Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Don't Lift The Rocks



Creepy-crawlies will wiggle and wriggle out of there, just like those who left some of the comments on this article:

A Muskegon Heights mother who put poison in her baby's bottle is headed to prison.

Police say Shatara Jones, 19, put bleach and another cleaner in her child's bottles last February. She entered a guilty plea last month.

Today, the judge went above sentencing guidelines, ordering Jones to prison for 8 to 15 years.

Jones' one-year-old girl never drank the deadly mixture of milk and poison because the child's grandmother took the bottle away. The grandmother pleaded with the judge for a light sentence saying she called police, so her daughter could get help, not prison.

Some in the court cheered the judges' decision for a long prison sentence. Others said it was far too harsh.

It's not possible to tell from the story what Shatara Jones' mental condition might have been or if anyone bothered to look into it in the first place. Post-partum psychosis and depression come to mind as possible candidates. I also wonder if she actually planned to kill her child, given that she did all this in front of her mother who stopped her and called the police in order to get help for her daughter.

Of course what the daughter got was 8-15 years in prison.

Perhaps she deserved it. I cannot tell. But I wonder if she had gotten the same treatment had she been white and rich, or if she had indeed gotten the help she so obviously needs.

Whatever the justice of her sentence, I was thoroughly disgusted by most of the comments attached to the article. We humans really are like the vengeful god we invented.