Legal Commentary

Are 1,000 Spankings Enough to Justify a Child Killing His Abuser?

By Jeralyn

About the 8 year old in Arizona who shot and killed his father and father's boarder: First the cops wanted to try him as an adult. Then, they learned of ledgers that the kid kept of every beating, and that the kid said when it got to 1,000, he would have had enough.

Susan Mernit at Huffington Post breaks down the gruesome and mathematical tally of the beatings -- and their impact on the boy.

It's another case of powerless children in our society with nowhere to turn to. This kid is going to have a unhealthy dose of PTSD as he gets older. Who will be there for him?

Check out Susan Mernit's article on the case today at HuffPo --she's outraged at the parent who was killed. Some snippets below:

If you'd been recording them since you were five, that would mean you'd been spanked almost once a day for the past 3 years, with 95 days off from getting your butt hit. If you'd started keeping track of the spankings when you were seven, which mean you were being hit more than 3 times a day for the past year.

Think about it. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, spanking. Every day for three years. Or, breakfast, spanking, dinner, spanking, before bed, spanking--spankings happening more frequently to this child per day than many people spent walking their dog.

Can you imagine living your life knowing that every day, at some point--perhaps more than once--a beating was going to happen? And that your father, responsible for mentoring you and your upbringing, was going to be the one to lay it on? Flat of the hand, paddle, belt, kitchen implement--did it matter after a while what your Dad hit you with?

Or was it just the consistent searing drip of the days, held together by having your pants pulled down and your butt beaten--not only by your Dad, but by his friend, a man who rented a room in their house.

How bad could any child be--any person--that someone could justify beating him, day after day?

If this isn't child abuse, I don't know what is.

Her conclusion:

When this case comes to trial, I have no doubt we are going to find out this child was a scapegoat for a sexual sadist or some other kind of pedophile sicko who found excuses to inflict pain on his son under the guise of discipline. And if that is true, this evil dad raised a son who killed out of self-defense.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on December 02, 2008 (boomark / email).