In Denver, Colorado, a father, Ernesto Talavera-Nunez, is charged with the death of his 11-month-old son who touched exposed electrical wires on an alarm clock that he had repaired. He could now face 16 years for a class-three child abuse felony.
The boy ultimately suffered burns and died of cardiac arrest.
Frankly, I have been critical of some criminal charges for parents who are lose children in acts of negligence, click here. For an otherwise loving but careless parent, there is no punishment that will equal the loss of the child. In this case, however, the clearly stupid act of leaving an exposed electrical wire deserves some criminal punishment.
Nature use to have a way of doing weeding but under the fear of lawsuits Nature is now hesitant to weed.
dundar:
I can’t tell is your comment is offensive or so vaporous as to be incomprehensible. “Weeding” as in people?
Dundar:
I agree with Mespo. Your last comment appears to make a highly offensive comment with racial overtones. Even without the racial overtones, it is highly offensive. I will assume that no racial animus is intended, but I ask that you be more circumspect in your comments on this blog.
JT
JT, I doubt that “Dunbar” (I’ll refrain from using the obvious and more appropriate name) will comply with your request. He has made no effort at any time to be circumspect or in any way respectful in the time I’ve been posting here. I’ve lost count of the highly offensive remarks he has made in the past, this is just his newest one. Of course I agree that this is one of the worst he’s made, but I seriously doubt it will be his last.
The facts are thin here. While I agree with the idea behind criminal negligence, I don’t know if the acts here rise to that level. Certainly a very sad situation. It makes me feel justified in my paranoia over the safety of my kids.
I’m sorry, but the presumption that parents must be immaculate or suffer the pains of imprisonment is not what the founders had in mind.
This is clearly a racially motivated case. Look at the guys face. He’s scary, huh? Mean looking, ethnic. I’m sure we all know that if this was a lilly white looking white collar businessman, everyone would be consoling him now on what a “terrible accident” this was.
And that was after all, all it was.
An ACCIDENT.
But today, if you’re ethnic, and “street looking”, anything that happens to your kids is now called “child abuse”.
Was the dad negligent? Perhaps.
Poors more like it.
He had to fix his alarm clock probably because he couldn’t afford a new one. And its a tragedy that his kid accidently touched it.
But it is NOT child abuse.
dundar is troll. I think it’s best to ignore him.
So what about the white woman (in Denver) who let her six year old wander off and drown in a pond that was visible from her apartment. Why was the hispanic man charged and not her? Any “weeding” going on here dundar?
I agree that on the written facts alone I am at a loss as to why this guy was charged. Stupidity yes, criminal no, barring any unmentioned facts like there was some reason to believe he was a sadist, or wanted to kill the child. Palindrome’s point was on target. Too often the wealth or ethnicity of the parent is a huge factor in how they’re viewed by child welfare.
I would agree with Michael Spindell that being stupid is not a crime. At least it shouldn’t be a crime. Prof. Turley is right that it was very negligent to leave exposed wires, but I don’t know if it reaches the level of criminality and especially not a felony.
Funny, I said the same thing as palindrome, but no one agreed with me.
Dundar, I would guess you mean that Mother Nature use to have its way of weeding out the stupid among us, but Mother Nature stopped doing it because Mother Nature was afraid of getting sued so now we have all these stupid people having kids.
Correct?
Dundar, you have to clarify your remarks for the liberals here. they have a real hard time understanding the american language since they only listen to keith olbermann and co.
The “american language”? That’s what you neoconservatives are speaking?
Well hell, that explains a lot. No wonder no one else can understand you guys.
The rest of us are speaking English.
You guys should consider publishing a dictionary or a translation reference book or something.
Here. Let me get you started.
English language “american language”
————— —————
Getting our assess kicked “Victory”
5 more years of bloody war “Major combat
operations are
complete
Lying
martha h:
That’s not what he meant and you know it. The only possible conclusion is that the “weeding” came at the expense of an innocent 11 month year old who suffered the consequences, and that position is embarrassingly low even for you.
Sorry Martha, the formatting on that dictionary effort got all messed up… or as you would call it, succeeded.
Cro Magnum,
You are correct that the intelligent left understand that the language spoken here is English. I am guessing that the term “American language” is what Bush tries to speak when his handlers let him speak without any electronic devices to assist him.
Ahh, so that’s what it sounds like? That stuff we’re always hearing from Bush?
What a rich and fascinating language they have.
Sort of like Algonquin, but with a drawl.
No way could Bush handle Algonquin! Pig Latin, maybe.
hmmm, yea, guess you’re right there Raff.
He sure seems to have the “pig” portion of it down cold.
In fact, one could call his veto pen an “oink-pen”.
Killing your own son is about as much punishment as one who owns a heart could get, but hey, give ‘em 16 years, that ‘ll help everyone.
Yea except he didn’t kill his son.
It was an ACCIDENT.
But in today’s new “PENAL America”, there are no accidents.
Instead we take them, turn them into crimes, so that we compound tragedy’s by heaping more tragedy on those who survive.
Criminal charges? It is not unreasonable to believe the father made no connection to the potential danger to his child when repairing that clock. Of course it is not the proper way to do such a repair, but to face a long jail term? This a tragedy, but seems like an accident, and an example of less than stellar judgement. Of course facts not available in the story might indicate otherwise, but barring details that significantly change that story presented, should one go through life worried that simple acts of every day life could potentially result in one spending a decade and half of their life in a cage? Also, as Professor Turley noted, the punishment of the loss of a child is unequaled.
I think the prosecutors need to accept the existence of concept called a MISTAKE. He may have actually made a wholly adequate repair in every respect other than it being 11-month-old-kid-proof (e.g., gnawing on wires, etc.)
etc etc etc – niblet aka dundar aka martha aka martha h aka bartlebee aka zakimar aka cromag’non’man aka jim winchester
http://jonathanturley.org/2008/07/28/getting-right-with-god-church-shooter-allegedly-targeted-knoxville-church-due-to-its-liberal-views/
mespo727272 1, July 29, 2008 at 3:07 pm
Patty C:
Unless we see more, you’ve won with the “under” bet since he only went for 7 hysterical replies. I am guessing more is to come, but I am willing to concede defeat. I also think we should nominate Gyges for the Euphemism Award after our hero’s diatribe against him for something he didn’t say and in response to a question to someone other than our comical friend. “Wordy”, how’s that for avoiding the real thing? Bravo Gyges! I haven’t wanted this to be competitive, but in my sport we do know victory is at hand when we get into the head of the opponent. We’re there and it’s vast, desolate, and scary. Yikes!
jonathanturley 1, July 30, 2008 at 8:01 am
BARTLEBEE:
I have removed three of your comments which included foul language directed at another person. This site is committed to civil discourse. I do not want to bar or censor anyone on a site that has free speech focus, but we need to maintain a minimal standard of civility in discourse. Also, I would appreciate it if you would try to combine some of your comments rather than have four or five one-line comments following in one after another. The problem is that there is a limit on the number of comments which appear on the opening page. We welcome continued exchanges and dialogues. However, having four comments in an uninterrupted line prevents other comments from being visible for the other readers on the home page comments column.
JT
BARTLEBEE 1, July 30, 2008 at 2:07 pm
No problem JT.
Since you permit bloggers like mespo and patty to attack new bloggers, unprovoked, and litteraly badger them until they finally retort with some uncivility of their own, and then penalize the blogger who dares respond to the non stop stalking attacks of your two favorite friends, I will do you one better.
I’ll leave your blog and never post in it again.
You guys spend your days damning the right for cronyism, yet clearly it is a dual standard when it comes to your own.
Notice not one word to mespo or patty, about their non stop attacks on me.
Not one word about how they follow me from thread to thread, insult me, harrass me, demonize me, and generally try and interfere with my comments to other bloggers.
Just let them piss me off enough to wear I might use some questionable language, and then walla. Here comes the teacher to chastize me for responding to these two GOONS you keep on hand to drive out anyone who won’t goosestep to the blog beat.
This isn’t a vehicle for free expression, nor does the free speech you so loudly proclaim on Countdown exist here.
What you have here, is an “ECHO CHAMBER”, where bully liberals like messpo and patty c, are permitted to drive out new bloggers by badgering them until they either leave, or react in a way that draws your rebuke.
Well, you can “say” you don’t like to censor all you want, but you just censored me, and without so much as an inkling of alluding to the bloggers, who harrassed me until I finaly let loose with some bad language, obviously to try and discourage them from talking to me.
I don’t talk that way, it should have been obvious to you that my intent was to make it unpleasent for them to keep harrassing me.
But apparently that was neither visible to you, or you just didn’t care. Either way, I won’t hang out in an ECHO CHAMBER, where left WINGNUTS like Patty and your pal messpo, are permitted to badger bloggers, but responses from those bloggers are censored and stifled.
I really thought you believed the stuff you say on Countdown, and who knows, maybe you do.
You just don’t practice it yourself.
So I will bid you good morning sir, and leave you to your ECHO CHAMBER, so you guys can “talk” about free speech.
Oh… and in case I don’t see you, good afternoon, good evening, and goodnight.
******************
When are you leaving-again? So we can mark our calendars in gleeful anticipation…