OPINION
Dеfendant appeals from the district court’s judgment and sentence, entered pursuant to a bench trial, convicting him of one count of negligent child abuse by endangerment not resulting in death or great bodily harm and one count of possession of drug paraphernalia. On appeal, Defendant argues that the State failed to present evidence of the type of substantial and foreseeable risk of harm necessary to suppоrt his conviction for negligent child abuse by endangerment. We are persuaded that sufficient evidence supports Defendant’s conviction. We therefore affirm.
BACKGROUND
The State presented the following evidence. Upon information from an anonymous tip that illegal drug use was occurring at the residence, the probation officer assigned to Defendant’s wife (Ms. Schaaf) wentto Defendant’s and Ms. Schaaf’s home for a field visit. The probation officer, Ms. Lee, believed that firearms might be present in the home due to Defendant’s job as a security guard, despite Defendant’s agreement to secure his firearms in a location outside of the residence. As a result, Ms. Lee asked for law enforcement assistance and was accompanied to Defendant’s home by a uniformed officer, a detective, and another probation officer. They arrived at Defendant’s home аt around 2:30 in the afternoon on a school day, soon before the children were getting out of school. At the time, there were four children living in the home with Defendant and Ms. Schaaf: a fifteen-year-old boy, who was Defendant’s stepson and Ms. Schaafs biological son, and five-year-old triplets from Defendant’s and Ms. Schaafs marriage.
Upon their arrival, the officers noticed that two cars were parked outside, a front window was open, аnd the television was on. They knocked on the doors several times, announced their presence, identified themselves, and yelled through the open window. It took Ms. Schaaf around five minutes to answer their calls and come to the door, a delay that was of concern to the officers. Ms. Schaaf came to the door wearing only pants and a bra, and she appeared dirty, with greasy hair, dark circles under her eyes, pale skin, аnd chapped lips. She claimed to have just gotten out of the shower. Soon after, Defendant came out from the master bedroom, looking similarly dirty and disheveled, and a glass pipe fell from his shorts onto the floor. The officers then conducted a search of Defendant’s body and found two more glass /pipes in his waistband. The officers identified them as pipes used for smoking methamphetamine. Defendant admitted that he and Ms. Schaaf had bеen using methamphetamine for three days and had not slept.
When the police and probation officers entered the home, they smelled smoke and an overwhelmingly strong chemical odor that made it hard to breathe and made one probation officer’s eyes water. They found a filthy house with three cats running around, cat urine and feces everywhere, and the entire house was littered with trash, rotten food, dirty dishes, and piles of dirty clothes. In the living room on a table by the front door, the officers found a plastic baggie containing thirteen pills, which Defendant stated were antibiotics obtained from Mexico. The children’s rooms and bathroom were in the same condition as the rest of the house: the beds had been urinated on; there was not adequate bedding; and there were toys, dirty clothes, rotten food, dried food embedded in the carpet, and cat feces all over.
Dеfendant was asked where his firearm was located, and he responded that there were four in the master bedroom. The officers entered the master bedroom and found an open gun box on the floor containing two loaded firearms, plus spare ammunition and magazines. There were dirty dishes on the bed, many open and used needle syringes on the bed, food, trash, cat feces, lighters, and dirty clothes all over the floor, and pornographic DVDs strewn about the room. Ms. Lee testified that one could hardly walk in the bedroom. Defendant told the officers that there were two more firearms in the master bedroom in a lockbox on the other side of the bed. There were toy gun replicas in the master bedroom and at least one in the triplets’ room. The triplets played with the toy guns with and without permission or supervision. At least one of the toy guns was a Glock replica indistinguishable from reаl guns in the house in its appearance, weight, and feel.
The master bedroom also had a sliding glass door out to the backyard, which was the only entrance to the backyard from the residence. The backyard was an enclosed space with children’s toys, lighters, a small propane torch, and undescribed drug paraphernalia.
In apolice interview, Defendant admitted to smoking methamphetamine while the children were at home, bоth in the master bedroom and in common areas, including the living room and backyard. The residence had three bedrooms and two bathrooms and was estimated to be about 1,400 square feet. One of the officers testified that second-hand methamphetamine smoke is heavier than cigarette smoke, travels without dissipating, and leaves a residue that sticks to things and can be touched and absorbed into the body. The eldest son, a teenager, testifiеd that one or two days before the police arrived at their house, Ms. Schaaf showed him a glass pipe that was underneath the blankets of the master bed and that he walked away, not knowing what to do. In the police interview, Defendant admitted that smoking methamphetamine in the residence created a risk that the children could have absorbed methamphetamine and could have tested positive for it. He also admitted that the condition of his house was not safe or sanitary for the children and that they could have been killed or injured.
DISCUSSION
Substantial and Foreseeable Risk of Harm
To provide context for Defendant’s arguments, we first review our jurisprudence construing the child endangerment statute at issue. The Legislature has defined child abuse, in pertinent part, as “knowingly, intentionally or negligently, and without justifiable cause, causing or permitting a child to be[] . . . placed in a situation that may endanger the child’s life or health.” NMSA 1978, § 30-6-1 (D)(1) (2009). Our Supremе Court has observed that “[tjaken literally, our endangerment statute could be read broadly to permit prosecution for any conduct, however remote the risk, that may endanger [a] child’s life or health.” State v. Chavez,
In Chavez, our Supreme Court set forth factors for the courts to consider in determining “whether the risk created by an accused’s conduct is substantial and foreseeable.” Id. ¶ 23. One factor is the gravity of the risk, which “serves to place an individual on notice that his conduct is perilous, and potentially criminal.” Id. A second factor is whether the defendant’s conduct violates a separate criminal statute, which bolsters the endangerment charge, see id. ¶ 31, because “the Legislature has defined the act as a threat to public health, safety, and welfare.” Id. ¶ 25; see State v. Gonzales,
Defendant’s Arguments
D efendant contends that the State did not present any evidence that any of the four children were actually endangered by the drugs, guns, or other conditions of the house while they were present in the home. Defendant points out that the State presented no expert or scientific testimony as required hy Chavez and that the State relied solely on the observations and opinions of two probation officers and a detective. Defendant emphasizes that the children tested negative for methamphetamine and that the State failed to have anything in the house tested and failed to conduct any investigation beyond their observations of the residence at a time when the children were not home.
Standard of Review
When reviewing a sufficiency of the evidеnce claim, we conduct a two-part test. First, “we must view the evidence in the light most favorable to the guilty verdict, indulging all reasonable inferences and resolving all conflicts in the evidence in favor of the verdict.” State v. Cunningham,
Analysis
We agree with Defendant that the State did not conduct a thorough investigation into the possible effects the household environment may have had on the children or the length of time the household was in that state, and it did not test anything in the house. Thus, the State did not present the clearest case of child endangerment that it could have presented. We are persuaded, however, that the dangerousness of certain conditions in the household were apparent and did not require the type of scientific or empirical testimony that was required in Chavez to connect the household conditions to the risk of harm they posed to the children. See
We agree with Defendant that the problem we face in this case is whether the evidence sufficiently proved that the children were actually exposed to the dangerous conditions in the home, similar to the concerns our Supreme Court addressed in State v. Trossman,
In Trossman, our Supreme Court held that there was insufficient evidence of child endangerment because the state failed to prove the actual presence of the child in the home during the time in question under conditions that could have endangered his life or health.
In contrast, in the current case, it was not disputed that the children consistently lived at the house, that they were there the night and morning before the officers arrived, and that they were coming home soon after the officers’ visit to the home. The evidence suggested that amidst Defendant’s and Ms. Schaafs extended methamphetamine use, Defendant took the eldest boy to school for early practice before the triplets left and that either Defendаnt or Ms. Schaaf took the triplets to the bus stop that morning for school. As a result, there was sufficient circumstantial evidence to infer that the children’s living conditions constituted a prolonged zone of imminent danger, and it was reasonable for the fact finder to conclude that the children were in contact with these hazardous conditions.
Relevant to the State’s showing of a prolonged zone of danger, there was evidence that another person using methamphetamine at the house left behind the syringes, and the officers found them open on the bed a day after they had been used. Also, in his statement to police about the firearms, Defendant made a distinction between the secured and unsecured firearms in the master bedroom. Defendant stated that two guns were kept in the lockbox that was locked almost all the time except when he was going out somewhere and needed them. He stated that the other two firearms were for home security purposes because they had experienced some problems, suggesting that those loaded firearms were unsecured regularly, as they were when the officers were present. There was testimony that it was common for all the children to go through the master bedroom to go play outside because it was the only way to access the backyard. Also, a рrobation officer testified that the extent to which the home appeared to be “unlivable” suggested that this condition of the home was ongoing. See Chavez,
We also consider the supervision of the children under these conditions. See Chavez,
In sum, drawing from the combination of serious risks apparent in the children’s living environment, we hold that the State provided sufficient evidence to prove that the children were exposed to an ongoing and pervasive zone of imminent danger in such a manner that, with Defendant’s and Ms. Schaaf’s compromised state, the risk of harm to the children was so grave and probable that it constituted criminal child endangerment.
CONCLUSION
For these reasons, we affirm Defendant’s conviction.
IT IS SO ORDERED.