Mother gets five years probation for spanking son with belt

ktrk ^

[drjack]

Chalk it up for one more who doesn't think the punishment was unreasonable. Her child's that is.

[ChemistCat]

Did she damage him or not? If the skin wasn't broken and if there was no more than very mild bruising, the government had no business being involved. If she beat him black and blue, she's received fair warning now.

[tomakaze]

RE: She said she didn't think the punishment was unreasonable.
 
That's because it wasn't unreasonable, it was warranted. (bracing for flames from the "spanking is wrong mob)

[elbucko]

WHAT!

My mother would have gotten LWOP for the beatings she gave me with an 1 1/2 in. wide belt.
Except that I deserved them.
She probably should have given me more.

Rest in Peace, Mom.

[Sgt Hulka 123]

Just linked this to my Dad. I figure he should be doing LIFE times 5.

[Jeff Chandler]

>>My mother would have gotten LWOP for the beatings she gave me <<

Ditto.


>>Except that I deserved them.<<

Ditto ditto.


>>She probably should have given me more.<<

Ditto.


>>Rest in Peace, Mom.<<

Ditto.

[Unknown Freeper]

Famous last words: "Go out there and get me a switch!"

Between the belt and the switches, my grandfather would have gotten the chair now.

[EggsAckley]

No flames from me tom....

[There's millions of'em]

"...for reckless injury to a child for beating her 6-year-old son during a spanking."

Was the offense that she spanked him with a belt, or is there more to this?

I don't understand the "beating ... during a spanking" choice of words.

[Jeff Chandler]

>>Between the belt and the switches, my grandfather would have gotten the chair now.>>

We won't even mention the yardstickings meted out by the Bernardine Sisters at St. Paul of the Cross!

[nothingnew]

dittodittoditto to what most you all said...my mom used a 2x4 until I was 16...then I stopped her.

FMCDH

[Normal4me]

Yup! Mine included belts, hair brushes, rulers and even a telephone once. (I ducked on that one!) LOL

[Jeff Chandler]

>>my mom used a 2x4 until I was 16<<

Now THAT sounds excessive!

[najida]

"...for reckless injury to a child for beating her 6-year-old son during a spanking."
Was the offense that she spanked him with a belt, or is there more to this?

I don't understand the "beating ... during a spanking" choice of words.
___________________

I don't either.... I have seen moms tear into their kids in Walmart with other moms cheering them on....
This seems weird.... I want to know more.

And yeah, my dad woulda gotten the chair before I was 12.

[cardinal4]

My mother would have gotten LWOP for the beatings she gave me with an 1 1/2 in. wide belt. Except that I deserved them. She probably should have given me more.

Rest in Peace, Mom.

Amen, bro.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

My old man would have been a lifer.

[ChemistCat]

We're all reacting to an article that does not give us the facts we need. Why do we do that? Why don't we start calling the media on their blatant manipulation of public opinion? Give us the facts and THEN we can make up our mind.

I resent attempts to radicalize my philosophies on the basis of incomplete information. I really resent it that so many people fall for it.

[ATOMIC_PUNK]

five years probation for reckless injury to a child for beating her 6-year-old son during a spanking.

Seems to me the jury dont know the difference between the two

[Between the Lines]

"This seems weird.... I want to know more."

Jury convicts mother of overdisciplining son

By CRAIG KAPITAN
Eagle Staff Writer

A Brazos County jury decided Wednesday that a Bryan woman stepped over the line last year and turned a spanking of her 6-year-old son into a beating.

Shanetta Richardson was convicted of recklessly causing injury to a child, a state jail felony punishable by up to two years in jail. She is expected to be sentenced in about a month.

“This is about a little boy who needs protection,” Assistant District Attorney Jarvis Parsons told the jury during closing arguments. “He was beaten ... over a piece of paper. There’s nothing more to it.”

Richardson had testified earlier that she disciplined her son with a leather belt after the boy lied about ripping his brother’s baptism certificate in half. While she didn’t intend to leave marks on the boy, she said, her punishment method was reasonable.

On the day after the incident, Sul Ross Elementary School employees and Child Protective Services officials found bruises, welts and lacerations across the boy’s arms, legs, chest and back. Some of the marks revealed a distinct pattern of the belt’s cross-stitching.

Both the school nurse and a CPS investigator testified that the lashing was one of the worst cases of abuse in the name of discipline they had ever experienced.

Richardson’s attorney, Kirby Taylor, disagreed. Abuse would be taking a lighted cigarette to a child, he said.

“We’re not talking about a beating,” Taylor said. “We’re talking about spanking a child.”

The discipline was necessary, he said, so that the boy doesn’t end up in court himself one day because he wasn’t taught the difference between right and wrong.

Taylor mentioned that the child had disciplinary problems in the past, taking candy from his kindergarten teacher’s desk.

“Maybe we need to stop that,” he said. “Sometimes they do go astray.”

But what occurred in January 2002 was far from acceptable disciplining, Parsons countered. The trial was not intended to serve as a referendum on whether spanking is lawful, he said.

Spanking is acceptable, Parsons said, but beating isn’t.

“She still has the same belt,” Parsons said, pointing out that Richardson has yet to express remorse for her actions. “She’s still whupping [the boy] the same way. In her mind, it’s OK to keep hitting.”

He implored the jury not to let her do it again.

Richardson is not a bad person and prosecutors aren’t trying to take away her children, Parsons added as the defendant broke down into tears.

“But she still thinks this is OK and that makes her dangerous,” he said. “Do we want to send a message? Yes. It’s never OK to do this.”

http://www.theeagle.com/region/localregional/041003discipline.php