Murder verdict for vegan parents

[Squatch]

A vegan couple committed murder when they didn't make sure their newborn received proper nutrition, a Fulton jury decided Wednesday.

<snip>

The verdicts mean the couple will receive automatic life sentences. The judge might tack on more prison time at a sentencing hearing next week.

<snip>

The infant was born in the bathtub of a Buckhead apartment but never taken to a doctor while alive. He was dead when his parents took him to Piedmont Hospital, across the street from their apartment, April 25, 2004. At six weeks old he weighed just 3 1/2 pounds and was so emaciated, doctors could count his bones through his skin.

<snip>

The mother initially told police she fed her baby organic apple juice and soy milk. But the soy milk containers in her apartment clearly state that soy milk is not to be used as a substitute for baby formula, her lawyer admitted. At trial, the mom said she also fed her son breast milk and soy milk formula.

Outside the courtroom, Lewis, the defense attorney, said he believes the parents unintentionally starved their child by feeding him apple juice that may have acted as a diuretic and blocked the absorption of nutrients from the soy milk, soy formula and breast milk. They never took Crown to a doctor because they feared hospitals were infested with germs, he said.

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[pepperbear]

1. sad.....and unfortunately fodder for idiot right wingers n/t

[bryant69]

9. Yep and you can bet they will run with it.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[IChing]

2. ....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x815563

[JitterbugPerfume]

3. this is a crime of ignorance for sure,

but there is a dead baby to consider, and this kind of ignorance is unforgivable.

This is not an indictment against vegans ( people like my niece, and some very cool DUers)It is an indictment against willful ignorance

[TechBear_Seattle]

4. Manslaughter maybe, but murder?

Murder usually requires deliberate planning and intent to take life. Manslaughter is taking a life inadvertently, either through accident cause by misconduct (such as killing a pedestrian while driving drunk) or through un-premeditated neglect (as seems to be the situation in this case.)

While the parents should be punished, I think a murder conviction is extreme.

[RobinA]

7. I Agree

Life in prison? That seems a bit much for incredible ignorance.

[Marrah_G]

16. This was not just ignorant

Ignorance is not knowing what to properly feed your child.

Paranoia is being so afraid of germs that you deny your child the most basic of medical care.

Murder is continuing, day after day, to NOT walk across the fucking street (they lived across from a hospital) for 6 weeks while watching your newborn starve to death. They could see the infants bones for goodness sake.

[Clark2008]

8. A murder conviction is not only warranted, but well withing the

scope of the law.

Some people ARE charged with murder as a result of a DUI fatality, btw.

http://www.dui1.com/Dui_Lawyers_Driving8.htm

I would hope, if this couple could read, they would have known not to use soy milk in place of soy formula. Stupidity can be a cause of murder - maybe not first-degree, but it can.

[gollygee]

30. I think it's at least negligent homicide

There is no way a parent couldn't know his/her child was dying at 6 weeks and 3-1/2 pounds. Plus a baby who is hungry cries and cries and cries. This wasn't a simple accident - there was serious negligence.

[SheilaT]

5. How sad.

And how unfortunate that people can be this ignorant. If he'd been fed exclusively breast milk he'd have done fine.

[Matariki]

6. there were two threads on this yesterday

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x815618
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x815563

[MasonJar]

10. This should not say in the headline vegan couple; these people

are not stupid becase they are vegans; they are stupid because they are stupid.

[WI_DEM]

11. Good point.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

13. if the choice of being vegan influenced what they fed their child

then yes it should.

sP

[ComerPerro]

18. so they only drink soy products and organic apple juice because they are stupid?

[Matariki]

31. Their beliefs (and perhaps dogma) about diet probably contributed

It's very possible that they didn't think formula was 'pure or natural' enough but that soy milk was. Also the mother's diet very probably had an impact on the baby long before it was born.

I'm not saying all or even most vegans are like this. I have to say though, I've known more than one nutty vegan - people who were so obsessed and righteous about their diets that they thought about little else. To the point that it seemed more like a neurosis than a diet choice. You could just look at these people and see how worn out and anemic they were, all the while rattling on about 'how much energy they had'. It's not just a vegan diet that people like this are drawn to either. I've met a couple 'fruitatarians' as well. These guys were so dizzy you could blow on them and they'd fall over. They couldn't hold a coherent thought in their head for lack of protein.

And yes, before anyone gets their panties bunched up, I think it is absolutely possible to eat a healthy vegan diet. I myself was a vegan for a few years.

[Peace Patriot]

12. On the face of it, this is a case of prosecutorial zealousness and ambition.

It boggles the mind, the resources of society that are wasted on prosecuting the relatively innocent--for errors of ignorance, mental/psychological illness, isolation, limited intelligence or lack of options, poverty, vulnerability to suggestion, and a host of other conditions that lead to unintended, inadvertent harm. It is especially suspicious with parents who held non-mainstream, anti-establishment beliefs. Their ignorant, harmful application of their beliefs--and signs like their paranoia about germs in hospitals--indicate people with some kind of mental/psychological illness. It is true enough that hospitals, under duress of making profits, and under assault by pharmaceutical giants' misuse of antibiotics, have become cauldrons of staph infection. But, obviously--to rational people--the risk of "failure to thrive" was worse than the risks of hospital care. These people--based on the known facts--were NOT rational, and did NOT understand what they were doing--killing their child. Parents harm and kill their children every--by feeding them a steady diet of corporate food, for instance; by exposing their children to corporate-pusher chemicals of every kind; by giving their kids harmful toys; by driving recklessly or in unsafe vehicles; by keeping guns in their homes (children are very enterprising at getting hold of them); and by a thousand different acts of ignorance and stupidity. Do they get prosecuted for child endangerment or murder, if their child gets sick or dies, as a result of these often corporate-created hazards? No! But be a stupid, incapable vegan parent, and get life in prison! This should never have been a murder prosecution! Prison is an unwise and wasteful response to it. Where is wisdom? Where is SANITY in our justice system? Nowhere, it seems.

[DaveJ]

14. True, it would be nice if pharma corps were sentenced

My wife got a job helping a mother take care of her teenager who has autism. She was acting normal until after she had a polio vaccine. It's sad. The people responsible for that are living in mansions.

[LeftishBrit]

32. I am sorry about the girl...

but are you actually implying that the polio vaccine is evil and that no one should have it? What about all the people who died and suffered terrible disabilities before such a vaccine was available?

So far as I know, no one has seriously suggested that the polio vaccine causes autism. Such claims have been made about some *other* vaccines (IMO not well-founded; but that's beside the point here); but not, so far as I am aware, the polio vaccine.

It may be that there was something unusual in this particular case -mis-administration or contamination. In that case, it is indeed a serious offence. Or it may be that the vaccine just happened to be given at the time when this girl's autism was becoming apparent.

But I am very concerned that the post could give the impression that all vaccines, or the polio vaccine in particular, are bad and have no purpose other than to enrich 'pharma'.

'Big Pharma' are indeed immoral, but that is because they make essential medications and immunizations unaffordable to many people in poorer countries; not because the medications and immunizations exist at all.

I have no connections with 'pharma'. I'm just a person who is incredibly grateful to modern medicine for what it has done to save my own and my family members' lives several times, and the quality of our lives even more times. There are too many cost-cutting Thatchers and Reagans and anti-science Bushes and Mbekis - and selfish pharamaceutical companies- prepared to deprive many people of these essential benefits. Let us not play into their hands.

To go back to the original topic, I think that it is a horrible case, and that the parents should have been punished for manslaughter, but I doubt that it constitutes murder, which assumes intent.

[Greyhound]

24. Exactly. There is no sense to this other than to further the career of some

future political hack.

What purpose does this conviction serve? If we were to make gross stupidity a crime, we would have to build a wall around the whole country.

[bobbolink]

29. sure. It's only a child's life, after all.

Maybe a few other people will decide to think things through and care more about their child than their ideology after this.

[valerief]

15. Wonder if any melamine was in that post-fetus. Poor thing. nt

[ComerPerro]

17. To me, they are just as bad as people who deny their children medical treatment in favor of prayer

[slowry]

20. Please clarify.

They are just as bad because a) they were, supposedly, going to bring the child up vegan, or b) they starved him to death. There's quite a difference.

Thanks.

[ComerPerro]

21. nice try, really. but quite lame

[slowry]

22. What?

I've seen a lot of anti-Vegan comments in these threads, and I genuinely want to know what you're implying.

[saracat]

19. Sorry.They got what they deserved. I am not the least bit sympathetic to them.

[Greyhound]

23. I think murder was inappropriate, but they were grossly neglegent,

as well as unbelievably stupid, so negligent homicide seems a more appropriate charge. Incarceration until they are no longer capable of breeding is a solution, but the same could be accomplished with other means.

[Name removed]

25. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[truebrit71]

26. You have to be joking....

Children are NOT property. They are not THINGS.

What a strange thing to say...

Enjoy your brief visit...

[Oglethorpe]

27. I hope I'm not taking the bait here

If there's sarcasm and you're trying to make a point, i'm afraid it wasn't well made.

At best, this is gross, gross negligence. Just because you're not that bright, it doesn't eliminate your responsibility once you have a child. You are, for better or worse, at the point of birth responsible for the care of that child. If you CAN'T care for it, you are responsible for finding someone who can.

The "i'm just not that smart, so the baby died" defense doesn't exist.

To me, the whole vegan thing is a smokescreen and irrelevant. The vast, vast majority of vegans know how to and can properly care for an infant.

[mitchleary]

28. what in the heck were they thinking?

sure being a vegan is all right, but when they could start to see the child's bone, they should have taken them to the doctor.