Here’s the story of a very NOT lovely lady:
A woman goes to a video poker house in the early summer of 1998 (in South Carolina). She leaves her infant daughter strapped in her car seat in a CLOSED CAR!!! The child dies within two hours of dehydration. The woman, who’s afraid her husband will get upset with FOR PLAYING VIDEO POKER, leaves the establishment. SHE HASN’T NOTICED her child is dead!!! In fact, she doesn’t notice that the child is not breathing unitl 11:00 that night!!!
She takes the child to the hospital, but it’s way too late. She is arrested for involuntary manslaughter and is jailed. Today, after entering a guilty plea, she is sentenced to TIME SERVED and 5 YEARS PROBATION!!! In a picture in the local paper, she and a friend can be seen SMILING and LAUGHING after leaving the courtroom.
WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE???
Sorry for the screaming caps, but I just cannot fathom this whole thing! Anybody else out there come across such a travesty?
I haven’t seen anything this insane since the woman (also in South Carolina) drown her two children because her supposed boyfriend once mentioned he didn’t like kids.
If you were the judge, what would YOUR sentence for this woman be??
Hmmmm. Wind her up tight with barbed wire, pour sugar on her and let loose the fire ants.
It’s amazing that some people spend more time in prison for things like marijuana or paraphernalia possession than murdering a child. Or murdering anyone for that matter.
Unbelievable…yet, so believable. People in general are stupid, selfish, thoughtless, ignorant, foolish, and generally not worth the space they take up.
The knee jerk reaction is to ask for the death penalty. I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it, but it’s definately stupidity here and not malice. The Susan Smith thing where she tried to commit suiside by driving her car into a lake with her two kids strapped in with her, but chickened out and dove from the car leaving her kids to drown, and then covering up was worthy of capital punishment. This however, had no premeditation or intent, just stupidity. I’m not up for excusing stupidity, but what does it serve to punish this women severely? She has been dealt the worst punishment humanly possible by losing a child to her own hand. The fact she is seen laughing after the trial speaks volumes on her ability to care, but it still isn’t a capital crime.
My sentiment is death to anyone who intentionally kills a child. I don’t care if they were mentally insane at the time, only meant to injure the child, or what. If you cause a death intentionally then you will die. If your negelect or stupidity cause it, then I’m not so sure. Time served may be to lienient, but a life sentance just costs the taxpayer more money serving no purpose. Assuming there is no threat of a repeat performance, lock up does no good.
You want injustice, how about all the idiots out there driving around with several kids standing and moving around the back and front seats of cars not strapped in at all. The worst punishment they recieve in a non-moving traffic ticket, and usually can get it thrown out as long as they install a child seat before trial.
Children die all the time because of stupid adults, and people who generally have no right even having kids (15 year olds come to mind). Punishing them all severely is unrealistic, its just a fact of life that may not necessarily need to be legislated against. You can’t stop stupidity, you can only hope to contain it.
Similar case involved a well-known businessman and his wife from here. They were on a business trip (was it in Delaware?)
Each thought the other had their infant son. Husband went to a meeting; wife went shopping. Baby was left in hot car and died. The couple never spent a day in jail as far as I know. Were tried and found innocent of any wrongdoing. Caused big outrage both here and where it happened. I had mixed feelings about the whole thing. On one hand, it seemed to be an honest mistake and the couple grieved terribly over it. How much more punishment would you levy on the anguished mother and father? On the other hand, it did seem rather negligent. How would the jury have treated the couple differently if they had been in a crack house during the child’s death? I seem to recall another case in which the mother(a poor woman) left a baby in a hot car while she was drinking with several men. She got zero sympathy. The aforementioned couple (rich folks) still thrive here. The town is divided in opinion about them. Of course it’s all very tragic and horrible, but which is the worse injustice? The unpunished killing or the inequity of treatment? I dunno.
The death penalty has never been shown to be an effective deterrent to murder (and even death penalty advocates will admit to that), but as usual, I’m not surprised that you don’t know what you’re talking about.
Of course, you said “detriment,” so who knows what the hell you meant?
There’s a thread to make a new mom sob hysterically! I don’t understand how anyone could intentionally OR unintentionally leave their infant in a car for any length of time unattended. Even in my sleep-deprived state I always know where my baby boy is…and his life is more dear to me than my own. The desire to take care of one’s infant seems instinctive to me. The love part comes later I think. I didn’t feel a huge rush of “mommy love” the first day with my son, but I was sure to respond to his needs. By the time we left the hospital, I was head over heels for him. I think these people never really bonded with their infants somehow…
I hesitate to take my new infant son anywhere unnecessary in this sort of weather (heat index of 105 in shade here in NE today) even with the air conditioned car.
These are usually the same idiots that leave pets in closed cars, too.
PR
If you’re not part of the solution you’re just scumming up the bottom of the beaker.
Prarierose-dont read this!!!**
I am not at all surprised or even ourtraged.
Here in new brunswick in the last 10 or so years, an army couple beat, tortured and starved their 3 year old for his whole life, he was kept tied to his bed, and gagged with a sock.I think they got 8 years. Then there was the couple who left the dead body of their 3 or 4 yr old in her crib and let the family chinchilla chew on her little hands…she died of dehydration…when she stopped crying, they didnt bother to check on her till the next day, or the next, they got a couple years, and they plan on getting custody of the other 2 kids, and want to have another baby as soon as they are released, oh yeah, welfare bums/drug addicts.
And then just lately this HUGE man took his 3 month old girl, squeezed her until he broke her ribs and shook her brain loose, then threw her,(she died of course) 2 seperate trials have been hung…and despite court orders, he continues to see his wife and little boy. Neighboors call the police, they can hear him screaming at the child…its is doubtful that he will ever be convicted.New Brunswick is a great place to live if you kill children.
At least these people ( the car incidents) didnt mean to do it…but at the same time, death like that is probably more horrendous than we can imagine, they are concious as they are cooked alive, there is horrible pain and fear as they scream over and over, and noone comes, they will claw at their faces and pull out their own hair in panic and distress and they die alone.
Maybe sterilization is a more suitable punishment than jail.
Stoidela, YES!!! I find myself agreeing with you on more and more as I read your posts. Right now, reproduction is a right. Maybe it should be viewed as a privalege (sp?) since it involves directing the course of human history in the form of our children. Tough issue.
For the most part, it would be impossible to prove that the death penalty is OR is not a deterrent. You can’t set up a control group as you don’t know specifically which people will murder. Yes, I was being disingenuous (and a bit stupid to boot) but the only group that you can prove that it is a deterrent for is executed murderers. And you can’t prove that it is not a deterrent.
Sure you can. You can take a look at the murder rates in the states with death penalties and those without, factor in the average length of time between conviction and execution, method of execution, variables for population, demographics and urbanization, etc., and look for a statistical correlation. And it’s been done before.
Even most death penalty advocates have given up arguing the deterrent effect; it simply doesn’t exist. Instead they argue the retribution function.
Yes, and life in prison without parole would be the same deterrent, without the state punishing a person by doing to them the exact same thing that they did wrong in the first place.
Just to clear this up- I am NOT an advocate of the way the death penalty is instituted in this country. I can’t remember the last time a person with an income over $50,000 was executed. If you’re going to apply it, apply it equally and make sure that they have quality legal representation. Killing a person with the IQ of a 10 year old with and a public defender is grotesque.
My contention was with the statement that I can’t prove that the death penalty is a deterrent. Aside from my wise-ass comment above, how could anyone prove it? Can you prove that it is not a deterrent?
I remember a great line from the movie “Parenthood” where Keanu Reeves (playing a brain dead slacker, how odd!) says “You need a licence to drive a car, or catch a fish. Hell, you even need a licence to have a dog. But they’ll let any butt-reaming asshole be a father.”
A couple years ago out here in California some woman tied her daughter to the bed and let her nearly starve to death. Apparently the daughter was mentally and physically disabled and when welfare wouldn’t pay for her special food anymore she decided to quit feeding her instead of actually going out to get a job to pay for it. The child was found by the grandparents who became suspicious when the daughter wouldn’t let them visit anymore. They peeked in the window, saw the emaciated girl lying there in her own filth and broke in and called the cops. The mom came home about 6 hours later high as a kite. I read that in the paper on one of those days when I was just hanging by a thread to begin with and nearly had a nervous breakdown.
PL, who cares if the death penalty is a deterrent or not? What’s wrong with it just being good, old-fashioned, healthy vengeance? And I too am a proponent of sterilizing people at birth and making them pass a parenting test before reversing it. Of course that danged old ACLU would probably object . . .