WOODLAND — Frank Rees may be an uninvolved, uninterested father, as his own attorney argued in court papers seeking to absolve him of criminal charges stemming from his infant son’s death more than two years ago.
But despite that hands-off approach, Rees should have known he was sending his baby into harm’s way when he left 19-day-old Justice Rees in the care of his methamphetamine-addled fiancée, a Yolo Superior Court judge said Thursday in upholding involuntary manslaughter and child endangerment charges against the Woodland man.
“Though the precise consequence could not be foreseen, the court is of the view that it was reasonably foreseeable that there would be harm to this child,” Judge Paul K. Richardson said in a lengthy ruling that summarized evidence presented during Rees’ three-day preliminary hearing last month.
It included testimony regarding Rees’ reported three-day methamphetamine binge with fiancée Samantha Green, Justice’s mother, in spite of a Yolo County social worker’s order that the couple seek drug treatment in order to maintain custody of their child.
Instead, the couple’s meth abuse continued, with Rees allegedly “compromising” Green by administering her with a large rectal dose of the drug hours before she walked with the baby into a frigid Knights Landing slough on Feb. 23, 2015.
“An ordinarily careful person would not have acted in this way,” Richardson said. “You have to live with the fact that there may be harm to the child, and there may be foreseeable consequences for which you will face liability.”
A jury convicted Green of second-degree murder last fall. The Yolo County District Attorney’s Office charged Rees, 31, several months later, citing evidence that emerged during the trial.
Richardson also ruled that sufficient evidence exists for Rees to stand trial on three other counts — administering methamphetamine to Green and another woman, Monica Coombs, and an eavesdropping charge for allegedly filming a distraught Green in his garage shortly before Justice’s death.
Rees’ defense attorney, Rod Beede, conceded that his client gave methamphetamine to Green but challenged the remaining charges — particularly involuntary manslaughter, which he argued does not apply to Rees’ admittedly less-than-stellar conduct.
Beede noted it was Green who willingly used meth while maintaining sole care of the baby. Suspicious that Rees and Coombs were having an affair in Knights Landing, Green made the “conscious decision” to drive there and swim with Justice across the slough, where the infant died of exposure the following morning.
With the drug use occurring many hours earlier, “to assert that there could have been any anticipation that Samantha Green would kill this child is simply too remote in time,” Beede said.
Prosecuting attorney Rob Gorman, meanwhile, replied that it’s negligence, and not intent, that forms the premise of the involuntary manslaughter charge.
“We’re not implying that Mr. Rees intended the outcome,” Gorman said. “But he put in motion a series of events that resulted in the death of his child.”
Rees, who remains in Yolo County Jail custody on a $500,000 bail hold, is due back in court July 20 for arraignment and setting of a trial date.
— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8048. Follow her on Twitter at @laurenkeene
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