In England and Wales, there has been an offence for years now of causing or allowing the death of (or severe harm to) a child. Prior to this law, when two adults each blamed the other for a child's death, neither could be successfully prosecuted for murder so the law was added to close that loophole. Here's a recent example where the mother was not the active killer but received a ten year sentence for allowing her son to receive fatal injuries. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2083lk7nr7o
Another example: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-65384347
And another: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c07gzr5r9eko
This law wouldn't just apply to parents or caregivers. Any adult living in the home of the child victim and witnessing their abuse without intervening could face prosecution. In the eyes of the law, you have an absolute moral imperative to take the child to safety, or exclude their abuser from the home, or summon emergency help, and being a victim of abuse yourself doesn't override that requirement.
This isn't the same situation, the prosecution isn't suggesting she killed him, he did. There's not a dispute over that, at least according to the article.
If this is to make children safe, then I think there should equally be culpability for police and the justice system when they've been called nearly 10 times about violence in the home. Why was there still a baby there? Why was this man still free when there's no argument he was violent and abusive?
The cases I cited above are also not where the mother has been the killer. In each case she was prosecuted not for killing but for failing to protect her child. I'm just pointing out that this is a rigorously-observed law within the England and Wales judicial system.
Right, but you were saying the loophole was that there was uncertainty around blame because of conflicting details and accusations. That's what I was responding to.
Bingo. This law is fantastic in theory, but just exists to put women in prison in practice. I called the cops because my neighbor was beating his toddler daughter to the point of agony weep screaming. I called the cops so many times they threatened to prosecute me for false reporting.
This won't be a popular comment. This section of Reddit unfortunately loves to bang on about how women whose children are murdered by their partners are all victims as well.
The original article states that she was also a drug user, though she claims to have quit. And she seemingly had a good relationship with her mum who was a nurse yet stood by and did nothing? She has also been in constant contact with the person who she says was abusing her and her child. The last article in the comment above has the mother smiling whilst wheeling around the dead body of her child in a buggy.
That said, it's absolutely mental that they've not chosen to charge the perpetrator of the killing.
I think it’s a degree of blame thing. It’s frustrating when a man does something terrible and the reaction is “well obviously he shouldnt have done that but what i wanna know is where was his wife in all this?”
People often end up talking about the female partner more than the actual perpetrator. I do think that’s in part because the perpetrator’s actions are just flatly bad with no room for discussion, and the partners actions/lack of accountability fall into more of a grey area, so that’s the part people want to debate and discuss. It’s frustrating when it seems like that phenomenon displaces the blame from the person MOST responsible though
That's true, although it's very common for women to be blamed for the actions of men.
If a guy is a bad person, "his momma didn't raise him right." If he cheats on his wife, it's because the mistress tempted him or "caused him to stumble." Or, his wife is blamed for not satisfying his needs.
Boys are falling behind girls in education, which is blamed on too many female teachers. The male loneliness epidemic is blamed on women having too high of standards. If a woman is sexually assaulted, she's asked what she was wearing or why she let her self get into that situation.
It's one of those things people often do subconsciously in our society.
The perpetrator is scum of the lowest sort but there's nothing to debate in culpability. The mothers, however, defend themselves by claiming that they didn't know, or that they too were abused.
There's a horrible, horrible case right now (seriously, don't look it up) going on in the UK where a child was killed by a gay couple, the partner of the main perpetrator is now also claiming coercive control or something like that. The same principle applies.
The police was called 7 times for domestic violence and yet none of them helped her leave this death-threatening situation. Her partner threatened to kill her in front of these cops.
Instead of prosecuting her, the county prosecutor and other local officials would spend taxpayer dollars more wisely in retraining cops on how to help domestic violence victims so that they can better prevent situations like this from recurring.
If her partner threatened to kill her in front of the cops, the cops should be held liable for not protecting her or asking if there was a child in the home.
Yes, and the cops are poorly trained morons if they believe that after 7 calls and the evidence they had.
C'mon, would they not arrest a thief because they said they didn't if all the evidence pointed to them?
This is a baby. If a mother at risk of murder is culpable, surely public servants who are paid to protect mum and baby should also be held to literally any kind of standard.
Many abused people say that because there’s such a large psychological component with physical abuse. A lot of physical abuse is going to be accompanied by emotional abuse where abusers groom their victims to accept the abuse but also to see themselves as the cause of their own abuse. Abusers are often users of the reverse victim and offender strategy. They are also frequently going to love bomb so that the victim is confused.
Most people who haven’t lived through an abusive relationship will think about situations with the sense of autonomous control: the abused had autonomy to leave. But this doesn’t reflect the reality of how many attempts it takes for an abused person to leave. If an abusive person constantly threatens you with bodily harm while enacting different forms of bodily harm, one starts believing that you will be killed for leaving, for exposing secrets about the abuse. And they are right- there are tons of women who have been killed for trying to leave their abusive partners.
They don’t know who perpetrated the killing, at least not beyond a reasonable doubt. Each parent blames the other for at least some of the causes of death, both versions have plausible parts, and there’s no evidence either way.
What the DA can prove is that the baby was injured & neglected and that neither parent sought medical care in a reasonable time frame. That’s why there’s a range of charges including manslaughter and second degree murder against both parents; a jury will decide exactly what (if anything) they’re guilty of. But that’s the catch: the only crime they can prove applies to both parents.
There is no acceptable outcome to any of this. No amount of punishment can fix this. No measure of mercy will ever repair this damage. Nothing will ever bring that baby back.
(Hopefully charging this lady is part of a larger strategy in getting her objectively evil boyfriend as many years in prison as possible. If they give her a deal before his trial, reasonable jurors might call her credibility into question. But if they lessen/drop the charges against her after she helps sends him to prison for 20 to life? That might be as close to a compromise as society ever gets to see in a case like this.)
Thank you. I dreaded it, but I knew that the comments would be defending this person for some reason.
I’ve seen people on Reddit defend a truly terrible mother who, as an alcoholic who left her children alone every night, parentified her eight-year-old daughter and then allowed her to be kidnapped. The poor child was never found again but there’s proof that her mother knew her abductor. I got downvoted to hell for blaming her. Somehow, she was the victim, while others said she probably felt so bad about what she did and stopped drinking. And you know, I actually don’t think she did.
When I was in college I attended a talk hosted by a local domestic violence shelter and one of my criminal justice research professor to educate the community about how Failure to Protect laws and Parental Alienation “experts” were essentially being weaponize against mothers fleeing DV.
If the mothers didn’t leave their abusive husbands quickly enough, they could face criminal prosecution for failure to protect. If they withheld their children from their father in an effort to protect them, they could lose custody because they were engaging in Parental Alienation.
It was maddening to learn about. This was about 10ish years ago, so I don’t recall the exact data (which was also specific to my city) but in a significant number of child custody disputes where there had been documented instances of abuse against the mother, the father actually wound up receiving more custody.
When someone called the cops because my abusive ex was beating me, they showed up and arrested us both, roughed me up more during the arrest, and kicked my cat. The system is rigged against victims of abuse and unfortunately ACAB
Not sure about your city but big studies like the one you’re talking about have been done by Professor Joan Meier at George Washington University. Clinical Law. Lots of lobbying, advocacy, and non profit work over this as well. https://www.law.gwu.edu/joan-s-meier
Interesting! Thank you for sharing. My degree is in Criminal Justice and it was my law and ethics professor who was working on this study. It makes me wonder if he is connected to this larger study in any way.
“Many defendants are also victims of that same partner’s abuse, as Deborah claims to be, but courts don’t always allow them to raise that as a defense or explain how it affected their parenting”
Wait what? What is the logic for this? It is 2026 and there is no reason why any sane person should think abuse doesn’t severely affect a persons psyche. I haven’t actually looked but I can guarantee every single one of these kinds of cases is tried by a man. I have a hard time believing a woman prosecutor, on her own, would come to the same conclusion and move forward with a charge. Why are we so punitive as a society and feel compelled to look for more people to punish for another persons actions? And how is she supposed to stop her abusive boyfriend from beating on her baby when he’s done the same to her? The boyfriend, and only the boyfriend, is responsible for the tragic death of that child. We cannot start holding other people accountable for not preventing the bad acts of someone else. Where does it end? There is a difference between enabling someone and giving them the means to commit a bad act, a co conspirator, and feeling powerless to stop something terrible happening right in front of you. Nuance and context in these cases matter a lot.
I've definitely seen a lot of women defend this tbh, unfortunately. Like "I'm a mother and I would never allow this to happen" - some people just really lack empathy and the ability to understand what life can be like for other people.
I'm curious if they're charging the police, who were there 7 times as well. Did they "let this happen" after the mother reached out for help and got nothing?
After reflecting a little more, I absolutely can see both genders defending this practice. I feel this charge is only appropriate when there is no question the mother actively participated and abused the child as well.
>I have a hard time believing a woman prosecutor, on her own, would come to the same conclusion and move forward with a charge.
Identity is more complicated than this. People can and do identify with other factors that would make them side against a same-gender defendent.
The prosecution in the OJ Simpson trial also thought that choosing black women jurors would get them the conviction, thinking the women would side with the female murder victim. Instead, those women identified more with being black, resulting in the not guilty verdict. Hell, one of those women did an interview years later outright stating that they knew OJ was guilty but that she and other jurors wanted justice for Rodney King and thus voted not guilty.
I think if you have a child, you have a moral obligation to leave an abusive relationship for good, even if the children aren't the target of the violence.
It's only a matter of time before the target of abuse changes, and then what?
Of course there is a moral obligation to protect your child. No one is saying otherwise. But where is she supposed to go? Especially if financial abuse is involved? Then if a child becomes homeless because their mother left a violent relationship cps is called on her for not providing a stable home environment.
At least in the us, the vast majority of states, potentially all of them, have explicit legal protections for homeless parents.
You can’t lose custody of your children for being homeless. There has to be other active abuse or neglect, and even then it’s complicated for cps to actually take children. Claiming taking the baby and running would have resulted in cps somehow taking the child, and the implication that that’s a worse fate for her than having her child murdered, is disinformation and fear mongering.
People in this thread are all up in arms about how leaving isn’t that simple. It’s not, but spreading false info that could scare others in that situation away from doing what is necessary for their survival certainly doesn’t help either.
And even if cps is called so what? What greater evil could they possibly represent than murder? This is very clearly a situation where she could have benefited from the presence of social workers
There is also the possibility the child just gets returned to the parent that isn't homeless until a court case plays out. Abuse takes time to investigate. Check out the list of cases where CPS has returned a child to an abusive parent.
There is an ongoing case in my state where the child is a teenager begging judges not to go to her father and step mothers house in her own words and she is still at this time being forced to go.
The argument is that they can't leave because of battered women's syndrome. Since the crime is not leaving or protecting the kid, we're essentially putting people in jail for having battered women's syndrome.
It's an interesting ethical question that I think a lot of people are divided on. Some people are like, nah, this is strict rule it doesn't matter if you have pysch issues from the abuse, while a lot of people find it unjust someone whose abused is in jail for that abuse.
Personally, I probably am on the side of a strict rule. If it's not strict, then it comes down to how likable the woman is to a jury and we all know how that goes (skinny and white more likely to get off).
No, the crime is child endangerment. Like, the way people choose to pick and choose about the welfare of children is not really surprising, but it's always interesting to see the justifications for it.
In the hospital she brought it too after begging her husband to give her the keys and calling his mother to drive them and then an ambulance when that took too long.
Should she have done that earlier? Yes, but she's not the only one who should have acted and she was less capable of acting than the cops who saw the infant in a home with multiple DV complaints, broken windows from rage, and a husband threatening his family in front of them. Or her mother-in-law, who's a nurse and a mandated reporter.
If this were ACTUALLY about the baby people would be crying out for resources to help prevent this and places and resources for abused parents to go to, for any kind of prevention other than this which we KNOW from research saves lives.
It's not. It's about feeling better for not doing that, a way to pretend that a society doesn't owe babies safety or new mothers or partners in general.
Edit: blocked by her but - This is one area where being anti-reseach and anti-science is not okay for me, tbh.
Ted Bundy had a horrible childhood which no doubt led to him becoming a psychopath. That doesn't mean he shouldn't be held to account for his crimes.
Oregon has a public defender shortage and is very progressive when it comes to criminal justice, which means only the worse cases are actually prosecuted. It's much more common for charges to be dropped too hastily and the offender goes on to commit more violence.
I'm positive there is strong evidence this woman was extremely complicit or she never would have been charged.
I agree with this law, but do think it needs to be more widely advertised, so people know they can face jail time if they witness a partner abuse their child, and do nothing.
>Mother Jones examined cases in Oklahoma since 2009 and found 2 of every 3 people charged with failure to protect in the state were women. The gender disparity increases to 9 women out of every 10 people charged who weren’t also charged with child abuse.
This tells me that either men are more likely to stop abuse from a female partner, and/or when men are the abusers, they are more likely to be cause severe physical harm leading to death of a child.
Yes, abuse does things to peoples' brains, and doesn't always allow them to think rationally. But so many people have PTSD, mental health disorders, abusive relationships, mental disabilities, and physical disabilities, etc.... and they still manage to find a way to live their lives with autonomy.
The only person responsible for your choices at the end of the day, is you. Abuse is a "reason" someone may not feel like they can leave, but it does not create an excuse for not leaving, especially when your child may die.
If we are going to criminally charge parents who let their kids die from medical neglect, (like treating a deathly sick kid with homeopathic remedies etc) we should also criminally charge people who kill their kids from neglecting to protect them from a physical abuser.
Children have fewer rights, and protections than animals, in a lot of cases. They are entirely reliant on their parents, and the choices those parents make for them; good, bad, or deadly.
When you have a child, you have the legal responsibility to keep the safe. If you fail to do so, when a reasonable person would, then that is neglect, abuse, whatever you want to call it.
We can sit and argue all day about the mother, and that she was also abused, and how that somehow made "unable" to seek professional outside help, but the end outcome is the same: an infant was tortured to death.
If you hit and kill someone with your car, even sober, accidentally, whatever the excuse, you are legally liable for jail time, if the legal system finds you negligent.
Does every parent deserve jail time when their partner abuses their kid to death? Maybe, maybe not. That's why we have a legal system to try to untangle the truth of the matter.
In this specific case, however, I think it's warranted for the following reasons:
The relationship was obviously toxic on both sides. If she felt secure enough to text him "I hate you" back and forth mutiple times, she can muster up enough spine to protect her kid.
In all 7 encounters with law enforcement responding to domestic violence calls, she denied everything. We can argue all day about whether she felt safe in that moment to report it, but the fact is, she was thrown resources to help her situation 7x, and she did nothing to change it.
-The baby had acute meth toxicity in her system when she died. Investigators dropped the ball on this one, and didn't test the mother's breast milk for meth at the time, and now it's impossible to legally bind the mother to breastfeeding while doing meth. But my gut says she did it. The dad says so, unreliable narrator that he may be, it makes the most logical sense.
I'm a mandated reporter. I am legally required to tell appropriate authorities if I see, or even know of, a child being abused, or I could face legal penalties. I would argue, that parents are mandatory reporters for their child being abused by another person (including their spouse), as it is their legal duty to protect their child from harm.
Again, I think the "If you see someone hurting your child, and do nothing, you will face legal repercussions if they are harmed or killed" needs to be more highly advertised. Run a couple PSA's on public television. More articles like this. Anything to get it in the zeitgeist.
Because I guarantee you, it would tip the scales for more people to leave abusive partners, especially if they started abusing their children.
There are resources out there to escape abusive partnerships, Google is free, there are safe spaces you can find, but you have to be willing to do that.
Sadly, in this case, this mother was not willing to do that, and the consequence is Opal died at 2 months old.
The father took her car keys. She physically could not leave.
Taking that stat from Mother Jones and extrapolating that men report their abusive partners more rather than men are more likely to be physical abusers is wild.
He took her car keys in that one instance, but it in no way made her incapable of leaving.
She had her phone, and her MIL was going to come and take her to the hospital. She should have called 911 prior to that, even. She was physically able to leave because she did physically leave. Rideshares, emergency services, family. All of those were available to her sans car keys, and she was able to utilize two of them.
Also, Idk where you got that I said men are more likely to report physical abusers. You said that, not me.
You intentionally ignored the rest of my argument just to nitpick.
I know it's the internet, but you don't have to contribute if you have nothing of value to add to the discussuon.
The Mom still had opportunities to leave every other time he didn't take her car keys. Again, she was physically able to leave that day, and did. Just not soon enough.
ETA: If you have nothing else to add to the conversation, please don't
Actually I think the issue is that single parents are overwhelmingly women, and the single biggest threat to a child is a man who is dating their mother. I can't remember the study, but children with unrelated men in the home are at extreme risk for violence.
PutTheDamnDogDown | a day ago
In England and Wales, there has been an offence for years now of causing or allowing the death of (or severe harm to) a child. Prior to this law, when two adults each blamed the other for a child's death, neither could be successfully prosecuted for murder so the law was added to close that loophole. Here's a recent example where the mother was not the active killer but received a ten year sentence for allowing her son to receive fatal injuries. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2083lk7nr7o
Another example: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-65384347
And another: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c07gzr5r9eko
This law wouldn't just apply to parents or caregivers. Any adult living in the home of the child victim and witnessing their abuse without intervening could face prosecution. In the eyes of the law, you have an absolute moral imperative to take the child to safety, or exclude their abuser from the home, or summon emergency help, and being a victim of abuse yourself doesn't override that requirement.
Melonary | a day ago
This isn't the same situation, the prosecution isn't suggesting she killed him, he did. There's not a dispute over that, at least according to the article.
If this is to make children safe, then I think there should equally be culpability for police and the justice system when they've been called nearly 10 times about violence in the home. Why was there still a baby there? Why was this man still free when there's no argument he was violent and abusive?
PutTheDamnDogDown | a day ago
The cases I cited above are also not where the mother has been the killer. In each case she was prosecuted not for killing but for failing to protect her child. I'm just pointing out that this is a rigorously-observed law within the England and Wales judicial system.
Melonary | a day ago
Right, but you were saying the loophole was that there was uncertainty around blame because of conflicting details and accusations. That's what I was responding to.
letthetreeburn | a day ago
Bingo. This law is fantastic in theory, but just exists to put women in prison in practice. I called the cops because my neighbor was beating his toddler daughter to the point of agony weep screaming. I called the cops so many times they threatened to prosecute me for false reporting.
Ok-Swan1152 | a day ago
This won't be a popular comment. This section of Reddit unfortunately loves to bang on about how women whose children are murdered by their partners are all victims as well.
The original article states that she was also a drug user, though she claims to have quit. And she seemingly had a good relationship with her mum who was a nurse yet stood by and did nothing? She has also been in constant contact with the person who she says was abusing her and her child. The last article in the comment above has the mother smiling whilst wheeling around the dead body of her child in a buggy.
That said, it's absolutely mental that they've not chosen to charge the perpetrator of the killing.
Full-Patient6619 | a day ago
I think it’s a degree of blame thing. It’s frustrating when a man does something terrible and the reaction is “well obviously he shouldnt have done that but what i wanna know is where was his wife in all this?”
People often end up talking about the female partner more than the actual perpetrator. I do think that’s in part because the perpetrator’s actions are just flatly bad with no room for discussion, and the partners actions/lack of accountability fall into more of a grey area, so that’s the part people want to debate and discuss. It’s frustrating when it seems like that phenomenon displaces the blame from the person MOST responsible though
Direct_Village_5134 | a day ago
That's true, although it's very common for women to be blamed for the actions of men.
If a guy is a bad person, "his momma didn't raise him right." If he cheats on his wife, it's because the mistress tempted him or "caused him to stumble." Or, his wife is blamed for not satisfying his needs.
Boys are falling behind girls in education, which is blamed on too many female teachers. The male loneliness epidemic is blamed on women having too high of standards. If a woman is sexually assaulted, she's asked what she was wearing or why she let her self get into that situation.
It's one of those things people often do subconsciously in our society.
Ok-Swan1152 | a day ago
The perpetrator is scum of the lowest sort but there's nothing to debate in culpability. The mothers, however, defend themselves by claiming that they didn't know, or that they too were abused.
There's a horrible, horrible case right now (seriously, don't look it up) going on in the UK where a child was killed by a gay couple, the partner of the main perpetrator is now also claiming coercive control or something like that. The same principle applies.
Easy-Concentrate2636 | a day ago
The police was called 7 times for domestic violence and yet none of them helped her leave this death-threatening situation. Her partner threatened to kill her in front of these cops.
Instead of prosecuting her, the county prosecutor and other local officials would spend taxpayer dollars more wisely in retraining cops on how to help domestic violence victims so that they can better prevent situations like this from recurring.
JenningsWigService | a day ago
If her partner threatened to kill her in front of the cops, the cops should be held liable for not protecting her or asking if there was a child in the home.
Ok-Swan1152 | a day ago
But she also told the cops that no. He didn't lay his hands on her when he did.
Melonary | a day ago
Yes, and the cops are poorly trained morons if they believe that after 7 calls and the evidence they had.
C'mon, would they not arrest a thief because they said they didn't if all the evidence pointed to them?
This is a baby. If a mother at risk of murder is culpable, surely public servants who are paid to protect mum and baby should also be held to literally any kind of standard.
KellyJin17 | a day ago
Pretty much all domestic violence victims deny it. Especially when the cops are stupid enough to question them in front of their abuser.
Easy-Concentrate2636 | a day ago
Many abused people say that because there’s such a large psychological component with physical abuse. A lot of physical abuse is going to be accompanied by emotional abuse where abusers groom their victims to accept the abuse but also to see themselves as the cause of their own abuse. Abusers are often users of the reverse victim and offender strategy. They are also frequently going to love bomb so that the victim is confused.
Most people who haven’t lived through an abusive relationship will think about situations with the sense of autonomous control: the abused had autonomy to leave. But this doesn’t reflect the reality of how many attempts it takes for an abused person to leave. If an abusive person constantly threatens you with bodily harm while enacting different forms of bodily harm, one starts believing that you will be killed for leaving, for exposing secrets about the abuse. And they are right- there are tons of women who have been killed for trying to leave their abusive partners.
neverthelessidissent | a day ago
He's been charged, just not for his abuse to the mother.
Wide__Stance | a day ago
They don’t know who perpetrated the killing, at least not beyond a reasonable doubt. Each parent blames the other for at least some of the causes of death, both versions have plausible parts, and there’s no evidence either way.
What the DA can prove is that the baby was injured & neglected and that neither parent sought medical care in a reasonable time frame. That’s why there’s a range of charges including manslaughter and second degree murder against both parents; a jury will decide exactly what (if anything) they’re guilty of. But that’s the catch: the only crime they can prove applies to both parents.
There is no acceptable outcome to any of this. No amount of punishment can fix this. No measure of mercy will ever repair this damage. Nothing will ever bring that baby back.
(Hopefully charging this lady is part of a larger strategy in getting her objectively evil boyfriend as many years in prison as possible. If they give her a deal before his trial, reasonable jurors might call her credibility into question. But if they lessen/drop the charges against her after she helps sends him to prison for 20 to life? That might be as close to a compromise as society ever gets to see in a case like this.)
Actual-Competition-5 | a day ago
Thank you. I dreaded it, but I knew that the comments would be defending this person for some reason.
I’ve seen people on Reddit defend a truly terrible mother who, as an alcoholic who left her children alone every night, parentified her eight-year-old daughter and then allowed her to be kidnapped. The poor child was never found again but there’s proof that her mother knew her abductor. I got downvoted to hell for blaming her. Somehow, she was the victim, while others said she probably felt so bad about what she did and stopped drinking. And you know, I actually don’t think she did.
clevercalamity | a day ago
When I was in college I attended a talk hosted by a local domestic violence shelter and one of my criminal justice research professor to educate the community about how Failure to Protect laws and Parental Alienation “experts” were essentially being weaponize against mothers fleeing DV.
If the mothers didn’t leave their abusive husbands quickly enough, they could face criminal prosecution for failure to protect. If they withheld their children from their father in an effort to protect them, they could lose custody because they were engaging in Parental Alienation.
It was maddening to learn about. This was about 10ish years ago, so I don’t recall the exact data (which was also specific to my city) but in a significant number of child custody disputes where there had been documented instances of abuse against the mother, the father actually wound up receiving more custody.
m01L | a day ago
When someone called the cops because my abusive ex was beating me, they showed up and arrested us both, roughed me up more during the arrest, and kicked my cat. The system is rigged against victims of abuse and unfortunately ACAB
Ok-Swan1152 | 20 hours ago
Parental Alienation isn't even a thing anyway as recent studies point out. But it's a nice little grift for self-appointed experts.
Polkawillneverdie17 | a day ago
That's so absolutely fucked up.
Epoch789 | 14 hours ago
Not sure about your city but big studies like the one you’re talking about have been done by Professor Joan Meier at George Washington University. Clinical Law. Lots of lobbying, advocacy, and non profit work over this as well. https://www.law.gwu.edu/joan-s-meier
clevercalamity | 11 hours ago
Interesting! Thank you for sharing. My degree is in Criminal Justice and it was my law and ethics professor who was working on this study. It makes me wonder if he is connected to this larger study in any way.
dloomandgoom | a day ago
https://youtu.be/L26bnfsPb2A?si=AAzaZARHD64uzaFx
theshadowofself | a day ago
“Many defendants are also victims of that same partner’s abuse, as Deborah claims to be, but courts don’t always allow them to raise that as a defense or explain how it affected their parenting”
Wait what? What is the logic for this? It is 2026 and there is no reason why any sane person should think abuse doesn’t severely affect a persons psyche. I haven’t actually looked but I can guarantee every single one of these kinds of cases is tried by a man. I have a hard time believing a woman prosecutor, on her own, would come to the same conclusion and move forward with a charge. Why are we so punitive as a society and feel compelled to look for more people to punish for another persons actions? And how is she supposed to stop her abusive boyfriend from beating on her baby when he’s done the same to her? The boyfriend, and only the boyfriend, is responsible for the tragic death of that child. We cannot start holding other people accountable for not preventing the bad acts of someone else. Where does it end? There is a difference between enabling someone and giving them the means to commit a bad act, a co conspirator, and feeling powerless to stop something terrible happening right in front of you. Nuance and context in these cases matter a lot.
Melonary | a day ago
I've definitely seen a lot of women defend this tbh, unfortunately. Like "I'm a mother and I would never allow this to happen" - some people just really lack empathy and the ability to understand what life can be like for other people.
I'm curious if they're charging the police, who were there 7 times as well. Did they "let this happen" after the mother reached out for help and got nothing?
theshadowofself | a day ago
After reflecting a little more, I absolutely can see both genders defending this practice. I feel this charge is only appropriate when there is no question the mother actively participated and abused the child as well.
Quagga_Resurrection | a day ago
>I have a hard time believing a woman prosecutor, on her own, would come to the same conclusion and move forward with a charge.
Identity is more complicated than this. People can and do identify with other factors that would make them side against a same-gender defendent.
The prosecution in the OJ Simpson trial also thought that choosing black women jurors would get them the conviction, thinking the women would side with the female murder victim. Instead, those women identified more with being black, resulting in the not guilty verdict. Hell, one of those women did an interview years later outright stating that they knew OJ was guilty but that she and other jurors wanted justice for Rodney King and thus voted not guilty.
ehs06702 | a day ago
I think if you have a child, you have a moral obligation to leave an abusive relationship for good, even if the children aren't the target of the violence.
It's only a matter of time before the target of abuse changes, and then what?
theshadowofself | a day ago
Of course there is a moral obligation to protect your child. No one is saying otherwise. But where is she supposed to go? Especially if financial abuse is involved? Then if a child becomes homeless because their mother left a violent relationship cps is called on her for not providing a stable home environment.
CeramicLicker | a day ago
At least in the us, the vast majority of states, potentially all of them, have explicit legal protections for homeless parents.
You can’t lose custody of your children for being homeless. There has to be other active abuse or neglect, and even then it’s complicated for cps to actually take children. Claiming taking the baby and running would have resulted in cps somehow taking the child, and the implication that that’s a worse fate for her than having her child murdered, is disinformation and fear mongering.
People in this thread are all up in arms about how leaving isn’t that simple. It’s not, but spreading false info that could scare others in that situation away from doing what is necessary for their survival certainly doesn’t help either.
And even if cps is called so what? What greater evil could they possibly represent than murder? This is very clearly a situation where she could have benefited from the presence of social workers
ehs06702 | a day ago
If the choice is let your baby be abused to death or be homeless, the choice is obvious.
At least your child is alive and away from their abuser even if they aren't with you.
Bad-Gardener1 | a day ago
There is also the possibility the child just gets returned to the parent that isn't homeless until a court case plays out. Abuse takes time to investigate. Check out the list of cases where CPS has returned a child to an abusive parent.
There is an ongoing case in my state where the child is a teenager begging judges not to go to her father and step mothers house in her own words and she is still at this time being forced to go.
ehs06702 | a day ago
Well, the baby in this case is dead, so we know the odds of the child's survival because their mother chose to stay.
Maybe that would have happened here, maybe it wouldn't have, but the odds on the child living would have increased dramatically if mom had left.
Ok-Swan1152 | 20 hours ago
The woman in the story was in contact with her family, so...
redhotrot | a day ago
Leaving an abusive relationship can and often does make children the targets of abuse, or worsen existing abuse though??
snark-owl | a day ago
The argument is that they can't leave because of battered women's syndrome. Since the crime is not leaving or protecting the kid, we're essentially putting people in jail for having battered women's syndrome.
It's an interesting ethical question that I think a lot of people are divided on. Some people are like, nah, this is strict rule it doesn't matter if you have pysch issues from the abuse, while a lot of people find it unjust someone whose abused is in jail for that abuse.
Personally, I probably am on the side of a strict rule. If it's not strict, then it comes down to how likable the woman is to a jury and we all know how that goes (skinny and white more likely to get off).
ehs06702 | a day ago
No, the crime is child endangerment. Like, the way people choose to pick and choose about the welfare of children is not really surprising, but it's always interesting to see the justifications for it.
Melonary | a day ago
That's not what she's being charged with.
ehs06702 | a day ago
Right, because the baby died.
Melonary | a day ago
In the hospital she brought it too after begging her husband to give her the keys and calling his mother to drive them and then an ambulance when that took too long.
Should she have done that earlier? Yes, but she's not the only one who should have acted and she was less capable of acting than the cops who saw the infant in a home with multiple DV complaints, broken windows from rage, and a husband threatening his family in front of them. Or her mother-in-law, who's a nurse and a mandated reporter.
If this were ACTUALLY about the baby people would be crying out for resources to help prevent this and places and resources for abused parents to go to, for any kind of prevention other than this which we KNOW from research saves lives.
It's not. It's about feeling better for not doing that, a way to pretend that a society doesn't owe babies safety or new mothers or partners in general.
Edit: blocked by her but - This is one area where being anti-reseach and anti-science is not okay for me, tbh.
Direct_Village_5134 | a day ago
Ted Bundy had a horrible childhood which no doubt led to him becoming a psychopath. That doesn't mean he shouldn't be held to account for his crimes.
Oregon has a public defender shortage and is very progressive when it comes to criminal justice, which means only the worse cases are actually prosecuted. It's much more common for charges to be dropped too hastily and the offender goes on to commit more violence.
I'm positive there is strong evidence this woman was extremely complicit or she never would have been charged.
SpooktasticFam | a day ago
I agree with this law, but do think it needs to be more widely advertised, so people know they can face jail time if they witness a partner abuse their child, and do nothing.
>Mother Jones examined cases in Oklahoma since 2009 and found 2 of every 3 people charged with failure to protect in the state were women. The gender disparity increases to 9 women out of every 10 people charged who weren’t also charged with child abuse.
This tells me that either men are more likely to stop abuse from a female partner, and/or when men are the abusers, they are more likely to be cause severe physical harm leading to death of a child.
Yes, abuse does things to peoples' brains, and doesn't always allow them to think rationally. But so many people have PTSD, mental health disorders, abusive relationships, mental disabilities, and physical disabilities, etc.... and they still manage to find a way to live their lives with autonomy.
The only person responsible for your choices at the end of the day, is you. Abuse is a "reason" someone may not feel like they can leave, but it does not create an excuse for not leaving, especially when your child may die.
If we are going to criminally charge parents who let their kids die from medical neglect, (like treating a deathly sick kid with homeopathic remedies etc) we should also criminally charge people who kill their kids from neglecting to protect them from a physical abuser.
Children have fewer rights, and protections than animals, in a lot of cases. They are entirely reliant on their parents, and the choices those parents make for them; good, bad, or deadly.
When you have a child, you have the legal responsibility to keep the safe. If you fail to do so, when a reasonable person would, then that is neglect, abuse, whatever you want to call it.
We can sit and argue all day about the mother, and that she was also abused, and how that somehow made "unable" to seek professional outside help, but the end outcome is the same: an infant was tortured to death.
If you hit and kill someone with your car, even sober, accidentally, whatever the excuse, you are legally liable for jail time, if the legal system finds you negligent.
Does every parent deserve jail time when their partner abuses their kid to death? Maybe, maybe not. That's why we have a legal system to try to untangle the truth of the matter.
In this specific case, however, I think it's warranted for the following reasons:
The relationship was obviously toxic on both sides. If she felt secure enough to text him "I hate you" back and forth mutiple times, she can muster up enough spine to protect her kid.
In all 7 encounters with law enforcement responding to domestic violence calls, she denied everything. We can argue all day about whether she felt safe in that moment to report it, but the fact is, she was thrown resources to help her situation 7x, and she did nothing to change it.
-The baby had acute meth toxicity in her system when she died. Investigators dropped the ball on this one, and didn't test the mother's breast milk for meth at the time, and now it's impossible to legally bind the mother to breastfeeding while doing meth. But my gut says she did it. The dad says so, unreliable narrator that he may be, it makes the most logical sense.
I'm a mandated reporter. I am legally required to tell appropriate authorities if I see, or even know of, a child being abused, or I could face legal penalties. I would argue, that parents are mandatory reporters for their child being abused by another person (including their spouse), as it is their legal duty to protect their child from harm.
Again, I think the "If you see someone hurting your child, and do nothing, you will face legal repercussions if they are harmed or killed" needs to be more highly advertised. Run a couple PSA's on public television. More articles like this. Anything to get it in the zeitgeist.
Because I guarantee you, it would tip the scales for more people to leave abusive partners, especially if they started abusing their children.
There are resources out there to escape abusive partnerships, Google is free, there are safe spaces you can find, but you have to be willing to do that.
Sadly, in this case, this mother was not willing to do that, and the consequence is Opal died at 2 months old.
Easy-Concentrate2636 | a day ago
The father took her car keys. She physically could not leave.
Taking that stat from Mother Jones and extrapolating that men report their abusive partners more rather than men are more likely to be physical abusers is wild.
SpooktasticFam | a day ago
He took her car keys in that one instance, but it in no way made her incapable of leaving.
She had her phone, and her MIL was going to come and take her to the hospital. She should have called 911 prior to that, even. She was physically able to leave because she did physically leave. Rideshares, emergency services, family. All of those were available to her sans car keys, and she was able to utilize two of them.
Also, Idk where you got that I said men are more likely to report physical abusers. You said that, not me.
You intentionally ignored the rest of my argument just to nitpick.
I know it's the internet, but you don't have to contribute if you have nothing of value to add to the discussuon.
Easy-Concentrate2636 | a day ago
I said that you extrapolate that men report their abusive partners more than men are more likely to be abusive partners.
Also, the article says that he had taken the car keys in other instances as well.
ETA: you changed a portion of your comment after I responded. And basically telling me to shut my mouth is indicative of everything.
SpooktasticFam | a day ago
Still didn't say anything close to that.
The Mom still had opportunities to leave every other time he didn't take her car keys. Again, she was physically able to leave that day, and did. Just not soon enough.
ETA: If you have nothing else to add to the conversation, please don't
julry | a day ago
You don't get to order people not to participate in discussion. If you don't want to see it, block em
neverthelessidissent | a day ago
Actually I think the issue is that single parents are overwhelmingly women, and the single biggest threat to a child is a man who is dating their mother. I can't remember the study, but children with unrelated men in the home are at extreme risk for violence.