* BLOG NOTICE *

I've moved.

All new blog posts will be done at My Sens-iety on wordpress.com.

This blog is being moderated. I support and respect your right to freedom of speech, just not your right to do it here.  One of the three rules I've set forth for comments at the top of every blog page is that they not be unduly disrespectful -- to me or anyone else. The two remaining rules are that the comments be on topic and thoughtful.  Any comment which primarily consists of name calling or borders on what I consider hate speech will not be approved.  If you can find a way to express your opinion and still abide by my rules, your comments will be welcome.

Let's Blame the Parents

Casey Anthony, Jodi Arias, Martin Montano... wait... who?

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A New Mexico man [Martin Montano, age 26] stabbed, severely beat and kidnapped his mother and another person, then threw his mother off a bridge into the Rio Grande in broad daylight after he said he heard voices coming through the television telling him to go to his mother's house and "get the clones out," according to a criminal complaint....

Records show that Montano was arrested in August 2012 for false imprisonment and battery against his mother. In that case, Montano was seen by officers restraining his mother from opening the door to allow police in and pushing her to the ground shouting, "you have demons in you."

Police said Montano's mother declined to give a written statement at the time but requested information on getting a protective order against her son.

-- Huffington Post 6/5/2013

Many of the talking heads placed a great deal of blame on the parents of Casey Anthony and Jodi Arias for not recognizing the severity of their adult child's mental illnesses and seeking professional help for them before it was too late.  With all due respect, these talking heads need to do some research and find out just how difficult it is to help a troubled adult, your child or otherwise.

You'll get nowhere unless you have already spent thousands of dollars on psychiatrists, and have thousands more to spend on attorneys and court costs in addition to having amassed a butt-load of evidence why your petition to the court should be granted.  If it is granted, your troubled child will hate you and seek revenge at the next available opportunity.

A protective order, you suggest, if you personally feel threatened?   Not worth the paper it's printed on because an angry, mentally ill person won't respect it.  Your child knows where to find you and no law enforcement agency is going to fund your security in perpetuity.  Of course, they'll help once you've been attacked or killed -- oh goody, at least there's that.

If you can't afford (or can't get past) the legal system, then your only alternative is to pack up the family, leave town without a forwarding address and leave the locals to clean up whatever mess your child gets into.  You may survive the ordeal but you'll still be held accountable in the public eye for whatever tragedy results from your "failure" to deal with your child.

In the end, no matter what you do, your life is ruined.

The Law and The Value of Life

The United States prides itself on being a nation of laws.  I would humbly argue we're a nation of way too many laws, but that's a topic of discussion for another day.  Here, I want to muse on laws which inherently value the life of one individual over that of another and the moral and ethical dilemmas created.  I do not have the answers, only the questions.

Little Sarah Murnaghan suffers from end stage cystic fibrosis.  She is aged ten and ineligible, under the law, to be placed on an adult donor list to receive a lung transplant.  The law requires recipients on the adult donor list to be a minimum of age twelve.  On one hand, we argue that adults and children rightfully belong on separate waiting lists for organ transplants, that children should receive organs from child donors.  On the other hand, we argue that the life of a ten-year-old is every bit as valuable as the life of a twelve-year-old or a sixty-year-old and that there is no medical reason a child under the age of twelve cannot receive an adult lung.  The dilemma here is not whether to save one life but rather whether it's proper to potentially sacrifice one adult life for the sake of a child.

I learned today that a person who commits a murder in the State of Arizona is eligible for the death penalty if the victim is under the age of fifteen or over the age of seventy.  Killing, say, a thirty-five-year-old mother of four just wouldn't  qualify.  This suggests to us a societal conviction that the lives of youths and elders are worth more than that mother's life.

Individual states have laws governing the age at which a youthful offender may be tried as an adult.  Persons under that specified age would be tried as a child and not be subject to the death penalty, no matter how many people he or she killed or how horrendous the killing was or the age of the person they killed.

Those are just a sampling of how the laws of this land attempt to place a relative value on human life.  We no longer believe that all men are created equal.  Or do we?

Just askin'...

Arias: Negotiating a Plea?

Let's not forget Travis Alexander was brutally murdered five years ago today by a monster named Jodi Arias.  For many, myself included, this has been a day of somber remembrance.  But leave it to Arias to snap us all back by grabbing our attention.

Today, we learn Arias tweeted something like, "I will be sorry for the rest of my life..."  Yeah, she WILL be sorry but she's not yet, not unless and until she feels the needle stick.  She really thought her little t-shirt presentation was going to spare her but, so far, it hasn't.  Now she's getting desperate, I guess.

Tonight, I sit here listening to HLN speculate on rumors that Jodi Arias is negotiating a plea deal.  I'm not at all convinced there's any truth to this rumor, but the mere thought of her getting only twenty-five years has me steaming from both ears.  Some days ago, the Maricopa County Prosecutor stated publicly he would have a moral and ethical obligation to consider any plea deal brought to him by the Defense.  I hope to God that's just political posturing and not a hint he may be weak in the knees.  I seriously doubt Juan Martinez and/or the Alexander Family would feel any such obligation, but the ultimate decision to accept a plea would not be theirs to make.

Now we hear Nurmi has released a press statement:

"If the diagnosis made by the State's psychologist is correct, the Maricopa County Attorney's Office is seeking to impose the death penalty upon a mentally ill woman who has no prior criminal history."-- quoted tonight on Dr. Drew

Good Lord in Heaven!  Does this have anything to do with either of the two new filings yesterday in Maricopa County Superior Court?  We know Arizona has denied a motion to remove the death penalty from the case, so this may well be the Hail Mary play we've been expecting.

[Off to pound my head with a brick.]