# Mother gets life in baby meth death **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 31, 2003, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mother-gets-life-in-baby-meth-death/210732 "2003-10-31T21:49:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2003, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mother-gets-life-in-baby-meth-death/210732/1 "2003-10-31T21:49:02Z")
[http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/10/31/baby.meth.death.ap/index.html](http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/10/31/baby.meth.death.ap/index.html) Her 3-month-old baby OD’ed on meth, either from tainted bottle liners or _from his mother’s breast milk_. She just got a life sentence for murder. It’s being appealed, of course. But I sure hope the stupid fucking waste of flesh rots in jail. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2003, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mother-gets-life-in-baby-meth-death/210732/2 "2003-10-31T22:09:07Z")
Ick. From a [more detailed article](http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-methmom31oct31,1,7340093.story?coll=la-headlines-california) in the _L.A. Times_: > [@](#): > > “This was a very aggravated situation, in that Amy was very aware of the danger she was subjecting upon Jacob, to the point where a month earlier she had fallen asleep on top of him and nearly killed him then,” Nelson said. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2003, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mother-gets-life-in-baby-meth-death/210732/3 "2003-11-01T00:04:30Z")
Just keep in mind that taxpayers will be spending about $25,000 a year to keep her incarcerated. ---
**Author:** ![World\_Eater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f04885/32.png) [@World\_Eater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/World_Eater)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2003, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mother-gets-life-in-baby-meth-death/210732/4 "2003-11-01T00:20:25Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Qadgop the Mercotan \* > \*\*Just keep in mind that taxpayers will be spending about $25,000 a year to keep her incarcerated. \*\* As long as she can’t bring another child into this world, it’ll be money well spent. ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2003, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mother-gets-life-in-baby-meth-death/210732/5 "2003-11-01T01:35:28Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Qadgop the Mercotan \* > \*\*Just keep in mind that taxpayers will be spending about $25,000 a year to keep her incarcerated. \*\* Not to mention keeping her remaining children as wards of the state. Even then, **World Eater** ’s still dead on. ---
**Author:** ![Largo62](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/45deac/32.png) [@Largo62](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Largo62)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2003, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mother-gets-life-in-baby-meth-death/210732/6 "2003-11-01T02:27:22Z")
If cost is even part of the equation, you must know that executing the disgusting slug would cost millions by the time the appeals process was over. Twenty five thousand a year is a pittance. ---
**Author:** ![SnoopyFan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d07c76/32.png) [@SnoopyFan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SnoopyFan)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2003, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mother-gets-life-in-baby-meth-death/210732/7 "2003-11-01T04:14:05Z")
Serves the bitch right! ---
**Author:** ![county](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce7236/32.png) [@county](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/county)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2003, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mother-gets-life-in-baby-meth-death/210732/8 "2003-11-01T04:19:08Z")
They spend all that money and brag that the conviction will serve as a deterrent. It won’t. Someone else being convicted would not have affected her conduct one iota. Punishing that woman doesn’t serve much purpose. Sure, she’s got to be punished, but anybody who thinks that punishment serves any purpose other than punishing that woman for her conduct is mistaken. Society would get as much or more benefit from allowing her to be voluntarily sterilized. ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2003, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mother-gets-life-in-baby-meth-death/210732/9 "2003-11-01T04:45:05Z")
> [@](#): > > They spend all that money and brag that the conviction will serve as a deterrent. It won’t. I’m afraid you may be right about that. Meth addicts aren’t real big on the whole personal responsibility thing, even from fear of punishment. But ya know, I think I’d just as soon take her out of society permanently. ---
**Author:** ![WILLASS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/54ee81/32.png) [@WILLASS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WILLASS)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2003, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mother-gets-life-in-baby-meth-death/210732/10 "2003-11-01T19:14:32Z")
I wonder if she will get any help for her drug addiction? I think that particularley in the States that you are quite big on banging people up rather than addressing the actual problem. Don’t get me wrong, I think this is appaling but life imprisonment for _accidentally_ killing her baby seems a bit pointless to me. Why should someone who deliberatley kills another person receive a lighter sentence than someone who accidentally kills their own child and who in my opinion is essentially ill and has a reduced capacity for judging what is harmful to herself and her child. Up until just now I didn’t realise that it was possible to poison a child via breastmilk so I wouldn’t expect a meth addict to know. Its cases like these that highlight the need for educating drug addicts, offering help and taking at risk children into care. I don’t really see what locking this woman up for 15 years is going to acheive. Yes she needs to be punished but i don’t see why her punishment should be any harsher than say a drunk driver that kills a child. May be that the laws for accidentally killing someone else through reckless behaviour are harsher than I thought but i’m pretty sure they are not. ---
**Author:** ![kung\_fu\_lola](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f4b2a3/32.png) [@kung\_fu\_lola](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kung_fu_lola)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2003, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mother-gets-life-in-baby-meth-death/210732/11 "2003-11-01T21:23:31Z")
**WILLASS** , a life sentence in the US is not 15 years. Life, IIRC, means **life** (although I don’t think it’s in all cases). There are people in the US prison system who went in there in their 20’s and are never, ever getting out (not that I think they should, I’m just saying, so you know). ---
**Author:** ![Largo62](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/45deac/32.png) [@Largo62](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Largo62)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2003, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mother-gets-life-in-baby-meth-death/210732/12 "2003-11-01T21:49:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by WILLASS \* > **I didn’t realise that it was possible to poison a child via breastmilk so I wouldn’t expect a meth addict to know.** Ignorance may be an excuse in some cases, but a meth addict, beyond being ignorant of the damage s/he can do, _doesn’t care_. > [@](#): > > **Its cases like these that highlight the need for educating drug addicts, offering help and taking at risk children into care.** I agree in principle. Rehabilitation is beginning to be ordered in favor of jail in some of our courts. I also think that is a better use of resources than just locking someone up. > [@](#): > > **I don’t really see what locking this woman up for 15 years is going to acheive. Yes she needs to be punished but i don’t see why her punishment should be any harsher than say a drunk driver that kills a child.** This is where I disagree. I think throwing addicts into prison makes no sense if rehab can turn them around, provided they haven’t committed some other crime. But this woman nearly killed the same baby a month earlier, as noted above. She was aware of the danger her behavior was posing to her child, but did not seek help to change the behavior and protect the child. Our laws in the US are not uniform, but in California, a drunk driver who kills a child may be tried for second degree murder if it is shown that s/he had continued to drive drunk after having been arrested/warned before. It is said that the driver showed an indifference to the safety of others. That changes the killing from merely accidental to foreseeable, and therefore criminal. > [@](#): > > **May be that the laws for accidentally killing someone else through reckless behaviour are harsher than I thought but i’m pretty sure they are not.** Killing someone through reckless behavior may not be punished so harshly if the behavior itself were not already a crime. Using your drunk driving example though, drunk driving is already a crime. It is a misdemeanor if only property damage results, but in the case of injury or death to a person it becomes a felony. I’m pretty sure that is the same in every state of the US. This woman killed her child in the commission of another crime. Because of that, punishment is considered necessary. One hopes she gets rehab in prison so that when she is released she may not repeat her offenses. But punishing her for killing a baby isn’t too harsh, in my opinion. ---
**Author:** ![Flutterby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Flutterby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flutterby)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2003, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mother-gets-life-in-baby-meth-death/210732/13 "2003-11-01T21:50:59Z")
It’s been my experience that most long time users of drugs know a whole lot about them, including risks, and just don’t give a damn. I lived with meth users for a time (before we kicked that roomie out and the other roomie cleaned up). Some things I learned about Meth while living with them: It is water soluble. You sweat it out, and it mingles with bodily fluids as well. The high can be passed on through skin contact (sex is good for that or for children holding hands with a parent can introduce meth into their systems, so it doesn’t surprise me breast milk falls under that) You eat next to nothing. You sleep very little if at all. Roomie 1 would regularly go on week long binges, would not sleep at all then would get extremely irritable and paranoid and hallucinate. Well yeah I could go on. Roomie 2 and I both called child services because roomie one would take his daughter (a few hours visitation on weekends) out after those week long binges and without forgetting to have a good hoot before he went to pick her up from her Mom. We kicked him out at the same time. ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2003, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mother-gets-life-in-baby-meth-death/210732/14 "2003-11-02T03:44:10Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by kung fu lola \* > \*\ ***WILLASS** , a life sentence in the US is not 15 years. Life, IIRC, means **life** (although I don’t think it’s in all cases). There are people in the US prison system who went in there in their 20’s and are never, ever getting out (not that I think they should, I’m just saying, so you know). \*\* Actually, in this case a life sentence _does_ mean 15 years. That’s when she’d be eligible for parole, at any rate, and I reckon there’s a good chance she’d be out then. ---
**Author:** ![kung\_fu\_lola](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f4b2a3/32.png) [@kung\_fu\_lola](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kung_fu_lola)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2003, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mother-gets-life-in-baby-meth-death/210732/15 "2003-11-02T04:24:43Z")
_Really!?!?!_ OK. Well then, I guess the cop who came to my high school was just trying to scare us. Colour me educated.