It is not becoming. I am sad.
You're not alone.
I suppose I'm as guilty as any of keeping this going, but I wish it would just stop and we could get on to other topics.
So I'll start one.
Or, rather, renew one.
One of my duties as a lawyer is to read the advance sheets -- the reports of appellate court decisions that are distributed in paper prior to their formal publication. I do this while I'm working out.
Today I read a case the facts of which disgusted me. But to understand the point I'm about to make, it's necessary for me to get into some very nasty stuff..
This is the father of a 13 day (yes, day, not month or year) old daughrer who was accused of child abuse and sexual assault. He confessed. He admitted that at various times over several hours (not all at once in a single fit of anger) he had hit his daughter on the head, hit her a couple of times in the stomach, picked her up by the leg and thrown her several feet onto a couch, had used a white plastic spoon to stab into her vagina and rectum, and had injected lamp oil into her IV shunt using a syringe that was supposed to be used for her injections to treat the infection that she had been under treatment for in the hospital before being released home.
She survived.
There is no indication that there were drugs or alcohol involved, though there may have been. But there was no mention of them in the case report.
Now the question: what is an appropriate punishment for this father?
Is this a case where there should be a death penalty or not?
If not, what should his punishment be? |
