murder v. killing.

[Liza Featherstone]

Thanks, Michael. When I last looked into this(a few years ago), it was
pretty clear that the U.S. was harder on baby-killers than many other
countries, both legally and in general social vilification (media, etc). But
I didn't mean to imply that they get harsher sentences than people who kill
grown-ups; as far as I know that's never been true, even in the U.S. I
haven't looked into recent sentencing trends, but we are certainly in the
midst of an extreme cultural hysteria surrounding baby-killing, one that
would make a guy like Singer very unlikely to win much of a following. Much
political hay has been made of the dumpster babies, and the girl who killed
her newborn in the bathroom on prom night. Not long ago, I interviewed the
-- normally rather composed -- NJ governor Christie Todd Whitman about
something *entirely* unrelated and she just started ranting like a madwoman
about those babies. I think the hysteria may well be making the legal
climate harsher -- look at that poor woman who was recently prosecuted in
NYC for killing her baby, when she just couldn't get proper medical care.
this current babykilling hysteria seems to express a hodgepodge of intense
fears about sex, women, teenagers, poor people, abortion, the callousness
and impersonality of life under late-twentieth cent. capitalism, what have
you.

as for the the british nanny, Louise Woodward's light treatment, if I
remember correctly, there was a lot of ambiguity about how much at fault she
actually was. I think there was some suspicion that the kid had earlier head
injuries -- perhaps inflicted by the parents tho I believe that was never
proven.  

Liza

 
----------
>From: Michael Pollak <mpollak at panix.com>
>To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
>Subject: Re: murder v. killing.
>Date: Thu, Aug 26, 1999, 10:05 AM
>


>
>The below certainly seems to support Lisa's position. Are we getting
>worse, or was the British nanny judge selectively citing law, I wonder.
>
><quote> [from de-news, a German news digest]  
>
>- 15 year jail sentence for German au pair Manuela Etzel
>
>Washington. German au pair Manuela Etzel has been sentenced to 15 years
>imprisonment in the United States. She was found guilty of manslaughter in
>connection with the death of an 18 month old girl. The judge went three
>years beyond the normal maximum sentence. As justification, he said the
>accused had dropped the little girl at a church kindergarten in a
>particularly reckless manner. Etzel maintained it was never her intention
>to hurt the child.
><endquote>
>> 
>> On Wed, 25 Aug 1999, Liza Featherstone wrote:
>> 
>> > Agreed that Singer's view is *very* unlikely ever to get anywhere near the
>> > U.S. mainstream. Americans actually tend to be a lot more horrified by
>> > infanticide than many other cultures; in Britain, I think, baby-killing is
>> > generally prosecuted as manslaughter, hardly ever as murder (Brits on the
>> > list correct me if I'm wrong).
>
>And I wrote
>> 
>> Agreed that we say we're horrified in the papers.  But in the coverage
>> surrounding the nanny case, I thought I remembered being surprised to read
>> that low sentences were the norm for baby killers in the US -- and that
>> the sentence given the British nanny was in line with that norm.  I think
>> the figures were given by the judge in the course of justifying his
>> actionn and recycled without demur by mainstream papers.
>
>__________________________________________________________________________
>Michael Pollak................New York City..............mpollak at panix.com
>