[cerveza_fiesta]

Anything you want to discuss is worthy of discussion if you genuinely want others' opinions. If it's for shock value then fuck off, but I don't get that from Apt's post. Agree with cougar. If you don't like it, just ignore it. It ain't hard.


On topic,

I want to know how the kid was calling out "I love you"...was it the parents that confessed that or was it speculation?

Very sick case in all. Sad to hear about. IMO the parents obviously should be locked up for their actions and it burns me that the defense lawyer is trying to play it up like it was an accident or that they "didn't mean" to kill the kid. I know it's his job to create reasonable doubt and reduce the sentence as far as possible, but really! The parents deserve a fair trial free of prejudice, but it's going a bit far to say they didn't mean to violently murder their child because they were "scared 19 year olds". The argument makes no sense.

The only way I see the parents getting off light here is if they play up the insanity card or something (which seems to be the way the defense is framing it) but it will be a hard sell on a child killing case. They might lose the death penalty but its pretty certain the parents are going to jail.

At least we can be assured that in an american jail as child killers, they'll get theirs...and then some.

[Lisheo]

Aye, here's to the other inmates dishing out a bit of real justice...

I can only assume the parents admitted it. I doubt that kind of speculation is fair game, though I don't know anything about the American legal system. But here's to never letting their defense possibly succeed.

Apt didn't post anything that was designed to offend/shock anyone. And also, the title kind of gives away the subject, avoid it! (just to agree with Cougar also)



I can't believe people like that are even allowed live, when they take an innocent child's life for not saying "please" and "yes sir". Jesus Christ. Nice to see they are a nice, rounded, polite couple...

[Shinrei]

I dont know which is more insulting, telling me to ignore things I dont like, or telling me I shouldn't say "I don't like this."

I already explained why I said what I said, and that it was NOT a complaint but a request. If I was derailing the thread by being a bitch about it, then I would certainly deserve the criticism, but all I did was express an opinion on an open subject.
It was not an attack on Apt and I apologize if it was perceived that way.

[Satan]

But here comes the ever recurring, Hollywoodian question: is revenge the same as justice? The general concensus around here seems to be to beat these parents to a bloody pulp. Yet what good would that do?

Let's put a spin on that; justice can be understood as a retro activated reparation of an infringement upon a persons health or that persons possessions as defined by that society's laws. Yet, when that infringement is murder, how the hell are you supposed to repair that? Justice all of the sudden becomes relative to the society at large, not the offended part in the act. So how are the offenders supposed to repair such an act as murder in the eyes of the society? From what I understand from reading your posts, revenge - that is, personal suffering akin to what they gave - is the best (or only?) reparation. Now, I don't want to piss on revenge in general; I can certainly see the value of the eye for an eye method. I'm just wondering, what are you getting out of revenge?

[MTS]

Hmm...truly tragic. Similar to a case in Australia recently. A man was driving along a bridge in Melbourne when he stopped, took his 4 yr old daughter out of the car and threw her off the bridge (about 50 metres above the river), while her two siblings were in the car. It appalls me that such things happen to people's children. This man was psychiatrically unstable, granted, but these 19 yr olds? Inexcusable. There is no justification whatsoever for the abuse of children, and for the defence attorneys to even try is despicable.

[cerveza_fiesta]

Mappo's Travelling Sack, on Jan 29 2009, 11:26 AM, said:

Hmm...truly tragic. Similar to a case in Australia recently. A man was driving along a bridge in Melbourne when he stopped, took his 4 yr old daughter out of the car and threw her off the bridge (about 50 metres above the river), while her two siblings were in the car. It appalls me that such things happen to people's children. This man was psychiatrically unstable, granted, but these 19 yr olds? Inexcusable. There is no justification whatsoever for the abuse of children, and for the defence attorneys to even try is despicable.

I'd amend that to say that him trying to get them off scott free is despicable.

They still deserve a fair trial though, just like OJ and Martha Stewart and the Enron guys and all the rest. Without a legal rep they'd just get walked over. It's the only way to avoid the dreaded kangaroo court situation where everybody enters with a prejudice and basically decides the outcome before the trial is even over.

[Shinrei]

Mappo's Travelling Sack, on Jan 29 2009, 03:26 PM, said:

There is no justification whatsoever for the abuse of children, and for the defence attorneys to even try is despicable.

Yes.

No.*

*Why would you say the second part? That's their job, just as its the prosecutors job to make the crime seem as heinous as possible. What would you have happen instead?

Edited to add, cerveza_fiesta said it better.

[cerveza_fiesta]

Shinrei no Shintai, on Jan 29 2009, 11:41 AM, said:

Mappo's Travelling Sack, on Jan 29 2009, 03:26 PM, said:

There is no justification whatsoever for the abuse of children, and for the defence attorneys to even try is despicable.

Yes.

No.*

*Why would you say the second part? That's their job, just as its the prosecutors job to make the crime seem as heinous as possible. What would you have happen instead?

Edited to add, cerveza_fiesta said it better.

I'd have a logical trial where facts are presented without bias or flowery opening/closing statements by prosecutors/defense attorneys. With everybody exaggerating the shit out of the issue (a crime in this case) the details just get muddied. Like with OJ's original murder trial. To anybody observing the thing from a sterile, logical point of view, the man was guilty as sin...and has even (arguably) admitted as much in his book about the murder trial.

To people involved the case it turned into a white man vs. black man lynching of a high-profile suspect and everybody just seemed to forget in the end that he had mountains of evidence against him. That's the kind of defense lawyering I could do without...nitpicking every detail of everything until the evidence can't be admissible anymore and blurring the legalities with emotion-based arguments.

Ex: Awww...feel so sorry for her, she was so scared and ONLY 19 at the time. What was a woman in her situation to do...she must have just gone temporarily insane causing her to not be responsible for her actions. Awww....feel SO bad for her, the mother is really the victim here, not the child.

ok, so that's an exaggeration, but basically the argument the defense is using. Retarded.

[beru]

i agree... i prefer the roman court to tnhe modern... there it was official and open (meening those that was into politics might lisen) so no bribes (you will get lynced by the mob if you wote unfarly) and you were exspeced to hold the main part of the defence yourself (you had a lawer but he was mainly helping you make a good speach and hold a minor one himself)

[Epiph]

cerveza_fiesta, on Jan 29 2009, 06:48 AM, said:

I want to know how the kid was calling out "I love you"...was it the parents that confessed that or was it speculation?

I wanted to know that too, so I looked it up. Yes, both the mother and the boyfriend confessed. The boyfriend tried to commit suicide around Thanksgiving '07 and left a note saying it was all his fault and not the mother's, but she had already confessed before that. Sure, it was the boyfriend who threw the kid across the room and cracked her skull, but the mother was still abusive herself.

To an extent, I can see how crazy ass crazies who think beating your daughter to a pulp is acceptable discipline could say and feel they were being totally honest, "It was just discipline that got out of hand." The problem is that they didn't actually know how to discipline the kid in the first place. What the hell is wrong with people?

[Ain't_It_Just_]

Mappo's Travelling Sack, on Jan 30 2009, 02:26 AM, said:

Hmm...truly tragic. Similar to a case in Australia recently. A man was driving along a bridge in Melbourne when he stopped, took his 4 yr old daughter out of the car and threw her off the bridge (about 50 metres above the river), while her two siblings were in the car. It appalls me that such things happen to people's children. This man was psychiatrically unstable, granted, but these 19 yr olds? Inexcusable. There is no justification whatsoever for the abuse of children, and for the defence attorneys to even try is despicable.

I watched that on the news...very sad. It was her first day of school. Another young life wasted...

[HoosierDaddy]

MTS said:

...for the defence attorneys to even try is despicable.

Quit blaming defense attorneys for doing their job. Everyone hates attorneys until they need one.

This post has been edited by HoosierDaddy: 30 January 2009 - 06:55 AM

[MTS]

I'm not slamming defence attorneys because they're doing their job - I'm saying it's wrong for a defence attorney to try and distort the facts to get their client off, or get a lighter sentence. Their job is to provide a prejudice-free trial, not reduce punishment.

[Epiph]

No. A defense attorney's job is to serve their client. A jury's job is to provide prejudice-free judgment.

[TeddyGraham]

We could disscuss what should be done with them. I suggest throwing them in jail and letting them mingle with the rest of the inmates, bet they wouldnt last a week.

[eekwibble]

Well, the evil cow got life with no chance of parole and the prison warden in convinced that she'll be targeted by the other in-mates.

The boyfriend's trial date hasn't been set because the judge wants to wait until the fuss over the mother has died down but you can bet that his defence team will be trying to use the notes the mother wrote in her journal after the killing and disposal of the little girl's body. WARNING!!! Do not click that link unless you can stomach reading some extremely upsetting news.

I'm sorry if anyone finds this story too horrifying to continue with but I don't think prurience is a good enough excuse for burying your head in the sand. People should know about shit like this and be aware that it happens WAY too often.

[Aptorian]

Fuck, I shouldn't wave read the texts from that link.

That woman... I was going to say deserves to be beaten to death with her own belt... but I really don't know what could make any of this right. This really is a case where good old biblical punishment sounds really good to me.

Sick, sick people.

[Anomander]

That journal is appalling...

We had a similar incident involving a mother killing her daughter here a while back, which is just now being resolved. This woman, Patty Boudreau, initially reported her daughter Karisa as missing. There was a big man hunt, lots of press and outpourings of sympathy from the community and province. The kid was found a couple days later (this was the dead of winter) near a river.

A couple weeks (maybe days?) later it was revealed the mother was a suspect, and then the grizzly tale came out. Basically the woman's boyfriend couldn't deal with her daughter acting up and so said either he would go or the kid. He figured she would send Karisa back to her dad (who wanted custody I believe) but instead she decided to kill her daughter. Wound up choking her with some rope, then putting the girl in the front seat of the car buckled up so she just looked asleep. Hell, she even drove to Tim Hortons (coffee place) with her kid in the car beside her! She finally dumped her near a river, but not before pulling the pants down so police might think she was assault.

The level of anger I saw/read about after that was understandably immense. There were large crowds outside of court jeering and throwing stuff every time she was there. The bitter thing was her temporary holding cell was in a minimum security prison, where she got to enjoy such things as manicure nights, etc. I didn't think people could be more pissed off... but that sure as hell did it. There's the common hope she'll get such a beating at the maximum security center they sent her to.

[Satan]

Fucking hell! Look at the lynch mob! Shame the internet doesn't provide you with pitchforks and torches, eh? I challenge anyone who's read those excerpts the link above provides to conclude that this is a person who is fully mentally developed. She's a fucking retard, and no amount of punishment will make her any less so, and neither will it bring back her dead daughter. And the best part is, no matter how big the digital lynch mob gets, it won't prevent it from happening again with the next retard who wants his or her little child to behave. It seems like everyone's empathy has gone all haywire and driven you all on some absurd justice campaign, yet not a single one of you stops to ask what this justice is and whom it is supposed to serve. If this is the best you can do, then you should be ashamed of yourselves. And if this little flame gets any repercussions, then Satan fuck you all with a fork - you're not worth having a discussion with anyway.

[eekwibble]

Brynjar, I think it's sad that you feel the need to come down on people expressing their disgust on what is a sick and very serious affair.
Is that the best we can do? No, it's the only thing we can do! We can't possibly affect her or her chances for rehabilitation from behind our computers but we can make this sort of thing more widely known at every opportunity.
As someone that suffered extreme abuse at the hands of their mother, I feel perfectly qualified say that spreading the knowledge of such actions is probably the only way for the community at large to help the people who are most in need; the kids.
I don't advocate prison beatings in any way, I think the system should be adequate to deliver the punishment, but if you think that little girl's mother deserves anything less than our utter contempt, retard or not (and I certainly don't believe she is) then I'm afraid our views are at extreme odds.
They both need to be punished for their crime and the people that benefit are the ones who's parents read about the trial and punishments and so refrain from doing the same thing to their own children. Not so much in a "Oh, better not kill my kid, I could go to jail." kind of way but in a "Omfg, that's so sad, I'll never hit my kids." kind of thing.