News on the Deanna De Jesus case, the woman who was being prosecuted for “letting” her husband stab their child to death.
She’s been found guilty of child neglect.
The jury in the case of Deanna DeJesus has found her guilty of child neglect but the trial is not over yet.
They could not, however, agree on the aggravated manslaughter charge for failing to try and stop her husband from killing their son, resulting in a hung jury. That resulted in a mistrial on that charge. She will therefore have to face another trial on that charge.
I wonder what the thinking is here. That the whole thing is actually a very late-term abortion? That wicked Deanna De Jesus forgot to get an abortion while she was pregnant and then finally realized she wanted one when the kid was nine, and was delighted when her husband wigged out, killed a random guy and stabbed her and their other kid and “aborted” the nine-year-old? Is that what they think?
Or is it that they think mothers are supposed to be magical beings who can save their children from anything, no matter what – a tornado, an explosion, a car crash, being stabbed?
Or is it that they think women just are lying bitches so they might as well prosecute Deanna De Jesus just in case something will stick?
It’s puzzling.
This is so sad.
This last couple of days, papers here are publishing articles about how our police and justice system deals with domestic violence.
There were some interviews with workers in women’s shelters and a couple of stories from abused women.
It’s horrifying. Women are afraid to call the police because police arrests both the man and woman, and she will sooner get convicted for defending herself than he will for attacking her. Women are afraid of calling the police because they get threatened with losing children for failing to shield them from the violence in the household. Police doesn’t take seriously those who call them often, or those who aren’t torn and bloody when police arrives.
It looks like someone’s bought into the myth that, once they become mothers, all women (real ones anyway) are filled with this supernatural drive to protect their children at all costs, especially to themselves. This also imbues them with reality- bending powers as well. That DeJesus’ husband was even able to look at her children with harmful intent is proof- positive that she was not a “real” mother and was on a basic level approving of the action, thus she shares some responsibility for the crime.
Imma gonna go over to the corner and cry for a bit. Wanna join me?
It’s one of those cases where, were I called for jury duty, there is no way in hell I’d be selected because I’d tell the prosecuting attorney where to shove the charges (preferably sideways). That, and that I believe in jury nullification (the fact that I even know the term would probably be enough to get me stricken from the list, permanently).
Yup. My happy mood is gone.
Has anyone started a petition to get this overturned? Would such a petition have a chance?
Is anyone protesting this? If I had the money I’d totally fly down to FL to picket this.
I cannot understand it, but maybe the jury think like this person commenting on it –
She is poor ‘trailer trash’ so guilt by fact of being disadvantaged…
And what’s up with ‘allowed’ her husband to do it – he fricken well *did* it – how is she supposed to stop him. I’m sure there are a majority of cases where battered and abused people stand up to their abuser… Well no because they are abused and controlled by the asshole doing it!
Jesus fuck, she was stabbed too! And yet they think she contributed to the child’s murder – because she survived and the boy didn’t? Outrageous.
Illuminata- I’ll join you in the crying corner.
Today’s one of those days that reminds me that women and girls are expendable punchbags.
We’re all Eve to them.
Wondering:
That is exactly it yes. It makes perfect sense, actually. You see, once she gets herself pregnant a woman automatically forfeits all rights. From the moment she decides to have sex (slut), the sole purpose of her life is to incubate, raise and protect her children. If her children get hurt or killed, it’s only because she failed as a mother and so she must be punished!
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Ugh, I feel dirty just for having written that. Illuminata, you can have the corner. I’m going to stand out in the rain and scream.
Oolon:
The sense of class entitlement and snobbery just oozes from that quote. Disgusting. Amusingly, The Owners no longer need a “middle class”, so all the smug professional class Romneybots will find themselves downsized and bereft. I doubt if these folks have the discipline or toughness to survive their future fate.
If a woman who “has severe cerebral palsy, has the intellectual functional equivalent of a 3-year-old and cannot verbally communicate” is required to show evidence of having fought back before her rapist can be convicted, then clearly this perfectly healthy mother should have thrown herself on her husband’s knife and pulled out her own intestines after he cut her open so she could throttle him with them. Anything less is a failure to resist on her part, naturally, and so a failure of her duty as a mother.
I have served on more than a fair number of juries trying criminal and civil cases. Though our justice system sometimes malfunctions and, in rare egregious instances, railroads the innocent into prison and even onto death row through false charges, fabricated evidence and biased verdicts, the system usually works admirably well. No reasonable person would suggest that any of the multiple layers of due process and defendant rights guaranteed by the constitution and legal precedent be compromised.
Having said that, here’s the substance of what the sitting judge told me and my fellow jurors. We were to be the judges of fact and he/she was to be the judge of the law applicable to the charges. In other words we were to listen attentively to what the prosecution and defense presented as evidence of fact relevant to the charges against the defendant whom we were to presume innocent until proven guilty. We were to consider only facts presented in the courtroom. We were not to conduct independent ‘investigations” outside the courtroom, we were to remain completely impartial and objective within the presumption of innocence and prohibited from bringing any opinion (our own or others), bias or prejudice to bear on our judgements. The judge instructed us on how the facts could or could not be judged by a reasonable person to support a verdict of guilty or not guilty with respect to a specific violation of a specific statutory law. Reaching a guilty verdict required a high standard of[factual] proof beyond a reasonable doubt. If reasonable (not perverse) doubts persisted, the jury must acquit the accused.
Using this background information as a springboard, I am appalled that no one here commenting here has reviewed the facts of this case as presented to the jury by the prosecution and defense. No one knows what went on at the Deanna De Jesus trial. And what have we done instead? Beatrice says she has been reading newspaper articles (here?) “about how our police and justice system deals with domestic violence.” Hein tells us, facetiously I can only suppose, that “once she [a woman] gets herself gets pregnant she forfeits all rights.”
And we call ourselves “Freethinkers.” It would appear that the village atheist has become the village idiot.
Uh…what? Why are you appalled? This isn’t a jury.
William S. Hart,
I had those articles on my mind since I read some just that morning. I mentioned them because I saw similarities in treatment of women by the system. No, I’m not in the US.
This is the fucking internet, not a court room. We are allowed to make judgements and discuss stuff to our heart’s content.
Fuck the system. Women are in a double bind. Successfully defend yourself when attacked and you’re guilty of manslaughter like CeCe McDonald. Get stabed but live through your assault and you’re charged with manslaughter like Deanna De Jesus. Heads I win tails you lose, the justice system for women.
William S. Hart @12, sometimes malfunctions? The justice system is massively biased in favor of rich white cis men. The further away you are from that state the more likely the justice system is to screw you seven ways to Sunday. If Denna De Jesus had been rich enough to put together a high powered legal team she would have walked, it’s as simple as that.
If you’ll excuse me i’m going to go bang my head against the wall for a while.
What Natasha said.
William – Vulcan logic doesn’t work in the real world. The following thought process is invalid when the person no trial isn’t a cisstraight, neurotypical, white middle-class person :
Some privilege-holders just can’t bear to admit that the justice system is riddled with prejudice. DeAnna DeJesus, CeCe McDonald etc.
*Law and Order sound.
Dear Ophelia:
“This isn’t a jury.” Then why are you reaching a verdict, or worse, dismissing the need for a trial at all, without first examining the indictment and then proceeding to hear the evidence, the legal arguments; the rulings and instructions from the bench during the actual trial in question?
Anyone interested in researching the case can obtain a complete transcript of the trial which is in the public domain. (Parts of the trial are on film -perhaps the entire trial.)
Never did I argue for conviction or acquittal of Deanna De Jesus. [For the record her children had previously been placed in foster care according to the Huntington Post. At that time She stated that both she and her husband had molested their children. The children were subsequently returned to DeJesus parental custody after she recanted her statement. The foster parents were outraged. Deanna’s boy had told them that their father was a “monster.” Apparently, the children were trapped in a parental force field between a schizophrenic psychopath husband and his co-dependent wife who implemented a course of unrelenting child abuse that beggars the imagination]. What Deanna’s legal responsibility may or may not have been on that horrific night was officially assigned to the criminal justice system and unofficially to the “stuff” of our prejudices and speculations.
Dear Beatrice:
There is no need to point out why you had those freshly read articles on your mind. Simply put, they have no bearing on this specific trial. The operative word to keep in mind when making judgements about the legal plight of Deanna DeJesus is “specific:” Specific crimes, specific facts, specific circumstances and specific judicial procedures consistent with due process. Once again, if you are interested in this case, I suggest that you pursue further research.
Dear natashayar-routh and Natasha:
I granted at the outset that the American justice system sometimes malfunctions. There are miscarriages of justice within our system too many to numerate because of the sheer volume of cases tried each day, each week, each year in the United States. Most of these miscarriages are due to human error and a smaller number to corruption and systemic bias.
Dwarfing the number of wrongful convictions is a galaxy of verdicts justly reached within one of the most fair and meticulous judicial systems in the world. Does the system require constant monitoring and oversight? Does it need ceaseless reform? If it is to survive, improve and flourish..absolutely!
William S Hart – if you actually read the post, you’ll see that I didn’t reach a verdict.
Ophelia (if I may)
Your disingenuous denial fails to pass the most rudimentary credibility test. Effectively, unequivocally you do render a “not guilty” verdict and imply further that no trial was warranted in the first place. You use the device of the obliquely stated and loaded rhetorical question, or better said in this case, the device of rhetorical sarcasm which boils down to: “what the fuck were those assholes in Florida thinking when they charged Deanna DeJesus with a crime and brought her to trial?” Supplying imaginative answers crafted from vile and slanderous scenarios gives reasoned civil discourse a bad name.
Neither you nor I know what “they” were thinking nor do we know exactly what role Deanna played during her husband’s homicidal rampage; but if we don’t know it’s because we don’t have the evidence from the investigation, the indictment and the trial.
Perhaps a meeting of the minds can concede that Mrs. DeJesus is a tragic, pathetic figure who deserves sympathy and mercy. My first impulse is to let her walk away from the mess conceding that she has suffered enough. Unlike you and me the law and those responsible for its enforcement and seeing that justice is done cannot let sympathy for her inner torment immunize her from legal scrutiny.