Daughter fails math test, so dad thrown in jail

WorldNutDaily ^ | 11 May 2008 | Staff Writer

[Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus]

A northern Kentucky man is in jail today – serving a 180-day sentence – because his 18-year-old daughter failed a math test and didn't get her General Equivalency Diploma, or GED, as a previous court order required.

Brittany Gegner, the daughter, says if anyone should be jailed, it should be her.

[snip]

Butler County Juvenile Court Judge David Niehaus ordered Gegner to jail for contributing to the delinquency of a minor by not following a court order which required Gegner to be sure his daughter got her GED.

[Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus]

I think I know of a judge what needs a good tail whippin'.

Just sayin'.

[LottieDah]

This is from the state that is rushing out to vote for Hillary in the primary?

[spanalot]

What about jailing the father of the baby?

[ComputerGuy]

Roger that.

[TLI]

his 18-year-old daughter failed a math test

Judge David Niehaus ordered Gegner to jail for contributing to the delinquency of a minor

Not the brightest star in the sky, eh?

[microgood]

Note to self. Stay away from Kentucky.

[Lazamataz]

Rocket Surgeon is scrawled all over this chick's face.

[clamper1797]

Something doesn’t add up here

[Lazamataz]

We gotta stop these people from multiplying — or it will divide America. Subtract out this Rediculus sentence, and there still is enough calculus to show the geometry of a country gone wrong.

[tatsinfla]

18 and still considered a minor...??...i thought at 18 you reached the age of majority and was considered an adult...if so the father is doing time for the daughter not following a court order....America is lost folks....

[CDFingers]

This is from the state that is rushing out to vote for Hillary in the primary?

It takes a village...

[bigfootbob]

I don’t think so...they shoulda jailed the kid, too. We’ve allowed the pendulum to swing too far off center with the treatment of juveniles. Perhaps if we started holding parents responsible for their kids REPEATED actions the snotty attitudes of both proud parent and recalcitrant kid might decrease.

I can assure you, if I would have known I would be held responsible if my kid failed a court ordered assignment, as this dad did, you can bet your last dollar I would have made sure my kid had all the tools necessary to ace the exam even if I had to take a leave of absence from work.

This maybe, by the degree of protestation by the teen, been the hook it took to get her attention.

[Squawk 8888]

The progressive infantilization of citizens was accelerated by raising the drinking age to 21. When people accept that it’s OK for the state to treat adults like children, this sort of thing is bound to happen.

[Tamar1973]

There is a certain logic to this. I remember a scene from a Japanese TV drama called Hotelier. A spoiled rich brat tried to run away from home. Rich daddy had a female body guard stay at the house specifically to prevent said female brat from leaving the house. She got out of the house anyway, but not very far. Daddy brings brat home and as the bodyguard is rushing out the door to apologize to her boss, he slaps her across the face right in front of the daughter.

The daughter asked the dad why he slapped the bodyguard and not her. He said, “It will hurt you more to slap her.”

Maybe this is a wakeup call to this spoiled girl that her laziness and stupidity do have consequences for other people and to wake her out of her selfishness.

[MrB]

Bring back the shotgun marriage.

Young men would be a lot more careful where they rubbed their jubblies if this was a possible consequence.

On the other hand, the father/mother obviously let their daughter go unchaperoned at least once. So they, too, share in the blame.

[Dixie Yooper]

Brittany told WCPO-TV in Cincinnati. "I would way rather me go to jail than my dad." Even Brian Gegner's ex-wife agrees the judge's decision is absurd. "They probably should have punished me if they were going to punish anybody," said Brittany's mother Shana Roach. "Because she did live with me at the time, but because he had the custody, that's why he's being punished.

Not too often you find an entire family that wants to and deserves to serve time together. This judge missed a perfect opportunity.

[wideawake]

It's an interesting case.

One fascinating detail is that Miss Gegner's parents are divorced and that her soon-to-be-incarcerated father had custody.

That's fairly rare.

More interestingly, even though he had custody - a situation many divorced fathers can only pray for - she was living with her mom and a truant from school while he supposedly was in charge of her upbringing.

To be honest, I don't have a whole lot of sympathy for any parent who stands for his child cutting school.

My parents made my education and that of my siblings their first priority.

This guy is both a poster-child for (due to the harshness of his punishment) and an embarrassment to (due to his failure to even bother maintaining custody) the fathers' rights movement.

[tatsinfla]

it just amazes me that she is considered a minor....when at 18 you can join the military...vote etc...even alot of 16 yr olds are tried as adults now .....just seems we call it whatever fits the needs of the justice system anymore....

[Yo-Yo]

18 and still considered a minor...??...i thought at 18 you reached the age of majority and was considered an adult...if so the father is doing time for the daughter not following a court order....America is lost folks....

As you know, there's a lot of gray area between 18 and 21.

Try buying alcohol at the age of 18.

[wideawake]

It is possible that he contributed to her delinquency before she turned 18 and is being sanctioned for it now.

Not every offense is litigated the same day it is charged.

[Constitutionalist Conservative]

"Rocket Surgeon"??

[wideawake]

From the article:

Court administrators say that even though Brittany is an adult now, the case remains active in their court because she was a juvenile when the problems started.

[tatsinfla]

the only reason that area between 18 and 21 is grey is because the judicial system makes it up as it goes along...you can fight for your country at 18 without a parents consent....minor girls can get abortions without a parents consent or knowledge...but don’t follow a court order at 18 and the parent goes to jail....i’m not buying it....

[RachelFaith]

I really like the angle you put on this whole thing. It made it very plane to understand. I was not sure about the others going round and round in circles over the finer points. You have intersected the discourse with rays of light.

[woollyone]

...and you’ve only summed up a fraction of the problem!

[Lazamataz]

Glad you caught that. T’was intentional. ;^)

[Mr. Lucky]

Rocket surgeon. Good 'un.

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

There's a lot of missing information — but, from what is written in the article; the sentence seems ludicrous.

What powers did the father actually have over the girl — especially when she was living with her mother? Suppose he tried to use corporal punishment to enforce curfews and study time — what charges would he then be facing? Suppose he tried to prevent the girl from visiting her mother — would the courts have tolerated that? Suppose he tried to “lay down the law” with the mother, regarding the girl's behaviour — would the courts have tolerated that?

Why is is assumed that everyone can pass the GED? If just anyone can get a GED — simply because they're told they have to — what does that say about the actual value of the GED? The GED is used as an entrance requirement for a lot of advanced training programs — what good is it, if it doesn't filter out people who can't learn these skills?

[clamper1797]

Yes ... but you have make sure that you square it with everyone ...

[Eska]

Once I saw a local guy pull his 5 kids outta public school, try homeschooling. After 5-6 years, kids couldn’t pass benchmarks, so state threatened to prosecute parents over all the money, computers, services, supplies they had given them for homeschooling. Father sent them back to public school; everything was dropped. Kids were in high school, didn’t know times tables or basic math; and no social skills. I know vast majority homeschoolers do a great job, but the state legally does goes after the few who don’t. Must be more to this case too.

[Political Junkie Too]

the only reason that area between 18 and 21 is grey is because the judicial system makes it up as it goes along...you can fight for your country at 18 without a parents consent....minor girls can get abortions without a parents consent or knowledge...but don’t follow a court order at 18 and the parent goes to jail....i’m not buying it....

Yeah, something about that doesn't fit the associative, distributive, and commutative properties of math. ;-)

-PJ

[khnyny]

Around 70% of all high school students in DC and Baltimore are dropouts. Let's just incarcerate all the parents. That will solve the problem./s

[Rick.Donaldson]

Village of idiots... why hasn’t the local country-folk there in Kentucky taken this judge out and hanged him yet????

[MrBambaLaMamba]

As long as he's caucasian, no problem. if he's non-caucasion then this is clearly another blatant episode of genocide committed by the lily-white racist oppressors.

[HamiltonJay]

I’m sure whatever infraction caused the court to order the Father to make sure she got her GED happened when she was a juvenile.. since he failed in that order, he goes to jail.

I’m sure the order to get her her GED or go to Jail were the terms of the original sentence.

[Rennes Templar]

I saw her interview on Fox and she was actually quite articulate, admitting she was quite immature and now trying to improve her life.

[hamboy]

WorldNutDaily? Is that typo or you really mean WND.Com articles are nutty?

[visualops]

She knew what the court order decreed yet she still didn’t do what was necessary so I’d say your theory is incorrect. She doesn’t give a rat’s ass about anyone but herself.

[piytar]

Any lawyers out there? How does this pass Due Process muster? He is being put in jail for someone else’s actions over which he had/has no control. That CAN’T be legal, can it?

[Abby4116]

The original news story is here:

http://www.wcpo.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=28d2acca-9947-44cc-8831-9859f1f6137e

[khnyny]

“Progressive infantilization of citizens” is right. So what if these kids want to drop out? It’s called freedom. With freeedom come consequences, which are on them. I don’t believe that the state or parents can or should make these kids do anything.

[piytar]

Hmm, interesting point...

[calex59]

I said this on another thread with this same article and I will say it here. If anyone thinks the state actually has a constitutional right(not a "legal" right but a constitutional right)to tell you, or your kids, that they have to be in school, let alone actually force then to get a diploma or pass the GED, then you are not conservatives. The states started these school laws with the intention(always "good" intentions and unintended consequences)of allowing(not forcing)kids who wanted to go to school instead of bringing in the crops in the fall, to attend school even against their parents wishes. Lots of farmers, and to be honest others also, wouldn't let their kids go to school in the fall and spring.

Like all misguided but well intended laws that interfere with our freedoms these laws escalated out of control. We don't need the state to make it unlawful to attend school, we don't need the state to jail parents because their kids don't go to school.

What we need is for the state to stay the hell out of our lives, all parts of it, except for the bare minimum which I won't go into here, and let us, as parents, take care of our kids as we see fit.

Some of you will twist my words thinking that I mean we should be able to abuse our children(which I don't believe at all), mainly because you are not real conservatives and will use any argument to justify the fact you let the state control you and your children.

Get the government out of our lives, just as many children would graduate as do now, maybe more. They had high graduation rates in the past without all these crappy laws(and kids were better educated) and they would now if these laws were dropped.

[KevinDavis]

I think there is more to this story than what is being said imho..

[familyop]

Aside from the issue of the reputation of a cluster of lawyer-party sensitive New Age guys (SNAGs: false rivals of the man-haters), it's not legally feasible to try to force a 16-18-year-old woman to stay with a particular parent of the two. Young people of that age can go to either parent as they wish in at least some states. And the mother might have had some extensive time ordered by the court, for all that we know (little). The father might have only been the primary custodian. The press will often say that such a parent simply had "custody."

We need to shut down feminism/romanticism (along with no-fault divorce) and schools administered and funded by the Government. And abolish the doctrine of parens patriae (which allows governments to usurp the rights of parents).

[Disclaimer: I'm not an attorney. If you need legal advice, contact a licensed attorney. This is a discussion of public policy.]

[Caution: divorce lawyers have their spines removed in law schools.]

[Dianna]

Village of idiots... why hasn’t the local country-folk there in Kentucky taken this judge out and hanged him yet????

VERY simple explanation...are ya ready? Because the judge is in Butler County OHIO. The dad lives in Northern Kentucky.

[Between the Lines]

The father lives in Kentucky. The daughter lives with her mother in Ohio goes to school there. It is Ohio that has put the man in jail.

Strange story.

[Continental Soldier]

Yet another judge who should be removed from the bench.

[Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus]

WorldNutDaily? Is that typo or you really mean WND.Com articles are nutty?

It means that (in general) I think WND articles are nutty.

[Tamar1973]

She didn’t believe the court would really follow through because I have a feeling her parents never followed through on much of anything raising her. She got a heck of a surprise.