# Mom Busts Dad For 15 Year Old Custodial "Kidnap" -- Now What? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 7, 2010, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mom-busts-dad-for-15-year-old-custodial-kidnap-now-what/542280 "2010-06-07T15:17:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mom-busts-dad-for-15-year-old-custodial-kidnap-now-what/542280/61 "2010-06-07T17:26:16Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > So by Solomon esque logic, the custody should go to the one who wanted the kid so bad he violated the law over it? Without knowing the facts (and not being prepared to say he was clearly a better parent, which I’m not) he screwed up per Solomon fifteen years ago. That’s why my Father of the Year plaque for him is nowhere to be found. Now it’s mom’s turn. She can have “justice” or maybe let her kids continue with a life they seem content with. **He was still wrong, per Solomon** – fifteen years ago. Her upsetting the applecart now out of spite (I’m glad others pointed out that the timing is suspect – if she hadn’t had her ego lanced by the daughter’s rejection, it isn’t clear she’d have been so keen for redress of the crime) seems like adding (her) insult to (his) injury of them. Solomon part 2, and the kids get hosed again. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mom-busts-dad-for-15-year-old-custodial-kidnap-now-what/542280/62 "2010-06-07T17:36:20Z")
It’s not her doing anything to him, it’s the law. Her motivations (which have no reason to suspect) are not relevant. This guy has to answer the state, and he WILL answer to the state. We do not reward kidnappers with custody. Period. ---
**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mom-busts-dad-for-15-year-old-custodial-kidnap-now-what/542280/63 "2010-06-07T17:41:46Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > They do when the violation involves snatching toddlers. Hmm. Elizabeth Morgan “snatched a toddler in defiance of a court order,” did do 24 months, not “life,” in jail, and she was freed by an act of Congress and got to raise the daughter. She’s currently married to an appellate judge I think. Having reviewed more available facts in that case, than in this, I’m more able to form a substantive opinion over whether she was “right” to take the kid in that case, but at least some non-trivial number of otherwise-respectable people apparently concluded that there were circumstances in which defying a custody order could be an appropriate or necessary action. Not enough facts here to know that (I can’t, for instance, determine if the mom had sole vs. joint custody, and there’s no report of the father’s story for why he thought he had to do what he did), so I’ve focused on what will make the teenage kids’ life better or worse right now, and can’t convince myself to any degree of certainty that it is what mom just did, or that mom was solely motivated by making their lives better. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mom-busts-dad-for-15-year-old-custodial-kidnap-now-what/542280/64 "2010-06-07T17:43:44Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > So what if the kids will be messed up and aren’t happy about it? I don’t agree that it doesn’t matter if jailing the father has the effect of messing up the kids and making them unhappy: that’s a serious downside. However, I don’t agree that leaving the situation alone would necessarily **avoid** messing up the kids. Don’t you think it has a negative effect on kids to send them the message “it’s okay if you commit crimes and hurt other people as long as you avoid getting caught for long enough”? How about the message “as long as somebody is looking after **you** and making you happy, it doesn’t really matter what else they’re doing in their lives, because your own best interest is the most important thing”? There’s a lot of mess-up inherent in this situation no matter **how** you slice it. ---
**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mom-busts-dad-for-15-year-old-custodial-kidnap-now-what/542280/65 "2010-06-07T17:49:49Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > There’s a lot of mess-up inherent in this situation no matter **how** you slice it. No one asked and I don’t run the circus, and this would never work in real life, but my rough justice solution would be to send the child welfare people in for an objective assessment of whether everything is, as it appears, more or less okay. If they uncover pathology, of course they’re taken out. If the kids have just been living a reasonably normal life with a single parent – let that continue, with the possibility of visitation from mom if they want it. Then get them both off to college. Then arrest dad, let the prosecutor use his discretion to decide whether he needs some greater than 30 days in the cooler but less than hard time in jail to send the message. A form of deferred adjudication that averts the most damaging disruption of the kids’ life NOW. ---
**Author:** ![ZPG\_Zealot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e47c2d/32.png) [@ZPG\_Zealot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZPG_Zealot)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mom-busts-dad-for-15-year-old-custodial-kidnap-now-what/542280/66 "2010-06-07T17:58:57Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > I don’t like kids, so this is my opinion from that perspective: > > Revenge is ok. So what if the kids will be messed up and aren’t happy about it? The lives they shared with their dad should have been with their mom instead. If they aren’t happy, tough. They need to be forced to see their dad as a kidnapper and bond with the non-criminal in the family instead. They should be made to see their dad as who he really is, a felon that thinks kidnapping is ok. I would disagree that kids will be messed up from this (or at least more messed up than they were already). Certainly, the kids will be unhappy about it for awhile, but if making your kids unhappy were a crime (or even a bad thing) every parent in the world would be in and out of jail continually. ---
**Author:** ![Blaster\_Master](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/cab0a1/32.png) [@Blaster\_Master](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blaster_Master)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mom-busts-dad-for-15-year-old-custodial-kidnap-now-what/542280/67 "2010-06-07T18:00:49Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Well, but you could use that sort of argument to justify withholding legal consequences for **anything** that parents do, if it would disrupt the lives of children who are, on the whole, happy with their parents. > > Parent embezzles thousands of dollars from employers? Parent robs a bank? Parent launders money and buys weapons for terrorist organization? “Don’t send them to jail! Yes, they screwed up big time, but the best interest of the children is more important than punishing the parents!” > > The way you seem to want it, having children would be just one big Get Out of Jail Free card, as long as you do a decent enough job at child-rearing that the kids are reasonably happy with you. > > I think the negative effects upon children of punishing parents in the criminal justice system should act as an incentive for parents to **avoid crime** , not as an excuse for parents to avoid punishment if they commit a crime. I’m sorry, I don’t think I’m not doing a good job explaining my point on this one, so I’ll try to be a little more specific. The reason that the best interest of the children is the primary concern in this case is because of the nature of the crime committed. The crimes of the father leave the children as the primary victims and, to a somewhat lesser degree, the mother. In the case of most other crimes, like your example of embezzling, the victim is someone else. I believe that it is the damages to the victims that are most meaningful when determining the punishment of the crime. As such, in the case of embezzlement, that the children of the criminal would be affected by the punishment is essentially irrelevant. In the case of child custody, that the children, the very victims of the crime for which punishment is being considered, would suffer as a result of the punishment ought to have some bearing on the consideration. This is exactly why I don’t think it’s an open and shut case of throwing the father in jail and returning the children to the mother. The father still broke the law and deserves punishment, but as long as his punishment could have an adverse affect against the very people from whom it is intended to act as a form of restitution is meaningful enough in my mind that the specifics of the case are significant and need to be taken into consideration. ---
**Author:** ![Kearsen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/82dd89/32.png) [@Kearsen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kearsen)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mom-busts-dad-for-15-year-old-custodial-kidnap-now-what/542280/68 "2010-06-07T18:03:33Z")
nt ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mom-busts-dad-for-15-year-old-custodial-kidnap-now-what/542280/69 "2010-06-07T18:08:54Z")
> [@ZPG Zealot](#): > > I would disagree that kids will be messed up from this (or at least more messed up than they were already). Certainly, the kids will be unhappy about it for awhile, but if making your kids unhappy were a crime (or even a bad thing) every parent in the world would be in and out of jail continually. Yeesh, this seems to me overly dismissive. Even if I don’t agree that the father should be just left alone to go on raising the kids, I can’t view the alternative (father off to jail, home broken up) as something that **won’t** be seriously traumatic for the children. Not just on the ordinary childish-trauma scale of getting pissed off because your parents won’t buy you a pony, either. > [@Blaster Master](#): > > The father still broke the law and deserves punishment, but as long as his punishment could have an adverse affect against the very people from whom it is intended to act as a form of restitution is meaningful enough in my mind that the specifics of the case are significant and need to be taken into consideration. Okay, I think I understand your point better now. But how about the contention that, as I mentioned earlier, **not** punishing the father could **also** have an adverse effect on the kids? They are old enough now to understand that they’re not the center of the universe, and saying that legality should take a back seat to their happiness is not a good message to send them, IMO. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mom-busts-dad-for-15-year-old-custodial-kidnap-now-what/542280/70 "2010-06-07T18:12:43Z")
> [@Huerta88](#): > > Then arrest dad, let the prosecutor use his discretion to decide whether he needs some greater than 30 days in the cooler but less than hard time in jail to send the message. A form of deferred adjudication that averts the most damaging disruption of the kids’ life NOW. Thirty days in jail for kidnapping, just because the kids have little knowledge of their time before being kidnapped and seem happy. You actually feel those kids temporary “happiness” is worth throwing the law out the window and endangering ghod _knows_ how many kids who’s non-custodial parents will be encouraged to do the same thing? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mom-busts-dad-for-15-year-old-custodial-kidnap-now-what/542280/71 "2010-06-07T18:19:35Z")
> [@Huerta88](#): > > No one asked and I don’t run the circus, and this would never work in real life, but my rough justice solution would be to send the child welfare people in for an objective assessment of whether everything is, as it appears, more or less okay. If they uncover pathology, of course they’re taken out. If the kids have just been living a reasonably normal life with a single parent – let that continue, with the possibility of visitation from mom if they want it. Then get them both off to college. > > Then arrest dad, let the prosecutor use his discretion to decide whether he needs some greater than 30 days in the cooler but less than hard time in jail to send the message. A form of deferred adjudication that averts the most damaging disruption of the kids’ life NOW. No. You don’t reward kidnapping with custody under any circumstances. The one thing that absolutely cannot be considered is legitimizing the abduction of children, no matter how nice the abductor appears to be. ---
**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mom-busts-dad-for-15-year-old-custodial-kidnap-now-what/542280/72 "2010-06-07T18:21:11Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Thirty days in jail for kidnapping, just because the kids have little knowledge of their time before being kidnapped and seem happy. You actually feel those kids temporary “happiness” is worth throwing the law out the window and endangering ghod _knows_ how many kids who’s non-custodial parents will be encouraged to do the same thing? Well you know I **did** say more than 30 days, which I use as an example of a wrist-slap, which is not the appropriate level of don’t-f-with-the-law in a case like this (unless he comes forward with a great, compelling argument that he acted out of necessity to prevent greater and certain harm to the kids). Two years wouldn’t strike me as too much, especially if he doesn’t have a particularly good story for why he subverted the process. ---
**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mom-busts-dad-for-15-year-old-custodial-kidnap-now-what/542280/73 "2010-06-07T18:28:15Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > No. You don’t reward kidnapping with custody under any circumstances. The one thing that absolutely cannot be considered is legitimizing the abduction of children, no matter how nice the abductor appears to be. Your position is again focusing on **him** , and the use of “reward” goes back to some mother vs. father struggle with the kids being the prize of who “wins.” That certainly seems to be mom’s attitude. My proposal, in the long run, “rewards” the kids (assuming dad’s providing a good home) and (later, but punishment often comes later rather than sooner) punishes dad. By the way, your absolutist position is inconsistent with, for one, the common law defense of necessity. Don’t bother, I know – the necessity defense can kiss your ass. Well, but, the common law still exists. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mom-busts-dad-for-15-year-old-custodial-kidnap-now-what/542280/74 "2010-06-07T18:30:58Z")
> [@Huerta88](#): > > Your position is again focusing on **him** My focus is on the LAW. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mom-busts-dad-for-15-year-old-custodial-kidnap-now-what/542280/75 "2010-06-07T18:31:01Z")
> [@Huerta88](#): > > Well you know I **did** say more than 30 days, which I use as an example of a wrist-slap, which is not the appropriate level of don’t-f-with-the-law in a case like this (unless he comes forward with a great, compelling argument that he acted out of necessity to prevent greater and certain harm to the kids). Two years wouldn’t strike me as too much, especially if he doesn’t have a particularly good story for why he subverted the process. How much would he get if it wasn’t his kids, but he kidnapped them and convinced them to love him? Should a kidnapper get a much shorter sentence if his victims _at that time_ would be made unhappy? ---
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mom-busts-dad-for-15-year-old-custodial-kidnap-now-what/542280/76 "2010-06-07T18:32:28Z")
At one level, is this case any different from the Roman Polanski case? ---
**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mom-busts-dad-for-15-year-old-custodial-kidnap-now-what/542280/77 "2010-06-07T18:33:24Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > My focus is on the LAW. But you don’t understand the law, as witness your insistence that there can never be a circumstance in which a law can appropriately be disobeyed, when every first year law student knows this not to be true. And “the LAW” (the caps make it more legally?) is an instrument of substantial justice. It is not always and invariably the embodiment of or identical to justice. ---
**Author:** ![diku](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4af34b/32.png) [@diku](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/diku)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mom-busts-dad-for-15-year-old-custodial-kidnap-now-what/542280/78 "2010-06-07T18:33:47Z")
> [@Huerta88](#): > > Your position is again focusing on **him** , and the use of “reward” goes back to some mother vs. father struggle with the kids being the prize of who “wins.” That certainly seems to be mom’s attitude. My proposal, in the long run, “rewards” the kids (assuming dad’s providing a good home) and (later, but punishment often comes later rather than sooner) punishes dad. > > By the way, your absolutist position is inconsistent with, for one, the common law defense of necessity. Don’t bother, I know – the necessity defense can kiss your ass. Well, but, the common law still exists. Ok, so again, what if they hadn’t known their abductor? As someone asked before, say they have been taken as toddlers by a stranger, and they were happy now, 15 years later? Is it in the best interests of the kids to stay with that person? Does that make it all better? Kidnapping is kidnapping. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mom-busts-dad-for-15-year-old-custodial-kidnap-now-what/542280/79 "2010-06-07T18:35:57Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > My focus is on the LAW. Absolute bull, shown when you put the word “kidnap” in parentheses in the title. It wasn’t “kidnapping”, it was kidnapping. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mom-busts-dad-for-15-year-old-custodial-kidnap-now-what/542280/80 "2010-06-07T18:36:42Z")
The OP seems to be saying that if Phil Garrido had kidnapped his victim while she was still an infant and didn’t fornicate with her that it would have been okay. No, kidnapping is still kidnapping. That he was their father might make it less heinous than other kidnappings, but that should be taken into account at the time of sentencing, not charging. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mom-busts-dad-for-15-year-old-custodial-kidnap-now-what/542280.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mom-busts-dad-for-15-year-old-custodial-kidnap-now-what/542280.md?page=5)