Ronald Eugene Brown Jr. remains in the state's Moberly Correctional Center, after the appeals court in Kansas City this week rejected his effort to get post-conviction relief.
A Cole County grand jury indicted Brown in 2011 for first-degree endangering the welfare of a child, a Class C felony with a possible punishment of up to seven years in prison.
And in November 2013, Circuit Judge Jon Beetem imposed the maximum sentence, after Brown entered an Alford plea to the charge.
In an Alford plea, the accused doesn't admit guilt, but agrees the state has enough evidence to win a conviction if the case went to trial.
Prosecutors had accused Brown, then 40, of leaving a 2-year-old child in a cold shower for an extended period of time, on March 11, 2011, leading to hypothermia.
He was represented by the state's public defender's office, and entered the Alford plea at a hearing one day short of 18 months after the incident.
The appeals court's eight-page memorandum supporting its order quoted from the trial transcript, where Brown told Beetem, "I did place (the child) in the shower, but it wasn't cold."
That transcript also shows Assistant Prosecutor Steve Kretzer told the judge, "The State's witnesses would testify that it would take at least 30 minutes for a child underneath a cold stream of water to lower their body temperature to approximately 84 degrees, which was her body temperature when she was taken to the hospital.
"The evidence would show that (Brown) was the only person that was responsible for her care that morning and that in placing her in that shower, in that cold shower for that period of time, that led to her hypothermia, which is a risk to, a substantial risk to the life, health and well being of a child who is two years old, which would make him guilty of the offense of endangering the welfare of a child in the first degree."
The case docket - as posted on Case.net, the Missouri court system's online reporting system - shows, at the sentencing hearing on Nov. 26, 2013, Beetem denied Brown's motion to withdraw his plea.
Three weeks after his sentencing, Brown filed his motion for post-conviction relief which, under the Missouri Supreme Court's procedural rules, is treated as a new case. And in Cole County, inmate cases generally are assigned to Judge Dan Green, even if he was not the judge on the original case.
After reviewing Brown's and the prosecutor's written arguments for and against Brown's new motion, Green rejected it without holding a hearing.
His decision, the appeals court noted, "concluded that, despite (Brown's) statement at the plea hearing that he was "confused' because the shower "wasn't cold,' the record as a whole demonstrated that (Brown) understood the nature of the charge against him."
Brown's appeal to the appeals court complained his Alford plea was "involuntary, unknowing and unintelligent" because of "the State's failure to set forth a sufficient factual basis for the offense of child endangerment in the first degree."
But the appeals court cited the transcript from the plea hearing, noting, "The trial court (Beetem) then explained that, because it was an Alford plea, (Brown) may "dispute some of the ... facts.' The trial court went on to ensure that (Brown) understood the Alford plea process and asked (Brown) multiple times if, despite his refusal to admit to all the facts set forth in the factual basis, he still wished to enter the Alford plea.
"(Brown) responded affirmatively. Therefore, although (he) refused to acknowledge that the water was cold, such a statement in the context of an Alford plea does not preclude a finding that he knowingly and voluntarily entered his plea."
Because the appeals court determined "no jurisprudential purpose would be served by a formal, published opinion," the court only issued an order and its memorandum "explaining the reasons for our decision" to the parties and Judge Green.
Because it wasn't a formal opinion, court rules say it cannot be "cited or otherwise used in unrelated cases before this (appeals) court or any other court."