The other day, I watched a Law and Order SVU episode about a child who had a genetic defect that caused her to grow abnormally. In order to be able to better care for her, the parents forced her to take medication that permanently stunted her growth. The episode was based on real life events.
In January of 2007, the parents of a girl named Ashley had a surgery entitled “growth attenuation” performed on her to permanently stunt her growth to keep her at 4 feet 5 inches. This treatment also includes sterilizing Ashely. Ashley has severe physical and mental disabilities. The parents stated the treatment was for her comfort and to make it easier to carry her and include her in family activities. Ashely was of course much to young to consent to or even understand what was being done to her.
The case created a huge medical and ethical controversy. The hospital and parents defended their decision to to do the surgery while others in the medical community and general public were outraged. You can read the story and see photos of Ashley here
The hospital and the doctors who performed the surgery were roundly criticized for performing the procedure. The Seattle hospital performing the surgery was later found to have broken state law when doctors performed a hysterectomy on Ashley as part of the treatment. Under Washington law minors can not be sterilized without court order.
At what point does the attempt to control genetics become perverse and who gets the say in how much is too much? In Ashley case, there was no guardian ad litum appointed. There was no independent voice speaking for Ashley. Do we need better legal checks and balances before we permanently alter the life course of those who can not speak for themselves. I am not passing judgment on what went down. I do not have children and don’t know what I would do. You can get her parent’s perspective by viewing their website.
Where do we draw the line between the best interest of the child and the best interest of the parents.
This is just the tip of the genetics sword. What if genetic testing during pregnancy told Ashley’s parents that Ashely would have these problems? It is a given that in my lifetime, your lifetime or your child’s lifetime, genetic testing will advance to the point where many deadly and life changing maladies will be able to be detected prior to birth. Genetic engineering and testing is BIG business.
Am I a going to far when I state that I see a world in the not to distant future where genetic testing for certain diseases will be mandatory and it will be a crime to conceive if you test positive for certain genetic disorders. Such a movement would most likely start in more overpopulated areas of the world with less freedoms but I do see it coming. China already has its’ “one child policy“. Is the next genetic step a “One Child No Defects” policy?
The law is now only beginning to address these issues. We can expect that it will lag behind scientific discovery. Lawmakers are not known for foresight. It is fear that generates action. Congress just recently reached an agreement clearing the way for a bill to prohibit discrimination by employers and health insurers on the basis of genetic tests. You can read about it here.
The Texas Court of Appeals has finally restored order to one tiny corner of the universe. It has ordered the return of the Texas Polygamist Children to their parents holding that there was an almost complete failure of proof to justify such an action. You can read the opinion here.
The removal of the children at th Texas Polygamist Compound is the latest example of knee jerk panic leading to mass violations of human and constitutional rights.
I am braced for all the outrage comments but The Texas Court Of Appeal did the right thing in returning the Texas Polygamist Children to their parents. What happened here was nothing more than a an attempt to use the court system to kidnap children because we panicked. This was a “legal lynch mob”. Not legal in the sense that what was done was legitimate, legal in the sense that it was a judicial lynching.
I am not saying there are children who were not in legitimate danger. I frankly agree that they may have been. What I am saying is this is not Communist China or North Korea. Those parents had and have rights. You can not mass bypass the rights of all these parents by doing it tecnically right for a few and using “panicked supposition” for the rest.
Panic and fear are not legal grounds to circumvent the law. How have these knee jerk panic decisions that ultimately wasted time and money with no real benefit to the children protected those rights? The children are going back. (an appeal if any will fail) and if anything was going on the parents and their lawyers are ready and loaded for bear.
Is the greater tragedy that the children must be returned or that it will now be more difficult then ever to help them even doing it the right way because the state tipped its hand with the panic move.
I have said it before and I will say it again. The greatest threat to mankind is knee jerk panic and knee jerk stupidity. The public sees something that so disgusts and shakes them to the very core of everything that we deem decent and the next thing you know all hell breaks lose.
It is like throwing a rock into the lake and the ripple effect. At the center where the rocks hits is the incident that disgusts us. What we don’t think about at the time is that those ripples moving outward begin to consume everything in their path that at the closest point may be similar but at the the furthest point from ground zero, we are burning books, arresting every kid who draws a disturbing picture in his notebook and calling the cops on our neighbor because he drives and ice cream truck and therefore must be abusing children.
At the time we are all consumed with our panic and making irrational decisions we completely forget about the fact that for every decision of flawed logic we make at the center of the ripples, cause and effect pushes outward with often tragic consequences that we have neither thought about nor care about in our all consuming fear and hate. Knee Jerk panic at its’ best.
For all us constructionists I am aware the Constitution of the United States certainly does not prohibit legal lynchings by specific words but I don’t have to go back and read it to know that the words “blessings of liberty” are in there.
A “rubber stamped” removal of the children based on no proof at all chills me to the bone. In order to lose the rights instilled by that blessing, we have something called Due Process. I don’t have to read the Constitution to know those words are in there as well. Due process includes having to meet your burden before punishment is inflicted.
While I certainly understand the argument that because there was compliance with the Texas Family Code there was no due process violation, using statisitics and self serving reports and conclusions to remove children en-mass by-passing your burden of proof for each indiviudal parent-child relationship sounds smells bad to me…..
I did look for the words “legal lynch mob” but could not find them anywhere. If anyone reads the Constution and finds them please let me know.
You can read the Constitution Of The United States right here.
I say legal lynch mob… What do you think?
BLOG UPDATE 5/24/08 The State of Texas has filed an emergency appeal to the Texas Supreme Court. You can read the emergency motion here.
BLOG UPDATE 5/29/08 The Texas Supreme Court Upholds Court Of Appeals Ruling and Orders the Texas Polygamist Children Returned To Their Parents. Read about it here. Read the Supreme Court Opinion here.
The city of Duncanville, Tx which is suburb of Dallas has been involved in its own little Jerry Falwell style bible belt battle with the owners of a private “swingers club” called “The Cherry Pit“. The Cherry PIt is a private residence tucked in away in an upscale Duncanville residential neighborhood. The Cherry Pit advertises on the internet and according to published reports draws as many as 100 guests to a weekend gathering.
The Cherry Pit has been throwing adult-oriented parties where couples pay a fee for entry and can engage in pretty much any type of sexual activity they want on the premises. It is the position of the owners that this does not constitute a “business” as the entrance money is to cover the cost of food, soft drinks etc and not a fee for the privilege of engaging in sex from the tame to the “Pulp Fiction” apple in the mouth brand of entertainment…. It is rumored for an extra service charge they will even “bring out the gimp“….(just kidding)
The whole bru ha ha started back in November of 2007 when after several years of Cherry Pitt neighbors complaining about the crime, traffic and “unsavory element” “the pit” was bringing to the neighborhood, the City of Duncanville passed the following ordinance:
“the operation and maintenance of a sex club to be unlawful and a public nuisance. Violation of the new ordinance can result in a fine of up to $2,000.”
The city of Duncanville then decided that the gatherings at the Cherry Pit were more than just a gathering of “friends and family” looking for some fun and determined that it was in fact a sexually oriented business and subect to the ordinance. The response of Julie Norris, one of the owners of “The PIt” was as follows:
“I don’t know what their definition of a business is, but to my understanding a business is public - anyone can just walk into it and you must pay to get in and we are none of that,” Norris said. “I accept donations. Have you ever had your friends over for a barbecue and asked everyone to pitch in $5 or bring a dish? That is exactly what we do. The only requirement to get into my home is that you call and let me know that you are coming and you are on my reservation list.”
Ms Norris went on to state that she believed that the ordinance is a guise to attack their lifestyles and beliefs and that the ordinance regulating the club violated their First Amendment Rights to Privacy.
“It boils down to people want to put their morality into my private home and I am going to stand against that,” Norris said. “That is not what the Constitution allows.”
The owners of the Cherry PIt subsequently counter sued the city claiming the ordinance banning sex clubs violates their privacy and due process rights. They are basically using the same argument under which a right to privacy was found under Roe v. Wade. They have to use this method in making the right to privacy argument because there is in fact no right to personal privacy spelled out in the Constitution.
The Cherry Pit’s attorney, Ed Klein, said the city is trying to regulate private acts in a private home using the public nuisance law as a “pretext” to do so….
The Cherry Pitt has remained open while all the legal wrangling has taken place… Just today the City of Duncanville broadened the ordinance designed to shut the club down by making the definition of a sex club more general and add a local appeal process for sex clubs that the city orders to close.
So what you do think? Should private citizens be allowed to “swap pits” at the Pitt without the government getting its’ rocks off?
My initial gut reaction is to always have a problem when big brother enters my home and says you can’t do this or you can’t do that. My gut however has to take a back seat to the fact that this is done all the time.
You obviously can’t do cocaine or heroin in the privacy of your home. Both of these things are illegal regardless of where they are engaged in.
What about gambling? Consenting adult coming together to play poker or even chess for money? When does the government have the right to regulate such victimless consenting acts that may not be illegal in and of themselves? When is there a compelling government interest?
If your 100 closest friends are playing poker for big bucks at your place is it a friendly gathering or an illegal gambling operation? if you have take a cut of the pot, it is an illegal gambling operation subject to regulation and you as the owner of the home can go to jail. An act not necessarily illegal in itself but one that could be illegal based on the circumstances in which it occurs.
You can’t run a gambling operation in the privacy of your home and guess what? You can not charge people for the privilege of having indiscriminate, anonymous sex in your home. Just like taking a cut of the house makes your little gambling gathering illegal, taking profits at the Cherry Pit makes you the equivalent of the D.C. Madam
Let us also keep this in mind. Duncanville is NOT attempting to regulate the “Piters” showing up at the house. They are attempting to regulate the owners of the home in allowing the “Piters” to engage in sex for a fee at their home…. The government is NOT regulating where and with whom you can have sex with. They are telling the owners of the Pit that if they are charging you to do it, they are subject to government regulation. There is a huge difference…
No one is going to tell you that you cant go down to your local red light district and get a BJ from Sallie the local crack addict or Eddie the cross dressing pimp or even take Sallie of Eddie to the Cherry Pit for some fun. We of course know however that the act of handing over a dollar in exchange for the BJ makes the otherwise consenting act illegal prostitution on one end and the illegal act of soliciting a prostitute on the other end no matter where it occurs (in addition to whatever other nasty stuff goes with “the other end”). The government has decided that there is a compelling government interest to regulate and/or criminalize such acts…
Here is the problem as I see it. Whatever law passes constitutional muster can not be based on counting soft drink and pretzels receipts. If you break even its a gathering of friends. if you come out five bucks ahead your running a sex shop…. A law enforced by accountants…. An unenforceable vague statute that will not pass constitutional muster just as I predict the Duncanville statute will fail. Not because what is going on at the PIt is morally right or wrong but because you can not have a law based on counting pretzels and coke cans….
Duncanville may ultimately be able to come up with a law that passes constitutional muster and shuts the club down. I predict the current try is “the pits”…..
In a case that has sparked national attention and will surely spark a new Law and Order SVU episode, a Dallas women has been sentenced to 5 years in prison for making a false rape accusation that ultimately lead to the murder of her lover.
The sentence stems from a bizarre set of facts starting with a false claim of rape to cover up an affair and ending with the murder of her lover (the man she falsely accused) by her outraged husband.
Mrs. Tracey Roberson, 37, was convicted Friday of manslaughter in the 2006 shooting death of Devin LaSalle. Prosecutors said it was Mrs. Roberson’s husband, Darrell, who fired the fatal shot but only because his wife falsely claimed she was being raped by Mr. LaSalle.
Mr. LaSalle died in December 2006 after Mr. Roberson shot him outside the Robersons’ south Arlington, Texas home. Mr. Roberson shot Mr. Lasalle after he returned home from a card game and caught Mr. LaSalle and his wife – who was clad in only a bathrobe and underwear at the time – together in Mr. LaSalle’s truck
The case was presented to a grand jury. In a soap opera crime show twist the grand jury declined to indict Mr. Roberson(the husband) for the actual shooting and instead indicted Mrs. Roberson on manslaughter charges. Yes, that is correct , at least for now,Mr. Roberson will face no criminal responsbility here for the actual shooting.
The sentencing jury deliberated more than 2 days before sentencing Mrs. Roberson to Five Years in Prison.
This case really bothers me. Not because Mrs. Roberson is going to do time but because Mr. Roberson who engaged in a textbook case of manslaughter himself will walk away scott free. My gut tells me that he killed this guy because he was having an affair with his wife and not because his wife cried rape. Did he take his rage of past indiscretions in the relationship out on this guy? Did he know about this guy prior to the shooting? There was some testimony that he was suspicious of her infidelities…. It is not clear whether he knew anything about this specific affiar prior to the shooting. Would that change your opinion on justification if he did?
If the husband knew absolutely nothing and this was a pure spur of the moment decision to try to save his wife, I would feel better about the justification defense here.
Did Mrs. Roberson deserve to do 5 years? I don’t think so but I was not siting on the jury.
If you read up on the case there were a lot of facts presented that certainly did not make Mrs. Roberson likeable person and I am sure that had a lot to do with the severe sentence. There was also testimony of Mrs. Roberson of abuse by her husband with no corroborating evidence. I think introducing this testimony with nothing to back it up backfired on her and made her even more unlikeable as simply looking like someone with her hand caught in the cookie jar……
Finally and in my mind most importantly , juries take claims of rape very seriously. Juries don’t like people who don’t take them seriously. Juries don’t like people who cry wolf with a cry of rape to cover up affairs….
Juries maybe want to send a message to the next person who thinks about crying rape in a crowded theater…..
The other day, I watched a Law and Order SVU episode about a child who had a genetic defect that caused her to grow abnormally. In order to be able to better care for her, the parents forced her to take medication that permanently stunted her growth. The episode was based on real life events.
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