifted his foot and kicked his daughter in the chest, knocking her to the ground and causing her and her brother to cry briefly. The surveillance video shows that in response to the kick, the daughter stepped back, lost her balance, fell onto her bottom again, and remained there for approximately two seconds. After getting up, the daughter meandered around the area of the cash register as the defendant finished his purchase, at which point she left the store with the defendant and her brother. The CVS employee called the police to report the incident, and two police officers stopped the defendant shortly thereafter. During the stop, Northampton police officer Brent Dzialo separated the defendant from his children and asked him why he had kicked his daughter in the chest. The defendant answered, "I don't raise pussies." ... At the time of the incident, the defendant was approximately five feet, six inches tall, and weighed three hundred pounds. His daughter was approximately three feet tall, and weighed less than fifty pounds.

The court then analyzed Rosa's actions under the three criteria the SJC set for "reasonable" physical discipline, including whether "the force is reasonably related to the purpose of safeguarding or promoting the welfare of the minor, including the prevention or punishment of the minor's misconduct."

At trial, the defendant justified his action on the ground that he was afraid his daughter might be kidnapped or go missing. Prior to the kick, however, the defendant's daughter repeatedly attempted to stay by his side, only to have the defendant shove her away twice and warn her to get "the fuck away from [him]." Indeed, the defendant admitted at trial that, by the time he kicked her, he no longer feared she would be kidnapped and did not even "want her close by." In light of the defendant's admission that his purportedly legitimate parental purpose was a pretext, the judge could reasonably have found that the defendant's decision to kick his daughter was wholly unrelated to the purpose of safeguarding or promoting the welfare of the minor. Moreover, prior to the trial, the defendant provided a different explanation for his conduct, stating that he kicked his daughter because "I don't raise pussies." At trial, he explained: "I mean that, in society today, there's a lot of children being bullied in schools and I'm not going to raise my children to be victims." Certainly, the judge could also reasonably have found that the defendant's shifting rationale for the kick belied his assertion that the kick related to a legitimate purpose of safeguarding or promoting the welfare of the minor. Here, the judge expressly found the defendant not to be credible, instead crediting the testimony of the CVS employee that the defendant kicked the daughter in the chest and finding the defendant's testimony that he merely nudged her not credible.

The court also rejected Rosa's argument that his snow boot, or legally, "shod foot," was not a dangerous weapon, citing previous decisions in which footwear has been held to be a dangerous weapon when used in a physical attack: