mother lets children die in hot car while getting her hair done.
 

all i can say about this for now, because it disgusts me, is that there is no excuse for this womans behavior. maybe its because i am a certian way, but there is NO WAY i would leave two children, babies practically, in a hot car for THREE HOURS unattended. people like this make me sick, and unfortunately it happens all the time. it makes me wonder if there should be laws stating that service places (such as beauty salons) should be required to provide some sort of child care, if only a table with toys near the receptionists desk. or maybe this is unecessary, and these are just random incidents of bad parenting. leaving dogs in hot cars makes me mad enough (i will occasionally go into stores and have the owner of the vechicle paged if i see this), but these are <b>children</b>. i think the thing that really makes me sick is the story she concocted to justify her actions. wow.

http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/06/29/dea...car/index.html

I'm surprised nobody else noticed them. Or, maybe someone did and didn't give it much thought.

I would say it's a random instance of stoopid people who shouldn't have children. I think it would be unfair to make business owners provide some sort of child care. Parents should make their own arrangements if they need to go someplace where children shouldn't or can't go.

Natural Selection in it's simplest form, folks. :)

I really don't believe in the death sentence but this woman deserves to suffer physically for what she did. This seems to happen on a somewhat regular basis in this country, does it happen elsewhere?

Not really. The utter moron with zero redeeming value was the one who _survived_.

But her genes will not pass on to the next generation, and it's a direct result of her stupidity. Natural Selection isn't about individuals, it's about bloodlines.

eh, shes only 25, shes got time to squeeze a few more out...

i totally agree. its the parents responsibility to make sure their kids are taken care of. i wont leave my kid alone in the car for 30 seconds. thank god for pay-at-the-pump.

this woman should suffer. every couple of months i hear about something like this, maybe more often. of all the stupid things to do. anyone who gets into their car after the suns been on it for a while realizes its significantly hotter inside than out. even with the windows down. its negligence to the extreme, and as far as im concerned its child abuse. anyone capable of doing that to a child needs to to suffer grievously.

~james

If she's convicted of first degree murder, then she'll probably be done.

However, there could be some remorse or tearful plea from the family, the charge is knocked down to 2nd degree murder or negligent homicide, she gets maybe 15 years...then yeah, we could see more.

Jenni brought up a good idea when we were on the way to Baja Fresh for dinner.

For mothers like this, the punishment should be jail time <b>and</b> having her tubes tied (or some other sterilization technique) so that she cannot have children anymore. Maybe her ovaries would be removed.

People should not be allowed to have children if they are not going to take care of them. You need a license to drive, but anyone who can fuck can make a baby. There's something seriously wrong with that.

Definitely! This is one of our (Rho and I) favorite rallying cries.

I believe this has already been in the courts. I can't locate the specifics on google, but IIRC, a woman (of sound mind) was ordered to be sterilized using Depo-Provera. It was overturned on appeal, as one's reproductive rights cannot be taken away...I believe it had to do with "the pursuit of happiness." Wish I could find it. :(

One kind of waives those rights when they break the law though. You don't have all those freedoms in prison. If she wanted the right ot pursuit of happiness, she shouldn't have killed her kids.

The problem I see with ordering someone to be sterilized (even if only temporarily with Depo) is that it drudges up the days of eugenics and forced sterilizations. Worst case scenario, it could create a dangerous precedent. (Although, if I had it my way, there would be LOTS of people that get snipped...too many stoopid people. :) )

ACLU Warcry...
 

<b>Eugenics!!!</b>

Re: ACLU Warcry...
 

It is not just that she murdered her kids. Second, she drove around for an hour trying to decide what to do. Maybe the kids still could have been saved? Point three - then she tried to claim she was kidnapped and raped. Does the name Twana Brawley sound familiar? This is not just two counts of 3rd Degree murder. There are other factors nearly as despicable which should also be addressed separately. The common factor in all actions - no responsibility to society.

Having been outraged for a day, now to ask hard, logical, unemotional questions. What should be the penalty? Remeber, the kids are dead. If she claims remorse, are we to assume she has suffered enough? Will putting her in jail reform her? Will putting her to death solve anything?

It turns out she was pregnant.

Y'know, some stories are just soap operas masquerading as news.

pregnant, eh? cute. well, at least shell have nice hair in jail... :rolleyes:

i think that jail time would definately be suitable. she neglected her children. people who hit their kids wind up in jail, why shouldnt someone who murdered her kids through neglect? i doubt she will, and i dont really think she should, be put to death. unless, of course, evidence comes out that this was planned. then i may rethink my actions. as awful as it is, it appears to be accidental, not premeditated. i think the death penalty would be overkill (pardon the pun). tw asked if the loss of her two children was enough? i dont think so. if she didnt care enough to check on her children during the three hours she was at the salon, how much does she REALLY care that her children are dead? i know that sounds horrible, but it does reflect on her. undoubtedly, she feels remorse for her actions and a great sense of loss, but i somehow cant feel sympathy. the windows were rolled up. this is simple stupidity. other thoughts, anyone?

Re: Re: ACLU Warcry...
 

it doesnt sound like she is showing remorse. the way i see it, to feel remorse requires you to take responsibility for for your actions. she lied to cover her tracks. thats not remorse. it is murder and the punishment should fit the crime. i dont really know what is required for 1st, 2nd, or 3rd degree murder, this certainly went far beyond neglect. so if it was me handing out the punishment, id lock her up and throw away the key. objectively, she should receive a punishment appropriate to the 'degree' to which she committed murder.

~james

she has been charged with two counts of first degree murder, and one count of felony child abuse. if im not mistaken. just to let 'ya know.

Three generations of imbeciles...
 

Yes. By all means. Mr. Holmes had it right the first time around.

274 U.S. 200

The Detroit Free Press reports she was charged with two counts of felony murder and two counts of first-degree child abuse. No death penalty...life in prison is the max.

And I'll go with the life in prison. Her actions caused the deaths of two people. It'll give her a good 50-60 years to think about what she did and how it wrecked her life. Getting the death penalty to me is the easy way out (although I don't believe in the death penalty anyway). I'm a much bigger fan of mind torture. :)

this could be right, too :p i was getting my information from what i remembered reading off of cnn.com earlier.

Re: Re: ACLU Warcry...
 

I think she should be sentenced to six hours (two kids times three hours) locked in a car at the same temperature. Maybe just a wee bit warmer.

Re: Re: Re: ACLU Warcry...
 

i remember reading somewhere that a fullgrown person does a better job handling the heat than a child does, i think because of increased surface area. so sadly, she may survive that ordeal. unless, by 'just a wee bit warmer' you mean about a hundred degrees :) id be all for that.

~james

Re: Re: Re: Re: ACLU Warcry...
 

Like Mr. Mom said: " 220, 221, whatever it takes".

I'd think an adult would have less surface area per unit volume, but I'm not an expert on the subject.

me neither. but if i can dig up where i read that, ill post it. just as some anecdotal evidence, my son is sitting on my lap as i type, and he is way sweatier than i am. :)

~james

Im suprised that anyone is shocked by this behavior anymore. Doesnt this happen evey summer? To some poor child?
This woman should be at the least sterilized, at the exterme boiled alive.

I can recount to you hundreds of worse tales of Parents who were obviously anything but.

i think the fact that it does happen about every summer is part of the reason it still gets to people. you would think people would learn by now. and its not shock so much... as one of the judges said, we treat animals better than this. not to mention the story she conjured up. its just disappointing more than anything.

i don't want to defend her...
 

[devil's adv]

I don't want to defend her by any means, but I wonder... what's the point of jail time? Some people here have some, um, creative ideas for punishment, and I bet many of them were popular in the middle ages, but are they valid today? Plus, who are you to decied who has children and who doesn't? That's not sliding down a slippery slope, that jumping head first off the cliff!

But Is even jail time vaild today? What does that do, really?

I guess it keeps "bad people" all together, away from the rest of society, for at least some time. Many people are let out before their "life", and what will they have learned from jail? To be a good member of society? I'm not sure of that. They might have learnt that if you get caught it'll be hell on earth, but that's not all prisioners learn. They learn the best way to rip off a store and most likely many other "bad things". I guess for social value they learn how to be a part of the pack/gang. They learn their rank in the gang. That sure sounds like "reform" to me.

They might gain more resentment for their crime... or maybe the system that put them away. They might make plates, or dig ditches, or some other job away from the working poor. Hell, they might even make Nike's.

I know I'm just talking out my ass, but I've been thinking about the death penalty a lot recently, and I can't understand it. How is killing someone for their crime any better than what they did? I can't and don't want to defend these people's crimes (and hers two fold) but killing them seems like what the bully might think of on the school yard. It seems childish.

Even Galdalf said "There are many alive that should die, and many dead that ought to have life... can you bring it to them?" Silly quote, I know, but it got me thinking, and the death question led me to ask "What is a good punishment anyway?" and jail didn't pop up. I can think of a lot of bad things that jail might teach someone, and a thin few good things.

[/devil's adv]

And yes, It's 2:50am, I can't sleep for some reason, and I'm thinking big thoughts about life and death. Must be a Tuesday. I never got the hang of Tuesdays.

Share the day,
Seer/

I think the main purpose of jail time should be "keep the crime from happening again".

The woman obviously has a very difficult time dealing with the responsibility of having children. If she's capable of leaving them in a car for three hours (whether it's hot or not), she has serious issues. Now you examine the other facts of her story - that she drove around for an hour coming up with a BS story that puts the blame on someone else instead of simply accepting responsibility. You know, we probably wouldn't have even heard about this story if she hadn't lied to the police. If she had told the truth, she probably would have been slapped on the wrist and that would be that. And yet she did lie, and now she's shown that she's unfit to be a member of our society.

I'm against the death penalty too, but I have <b>no problem</b> with long jail sentences. Put simply, when you fuck up <b>that big</b>, you forfeit your right to live a normal life. It sucks, but that's the way of it. We don't need grossly negligent people running around this planet. It's always someone else that ends up paying the price for their errors.

In some cases, one could hope that the purpose of the penal system is to reform the offender. But a lot of the time is purely for behavior shaping purposes.

Actually, *I'm* looking for a suitable punishment for people who say things like "I know I'm talking out my ass and this is real stupid but blah blah blah blah...." in a public forum.

If you *are* talking out your ass and it *is* really stupid, why post it?

Because sometimes you just want to be social and you don't want people to pound your ass for it.

To communicate with the other ass talkers. (is this a new Nick Cage vehicle?) Hail brave one daring stupidity in public!

correct vBcode is [asstalking]my stupid comments[/asstalking]

amen.

the idea of saying "were sending you to jail to rehabilitate you" to this woman makes me sick. she doesnt need rehabilitation, she needs punishment. the rehabilitation hopefully occured about 10 seconds after she realized she killed her children. "oh, shit. my kids are dead and its fucking hot in here. guess i wont do that again". if she has any brains at all, she already knows shes failed catastrophically as a mother. all that remains is for her to get her comeuppance.

~james

Must be some new meaning of "social" with which I am unfamiliar . Besides, don't people usually pound the part that's talking? :-) If you don't want your ass pounded, talk with your hands or something.

Next, on blackbeltjones.com: asschalking

my ass...
 

sorry, maggie, for the "talking out my ass". I just noticed a change in topic from this criminal woman to her punishment, and I wanted to change the topic to just punishment.
As for this, i would have to add "for a few years." Of course, I don't have a replacement for jail time, and I really don't know enough on the subject to assert anything... I just wanted to see the conversation keep going.

Seer

I first ask about reasons for her mistake. Only then can I proceede to answer what is appropriate legal action.

Too many are more concerned about their rights then their responsibilities to maintain those rights. She was more concerned with her own personal needs before she was concerned with responsibilities to her kids. Then she continued worrying about her rights rather than her responsiblities to society. She made no effort to revive the kids AND she made no effort to confront her mistakes. So again, she was more concerned with her rights than with her responsibilities. She continues to violate personal responsibilities that are required of all adults. Therefore she has not demonstrated any rehabilitation - and probably never will. She repeatedly demonstrates actions that only a criminally irresponsible person would perform.

I have no problem with the death penalty. I have a serious problem with how it is implemented - by a legal system more interested in winning a case than in the purpose of the law.

Re: my ass...
 

Why apologize? That was a good post...at least in this asstalker's opinion. :)

I believe part of the problem with prison is that too much is put into the punishment aspect, and not into the rehabilitation part. In addition, the criminal element still exists in many, if not most, prisons (guards sneaking contraband in, prisoners attacking each other with homemade weapons, etc.). Yes, if you commit a crime, you should lose some (if not all) of your freedom. But if we don't try to make these people better people, then what good is it really? The recidivism rates are disturbing.

There are a lot of utopian ideas that I think could be employed to prevent future criminals, like better environments in which to grow up, leveling the playing field, etc. But anyway...perhaps it's time to employ some of Skinner's techniques to achieve better results. Offer positive reinforcements, lower the punishment factor...after all, the people are already locked up.

There's also the possibility that this woman was just a bad seed to begin with...one that will never be a productive member of society:

--"Court records showed that Tarajee Maynor, 25, ignored court dates and traffic tickets. Her driver's license was suspended three times and she has been barred from driving since 1999.

Maynor pleaded guilty in September 1999 to stealing more than $15,000 in jewelry from her then-employer, Service Merchandise in Livonia, Mich., The Associated Press reported. A warrant was reportedly issued after she did not appear for sentencing in January 2000." (WDIV-TV, Detroit)

This of course is an incomplete picture, but it does offer some possible clues. I'd say at this point that there is little chance she will get less than life in prison, but perhaps there is a chance to make her a better person behind bars.

Good post seer...you might be interested in Skinner's "Walden Two."

Re: Re: my ass...
 

The idea that the first purpose of a prison is "rehabilitation" is relatively recent. In fact the word itself is a little question-begging; it suggests *restoring* a condition that for meny criminals has never existed: an ethical system strong enough to keep them from comitting crime.

It's far from clear that the state knows how to do this.
Cookie!

Finding criminality in prisons isn't really all that surprising, is it?

Re: Re: Re: my ass...
 

True. I think part of that depends on the funding a state gives to its corrections system. How much is it really worth to them? What is their own intent for criminals?

???

Well, yes and no. Obviously, you have a place full of convicted criminals. But if they're in prison for being a criminal, and part of the purpose is punishment, why expose them to any more criminality?

what's the "punishment" then?
 

So, that begs the question: Is the "punishment" being in jail, or getting ass fucked in jail? And is the system using that as a deterrent?

Time To sleep.

Re: Re: Re: Re: my ass...
 

And how do you avoid that? It's not like the crime going down inside is encouraged; it's simply too expensive to prevent.

The prison represents an attempt to at least isolate the most dangerous behavior away from the bulk of society. They're simply not able to totally prevent it inside. That the criminals victimize each other isn't really by design, but rather a side effect..

FUCK!

as common as this is, i cant believe punishment for such stupidity is as lenient as it is.

maybe theyre charging him with failing to blah blah blah, but he is guilty of child abuse. why dont people see that?

~james