Posted on 06/06/2005 4:13:45 PM PDT by Crackingham
An East Texas man accused of causing his teenage girlfriend to miscarry twins by stepping on her stomach was convicted Monday of two counts of capital murder. Gerardo Flores, who was prosecuted under the state's new fetal protection law, received an automatic life sentence.
Erica Basoria acknowledged asking Flores to help end her pregnancy, but the 17-year-old can't be prosecuted because of her legal right to abortion. The defense contended that Basoria punched herself while Flores was stepping on her, making it impossible to tell who killed the twins.
The jury reached a verdict after deliberating four hours. Since prosecutors declined to seek the death penalty in the case, Flores received the automatic life sentence, Assistant District Attorney Art Bauereiss said. The facts were unusual, but the evidence supported a guilty finding, Bauereiss told The Lufkin Daily News. He said most of Basoria's family was pleased with the jury's decision. But Basoria, who sobbed as she left the Angelina County Courthouse, had stood by Flores.
"It's just tragedy all around," Flores' attorney Ryan Deaton told The Associated Press. "It's a tragedy my client's convicted, I've got nothing good to say about it."
Basoria told authorities that, after about four months of pregnancy, she regretted not getting an abortion and started jogging, skipping prenatal vitamins and hitting her own belly to induce a miscarriage. When her efforts failed, she said she asked her boyfriend to help.
Some people don't deserve the status of parenthood.
Good riddance to the boyfriend. He'll be Bubba's biotch in no time.
Some people really shouldn't be allowed to breed.
Some people just don't get it. DON'T KILL PEOPLE IN TEXAS.
If by "breeding" you mean, "having offspring" then you, she, and the boyfriend are all in agreement.
Once again equal justice under the law is demonstrated for the men of the nation. She has a right to an abortion. He gets life.
Look folks, I do not agree with abortion. If the guy is going to get life, the woman should damn well get life too. Otherwise the guy should skate.
This is a terrible decision.
Is killing a fetus wrong or not? Yes it's wrong. At least one state agrees. Then why does that state allow abortions?
This is nuts!
My wife and I would have happily taken these children off their hands and raised them as our own.
It does seem kind of ironic that the boyfriend gets two convictions for killing the children that the mother could legally murder, apparently even in Texas.
Perhaps Sandy means, some people really shouldn't be allowed to breathe.
Whatever happened to equal protection under the law? Either they are both guilty of capital murder (boyfriend and girlfriend), or neither is. If she has a legal right to choose to receive an abortion, then someone else must have the legal right to give it to her.
Yep. It's either right or wrong for both of them. She should not get a pass.
I'm not quite sure what you meant by that.
There are many like you and your wife who would have taken these children and cherished them. That's the real tragedy of this whole thing.
I agree, it's a vicious double-standard when one is charged with capital murder and the other gets off scot-free when they committed the crime as full partners. They should both be charged with the same crime for the same act, which is their joint responsibility.
Attention all!
legal right to abortion
now includes having your twins stomped to death!
PP won't be happy,they can't make any money on that.
Considering it cost my daughter about 25,000 $$$ to have twins by IVF, his punishment is fairly light in my opinion.
Spay/Nueter them both and send them both to the slammer.
If you think they "shouldn't breed," then you and they both think they shouldn't have any children. And now, they won't. (They, uh, 'took steps' to keep from having children.)
I have no idea. Perhaps there's a state law forbidding it after a certain time frame. That may be way off base, I just don't know. The article does say what you mentioned, that she had a right to one.
It would be interesting what the Supremes would say to an argument relating to the "equal protection" clause. A law that has such unequal outcomes based on status cannot make Constitutional sense. I guess he would be immune if he were a licensed abortionist, so the most he should be charged with is practicing medicine without a license
You're probably right.
Life sentence for practicing medicine without a license.
Thanks
I don't get it. I don't know too much about abortion law, but I was under the impression that abortion can only be performed in the first trimester. Given the fact that she was into the fourth month of her pregnancy, hadn't she already lost the right to an abortion?
That's an interesting take. You 'practicing medicine without a license' comment seem rather valid IMO.
I'm sorry, this is ridiculous. She could have gotten an abortion, and he's got a life term? And his actions were done with her consent? The worst he's guilty of is practicing medicine without a license. He must have the worst attorney in the world and I expect this will be litigated to the supreme court. This is absolutely discriminatory, and I say that as a staunch pro-lifer.
How can it be murder and abortion at the same time???
Sick, sick, ugly, evil, disgusting, evil, wrong, selfish, callous, mean, evil, sick, cold, cruel, selfish, unfeeling, stupid, evil...
No, the tragedy, apart from the deaths of two innocent babies, is that the mother isn't in a prison cell right along with her dirtbag "boyfriend."
Nope. Viability is not the beginning of the 2nd trimester (after 12 weeks). In fact, only in the third trimester have the federal courts allowed any significant restrictions on abortion--and even those are easily circumvented, as the case of Dr. "Killer" Tiller in Kansas (who routinely kills viable babies and burns the corpses in his backyard) illustrates.
She did have an abortion. It just wasn't performed in a medically accepted fashion, and it wasn't performed by a licensed practitioner.
At worst he should have been punished for practicing medicine without a license.
That is so true. The thing is that giving birth and giving the child up for adoption requires selflessness and a certain degree of sacrifice. The people who do these things think only of themselves and the "need" of the moment.
That's certainly more than the twins got.
I cannot see how the "right to privacy" protects this piece of human filth from any type of prosecution.
Their decision not to breed was a bit after the fact.
I do wish it was in the judge's power to order that young lady's tubes tied.
I agree---you can't call it an abortion in order NOT to prosecute the girl, but call it MURDER in order to prosecute the boy...
I believe that these fetal cells that fetal stem cell research advocates want to use, ARE "babies in progress".
Therefore, since the girl had at least attempted to kill the baby, and ASKED this boy to jump on her uterus, she is culpable, also...
This is one I would like to see make its way to a higher court...
She at the very least should be charged as an accomplis, more appropriately a co-conspirator. My feelings on the abortion debate are admittedly mixed, but this event was wrong on multiple levels.
I don't see how any of these specifications could possibly give women the right to a partial-birth abortion, but it does...
Every time that congress passes a bill to make PBAs illegal, a judge comes along and says they are okay!!!
These are up to the baby being born!!!
My limited understanding of the law there is no one with standing to appeal this to a higher court. Certainly the woman isn't going to appeal her non-conviction.
Mandatory sterilization for her crime (against humanity).
Well, I certainly have NO sympathy for this guy that got convicted...but, I think he would have a case for his unequal treatment---
BUT, I am not a lawyer, not even close---so I am only talking from frustration....
I think this case points to why some legal experts call Roe v. Wade "bad law"---
Evidently you can and you can thank the SCOTUS for that sorry state of affairs. But I don't give if she gets to skate from justice here on the thrid rock if this opens some eyes to what the idiots on the courts have wrought.
And here is what i have been saying since scott peterson's conviction- the legal basis for a woman's right to choose is that it's not a baby. Now we have set up a contradiction in the law- it only matters which parents wants it dead or if the woman wanted it at all. It's going to come to a head and the prolife side is not going to win i think.
"... there is no one with standing to appeal this to a higher court." Actually, this father (?)of the slaughtered twins, as convicted and under a life sentence (with parole possible?) can and likely will appeal this as high as his lawyering can go ... he is wrongfully convicted of murder since the unborn have no legal standing as living souls in this nation. With the activist subpreme court we have now, the verdict and Texas law will likely be set aside in order for the degenerate court to protect their hellish butts in stare decesis ... to cover their asses for the evil and wrongful rulings of their past (like Roe, and Bolton, and Casey v Planned Parenthood, and Stenberg v Carhardt).
Holy Mother of GOD, what have we become.. Even worse, what have we allowed to happen to our women, to make them nothing more than heartless, narcissistic ghouls..
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