Religious Nuts Kill Own Daughter—Is Their Sentence Appropriate?

@ebrown p,

I agree with ebrown, the calls for the death penalty are likely ascribable to religious bigotry.

I really hate this kind of ignorance, and I knew a lady who died in a similar situation. She had an ectopic pregnancy and prayer didn't save her. I also contracted many "childhood diseases" because I've never been vaccinated against anything for religious reasons. Only once was I ever taken to the doctor, and it was because I used friction on the thermometer to simulate a very high fever (enough so that the thermometer said to seek immediate medical help). Most of the time it was a laying on of hands that was prescribed by those around me, and a discussion about what bad things I might have done to bring on God's punishments.

I hate the ignorance that religion causes, especially when it comes to basic science and health care, but it just doesn't make sense to call for the death of ignorant people just because you hate the religious ignorance. These people are subscribing to dangerous delusions, and it's important to take the intent into context. They just aren't murderers, and calling them such (like on Wilso's other thread about this) and calling for the death penalty is just another form of ignorance about the matter.

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There is a cemetary full of kids from the Followers of Christ church here.

In a trial last month the mother was acquited and the father was convicted of manslaughter.

Another trial starts in a few months for yet another kid killed by this cult.

And yet another baby died just last week.

Eventually this cult will be emlinated simply because they let all their "congregation" die.

In my opinion, it might not be murder but it is homocide.

The thing that always completely pisses me off about this stuff is that they call in medical experts to testify for the defense. They don't believe in doctors until their own idiot heads are on the line. Frikken hypocrites.

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@ehBeth,

ehBeth wrote:

There should be no "credit" for murder by stupidity and neglect.

You are ignorant of the definition of murder.

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@ebrown p,

Quote:

I would like to know how much this venom revolves around knee-jerk anti-religious bigotry. Let's consider other situations where a parents idiocy causes their children to die.

You seem especially to want to pardon this event. As was said before, youre POV is interesting, myopic , but still interesting.

Still some Evangelical tendrils hanging about your logic bone?

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@Robert Gentel,

It could well be that I'm not using the correct language for an American case. I'm not going to get fussed about that.

I think 6 months over 6 years is too short a punishment.

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@sozobe,

I misread -- I thought they got 25 years.

One month per year over six years seems too light.

Death penalty is too much, for sure. I do think that intentionally killing one's child is worse than placing misguided hope in the power of prayer. I think they WANTED their child to live, but were criminally negligent in how they handled the situation.

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@ehBeth,

ehBeth wrote:

It could well be that I'm not using the correct language for an American case.

It's just as incorrect in Canada. In common law (which includes Canada) murder requires the intent to kill.

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@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

You seem especially to want to pardon this event. As was said before, youre POV is interesting, myopic , but still interesting.

He said that it was criminal, he said nothing at all about wanting to pardon the crime.

You guys are pretty dogmatic. Does it really have to be one extreme or the other for you?

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It's time to stop tolerating this type of criminally stupid and selfish behavior. She was dying right in front of their eyes and they couldn't admit they were wrong. If I could arbitrarily fix their sentence, I'd probably make it around 10 years.

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@farmerman,

Quote:

You seem especially to want to pardon this event. As was said before, youre POV is interesting, myopic , but still interesting.

Still some Evangelical tendrils hanging about your logic bone?

Using the term "myopic" to refer to someone willing to look at an issue from more than one perspective is poor word choice at best.

Your attempt at ad hominem fails to even make sense.

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And incidentally, they've learned absolutely nothing from their daughter's death:

During the sentencing hearing, Leilani Neumann, 41, told the judge her family is loving and forgiving and has wrongly been portrayed as religious zealots. "I do not regret trusting truly in the Lord for my daughter's health," she said....

"We live by faith," he said after the sentencing. "We are completely content with what the Lord has allowed to come down, but he is not done yet."

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@ebrown p,

Myopic" in that it is subtended by some past Evangelical experiences ONLY!!

Make sense now skippy?

If you ever have additional problems in comprehension, you can calll on a number of folks herein.

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@farmerman,

Quote:

Myopic" in that it is subtended by some past Evangelical experiences ONLY!!

You have such hostility farmerman.

I am not sure if you know what "Evangelical experiences" are, and you certainly don't know much about my experiences.

I am only suggesting that the ability to look at an issue from more than one perspective is a good thing. Having different life experiences helps this process. I have lived as a devout Christian with a strict subculture. I left that and now live as a secular, American with a science degree and a fairly typical liberal world view.

I am not sure if I would have made the same choices, but I like the perspective I have since I have been part of a couple of dramatically different subcultures.

But the point is, the religion of these parents seem irrelevant to the legal question of punishment. I think we agree that punishing people for being religious is impractical (if not a bad idea). The real question is the appropriate punishment for negligent homicide.

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I'm with Robert and ebrown. This was criminal negligence and homicide, but not murder.

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@Robert Gentel,

The point I was trying to make was that serving six months over six years is too short a sentence for causing someone's death.

Your point about my poor use of language <shrug>

I should have waited and quoted soz. Probably wouldn't have received a blink from you.

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@sozobe,

sozobe wrote:

One month per year over six years seems too light.

I agree.

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@ehBeth,

ehBeth wrote:

The point I was trying to make was that serving six months over six years is too short a sentence for causing someone's death.

I don't disagree with that, but I disagree with the notion, forwarded multiple times in two separate threads about this subject, that this is tantamount to murder and that there's little difference between this and intentionally drowning your kids in a bathtub.

Quote:

Your point about my poor use of language <shrug>

Language matters. If you were convicted of homicide but the judge started talking about murder you'd care about the language too.

Colloquially many people just use it for "something really bad" but we are talking about a legal case of homicide and not a legal case of murder. The distinction is hugely important in a legal setting.

Quote:

I should have waited and quoted soz. Probably wouldn't have received a blink from you.

Indeed, I have no qualm with what sozobe has said. She hasn't equated negligent homicide to murder. I wouldn't mind a tougher sentence here, but I would mind if this is treated with the chair, firing squad etc as has been suggested. The comparison to murder is what I'm objecting to, and it's not just for "language" reasons.

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@ehBeth,

Quote:

The point I was trying to make was that serving six months over six years is too short a sentence for causing someone's death.

Your point about my poor use of language <shrug>

I should have waited and quoted soz. Probably wouldn't have received a blink from you.

I agree in principle. The main problem with this is the well-being of their other children. Considering the fact that this crime is unlikely to be repeated, they should avoid making the other children suffer any more.

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@ebrown p,

ebrown p wrote:

I agree in principle. The main problem with this is the well-being of their other children. Considering the fact that this crime is unlikely to be repeated, they should avoid making the other children suffer any more.

That's a tough one for me. Taking the children from them is going to cause them deep suffering. But leaving the children with them may be dangerous. On this matter the answers are never going to be easy.

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@ebrown p,

Are you done patting your back e-brown. My comments were on your attempts to downplay the severity for the very responsibility of the crime , not whether we are arguing a definition .(Murder III,BTW, does not take INTENT in to account in several states ) Depraved Indifference (on which we can probably all agree ) is included in M III. Id argue that this was type section depraved indifference.

THis point was discussed in the previous thread about the same topic. (kicky's new thread is sort of a sentencing before judgement summation).
Dont think we wont see tons of appeals under Constitutional grounds. I can wait the three or more years it gonna take.

I missed it, but kicky and djjd were the only ones that even mentioned cap punishment and I think they were both less than serious.

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Religious Nuts Kill Own Daughter—Is Their Sentence Appropriate?

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