Previously, our contributor Charlton Stanley wrote about Kanawha County Prosecuting Attorney Mark Plants in a controversial foreclosure matter. Now, Plants is back in the news as the subject of a criminal case as opposed to the charging prosecutor. Plants is charged with beating his son with a belt and leaving a considerable bruise. He is claiming a constitutional right to such beatings as a parental choice on discipline.
Plants, the elected Republican prosecutor for the county, was charged with the beating after his ex-wife found a 6- to 7-inch bruise left by a leather belt. She says that Plants used the belt roughly ten times on the 11-year-old boy after he shoved his stepbrother off a scooter.
Plants is now married to his former secretary — a relationship that has previously caused concerns over favoritism in raises and ticket dismissals.
Plants is moving for a dismissal based on a constitutional claim of parental rights. The motion argued that, while the punishment left a mark, the “intent here was to discipline a child out of love and guidance, not to injure the child.”
The son said that Plants held him by his arm and struck him ten times with the belt. He says that Plants then took the boy upstairs and “stood him in front of his stepbrother” and asked the stepbrother “Do you think I whipped him enough?”
Some four days after the beating, the boy still have a large bruise on his thigh. Plants, 37, insists that he only struck the boy twice for no more than 20 seconds.
Plants is 6 feet 2 inches tall and weighs 280 pounds and played as a fullback on West Virginia University football team.
Plants has two sons with Allison Plants and a child with his new wife, Sarah Foster.
Allison Plants was granted an emergency domestic-violence protection order by Kanawha Family Court Judge Mike Kelly in February. Plants was charged in March with violating the DVP order. Both misdemeanor charges he faces carry a penalty of up to a year in prison.
Clearly, there are limits to a parent’s use of forms of physical punishment in drawing a line between parental discretion and child abuse. However, Plants could raises a difficult question. While child rearing experts have almost uniformly denounced spankings and beatings as punishments, many parents continue to use such punishment and neither society nor the courts) have found such discipline is by definition abuse. For example, use of a spoon to beat a child was not found to be abuse. Some states are moving to codify the level of permitted spankings. We have been politicians and judges caught up in this debate. Indeed, one judge actually ordered spanking in his courtroom while another chose to spank inmates in his chambers. Yet, we have seen these cases continue to be brought including one involving a mother on an airplane.
In the wooden spoon case, the California court stressed that there was no intention to leave a bruise and that “the spanking was entirely the product of a genuine and deliberate disciplinary purpose, i.e., to arrest troubling behavior patterns exhibited by the daughter.” It is a parental practice that has been around for centuries.
Growing up, my father would occasionally spank me or my four siblings. However, he would only use his bare hand and never use any belt or object. He had been abused as a child and he did not like spanking. He would quit as soon as we cried and apologized (which I often did on my way to the table to cut to the redemption stage more quickly). I did not view it as abusive and it was rarely done in my house. Notably, while I do not entirely reject spanking, I have yet to spank any one of my four kids. I have never found it necessary, particularly with the far more severe punishment of denying electronics. My kids would accept the rack before the loss of the Wii or XBox.
I have to admit that I was particularly disturbed by the account of the boy in the Plants case that he was brought in front of his stepbrother who was asked if he was spanked enough. Yet, I would not argue that that is abusive. I just view it as a remarkably poor choice of a parent if it did in fact occur. The legal question is more straightforward (though hardly easy). It is a question of degree since it is doubtful that the court would declare any and all spanking to be abuse. That leaves a rather tough question of line drawing. Any switch or belt or spoon is likely to leave a bruise. Spanking is supposed to cause physical pain. That is why many experts view it as brutal and counterproductive.
If there is no evidence that Plants’ broke the skin and the examination found a single bruise, should the court dismiss the case in your view? The problem that I foresee is that the court would have to rule on the record as it exists now — without expert or live testimony. It seems to me that a large bruise can reflect excessive force (particularly days later). The court would need to have a good idea about the level of force that would leave such a mark even if the court accepted that some spanking is permissible.
What do you think?
Source: WV Gazette
Kraaken, I always enjoy your common sense, wise, comments. The way I see it is you NEVER spank your child in anger. That pretty much eliminates any problems.
You leave a mark, you break the law.
this man is a thuggish brute despicably exerting his power over a (much smaller) child. It’s shameful.
that anyone argues that it’s just jealousy and resentment on the part of the ex-wife and the son, or wonders how just big the bruise was, or harkens back with apparent fondness to their own childhood whippings/beatings…it’s 2014…there are more effective ways of parenting in a civilized society (not saying we have one) that don’t resort to bullying/beating.
What randyjet said.
Paul Schulte, as a fellow Arizonan, I got ‘swats’ once in grade school. However, in our school (a public one) the act was performed in front of the class and limited to two swings of the paddle. To me, that was a lot more devestating that being sent to the principal’s office. Besides, I knew when my mom got home that night, I would get it all over again. There were a number of times I went to school with belt marks on my butt (my dad passed when I was 11 and mom was a single mom and I was bigger than she) and I can’t think of a single one of those incidents when I didn’t deserve what I got. The point is, it did me no harm and actually kept me from doing other things that might have led to much worse punishment. There is a difference between ‘spanking’ and ‘beating. 10 hits with a belt does seem excessive, but like beauty (or the CIA), it’s in the eye of the beholder. My sisters and I grew up and are all successful, well adjusted adults. From the past history that the professor is outlined, the guy is probably a grade A number one A****** with, as Charlton says, anger management, issues but that doesn’t mean that he should go to jail.
This sounds like attorneys seeking work. if there is a problem here it needs a physician not a lawyer. Thousands spend & time wasted to achieve what ? This incident might deprive this young lad of a college education – why do you think three years of law school provided such insight . Let the real professionals take care of such things – stay out of where skill is deficient
I have been both spanked and have spanked with a belt. In Arizona, schools are allowed to spank students and I have been witness to one such occasion. It was effective in changing the attitude of the student for the better.
My question is how easily does the kid bruise? Personally I bruise easily and usually do not know how I got them. My wife will ask, how did you get that bruise, and I, quite honestly, will answer “I have no idea.”
I can remember when being sent to the principal’s office meant you were going to get spanked. I am not sure that getting rid of that option has been good for education in general. I have had any number of students claim that I could not do anything to them because I would be charged with assault. Or that the school could not. Usually, we worked out a deal with the parents to take care of the problem. Those students were very contrite the next week.
bettykath is on the mark. It doesn’t matter what his intent was, what “level of force … would leave such a mark”, or anything else. If the act would constitute battery if committed on a non-family member, then it’s battery when committed on a family member.
Right on the head of the nail, seamus……..Well done.
Under NY’S penal law I’d charge him with assault 2 and criminal possession of a weapon. If he was a parent in Harlem or another minority neighborhood the police would arrest him and remove his other children to protective services. Of course since he’s a white guy and an attorney, and a Republican, chances are good nothing will happen to disturb his life.
I’m always amazed when parents don’t see the cause and effect between severe physical punishment and aggression in their children.
If Plants had hit a neighbor just once with the belt he could be charged. He hits his 11 year old child multiple times and there’s a question about whether or not he should be charged? There are many ways of providing discipline that don’t include an assault. Time outs and loss of privileges are two that are quite effective.
Disclosure: I was hit many times with an open hand, a willow switch, a belt, whatever was handy. It made me angry and resentful, not contrite. It also made me susceptible to choosing an abusive spouse, after all, it wasn’t abuse.
I get the impression that Mr. Planks is a horse’s a–.
According to many well respected constitutional authorities (e.g. John Yoo, Jay Bybee, etc.) this kid of child abuse is justified when it’s a matter of national security. If the kid’s brother was gathering intelligence on the neighbors while putzing around on his scooter, then there are no legal limits to the abuse Mr. Plants can heap on this tike. Rock-on Johnny Justice!!
http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110211224719/villains/images/d/d8/Stay-puft-marshmallow-man.jpg
He needs counseling, probably good for the whole family. The desire to harshly punish in all cases, even by the state, is the means of reproducing that which it seeks to destroy. I don’t support any level of physical punishment. It humiliates the child and can lead to an unhealthy result such as masochism and sadism. So can other forms of punishment, if manipulative and gratuitous. If one has a truly troubled child who has no or insufficient sense of right and wrong, how did the child get that way? Nature or nurture or most likely both. Most parents need to be trained to be parents, a great many follow in the footsteps of their own parents, for good or bad. Kindness works wonders on human beings as well as other animals. Physical punishments, coercion, manipulation, arbitrariness, name calling, humiliations, playing one child off against another, reap more of the same in most cases. Our society needs to be pay attention to the need for ratcheting down aggression. Instead we ratchet it up as the terrible situation in the police forces, in the prisons, in schools, in the military, among those in decision making power in the government among the policing agencies of the federal and state governments and in the national security state as whole, as well as the incidence of violence, physical, emotional, sexual, in the family and in the media, attests. Violence and every other evil usually reproduces itself setting off chain reactions of the same again and again.
This sounds very much like a continuation of a messy divorce. The ex-wife filed the complaint. The son was punished for assaulting a step-brother, who apparently lives with the father. It sounds as though jealousy and resentment on the part of the ex-wife and the son are the real root of this case. The courts should proceed with caution unless they are very sure of all the facts in this case. One child attacking another child warrants immediate and memorable punishment. This kind of behavior is likely to escalate into a very dangerous situation.
I have had cases referred to me for far less. The guy needs a full psychological workup in order for the Court to make an informed decision. I have also received referrals from the Bar Association to evaluate lawyers for mental stability. If he were sent to me, I would want to know what kind of anger management problem he has, if any. After that foreclosure fiasco, maybe an IQ test.
I think that one has to take into account the totality of this guy’s behavior and not just one instance. That he violated a protective order, clearly has problems with anger, and even worse, ACTS violently, he needs to be locked up. Once he is sentenced to jail perhaps on a misdemeanor charge, he might learn to act more appropriately towards those he is angry with. Just his spanking is not sufficient to charge him, and I would not think he should be jailed on that one act alone, but given his history, he needs to go to jail.
“The court would need to have a good idea about the level of force that would leave such a mark even if the court accepted that some spanking is permissible.
What do you think?”
That covers the issue well.
A motion without a hearing, expert testimony, and relevant factual findings seems inadequate.