Texas abused baby

[lunavix]

here

I can't believe people can do that to their own children.

GhostofNatt - that's just the point - most people on this thread have said that death is too easy a way out for people like this.

I think the death penalty is flawed for many reasons, one of them being that in thankfully rare cases like this, death by lethal injection seems like a soft option. But that's my instinctive response as a mother. I don't believe in an eye for an eye, either.

TwoIfBySea
The parents have been charged with 'injury to a child' so far. Of course, there will be two counts b/c they also abused the toddler to her severe injury as well. If the baby had died, the lightest charge they could have received would be injury to a child resulting in death, but the DA would have pushed for capital murder, as murder of a child under 10 is a capital crime in TX (therefore punishable by death). I think they'll see 50 years to life for each count, and it's up to the judge if they serve their terms concurrently or consecutively. The laws are stricter than in the UK b/c there is so much violent crime in the US, so they would not be eligible for parole for 35 years.

Message withdrawn

very good point there secur

I am can't read the report

Message withdrawn

Message withdrawn

they're both very young aren't they and who knows what kind of families they came from? maybe they were abused themselves not too long ago?

some might say that - but not me!

b@st@rds!

Secur, I could be wrong but I don't think that happens quite so much in US jails - the 'watch films, do courses, join in with the prison community' type of prison life, I mean. Not for offenders like this, anyway. I agree that they shouldn't have the opportunity for anything approaching a 'normal' existence, definitely.

The thing about the death penalty is that it doesn't make sense for me because I don't believe in Hell. I know that might sound a bit weird, but what I mean is that, for me personally, the death penalty should be the ultimate punishment and in this case it feels more like a get-out. If I was a fundamentalist Christian and thought a lethal injection would be followed by an eternity of pain and suffering for people like this, I might believe in it more. I am a bit at how strange that might sound, but it's the only way I can describe it.

Yeah, right. Wouldn't her first tip-off that her boyfriend was abusive have been when he fractured the skull of her first child back in 2003?? Her defense is really gonna wash w/a Texas jury - NOT!

I'm not a violent person, but heaven help the person who tried to hurt my baby.

Message withdrawn

Message withdrawn

I don't believe in an eye for an eye, but I do believe that someone who rapes and sodomises a six month old baby, damages every organ in her body and breaks most of her bones doesn't deserve the privilege of living - and neither does the woman who, if not directly involved, stood back and let it happen. 6 months old, for heaven's sake!

What a shame we no longer punish people by throwing them into an oubliette and forgetting all about them, because there's part of me thinks that this is what they deserve.

No, tbh I don't really know what would happen - am just thinking along the same lines as you - solitary confinement, no outside contact at all, no chance of parole.

I don't know what the answer is really - I agree with your three reasons too. I just instinctively feel that a nice gentle injection with a special meal beforehand isn't right either.

oubliette, excellent idea.

But wish you hadn't listed the abuse, I was avoiding reading about it

Message withdrawn

Message withdrawn

Sorry, suzy, I wasn't thinking. Just so horrified at it all, I guess, and my thoughts just came out in a jumble.

is this controversial?

should they be sterilised?

(I'm only asking!)

Message withdrawn

Sterilisation would at least mean there was no chance of them having more children to harm, but there is no saying that they couldn't do this again to someone else's baby if they ever get out of prison.

Secur, you're not being patronising at all and I agree with everything you said. Yes, 'making them suffer' is as much about us as them, shutting the door after the horse has bolted, in a way.

Yes, I think they should be JT.

(BTW, What is an oubilette?)

And yet the mother said she injured the child's tongue whilst removing a quarter from her mouth. Hmm. That just doesn't jibe w/her later statements that she didn't injure the infant, the boyfriend did it. How does one nearly sever a baby's tongue whilst removing a quarter from the infant's mouth? And how does one not realise her baby has been vaginally and anally raped??

emma, an oubliette was a hole in the floor of a dungeon into which people would be thrown and simply forgotten about. I'm not an advocate of extreme punishments normally, but these are not normal people and IMO deserve to rot.

Message withdrawn