Crime and Punishment

I’m tangentially acquainted with the defendant in this very sad criminal case.

Short, neutral description of the facts of the case:
- boy meets girl;
- boy shacks up with girl;
- girl gets pregnant;
- girl decides to keep baby against boy’s wishes;
- boy leaves girl;
- girl eventually tries to obtain child support;
- boy resists until results of paternity tests arrive, by which point he’s already shacked up with an entirely different girl;
- boy conditions payment of child support on getting visitation rights;
- during a paternal visit, child (who is now just five years old) falls off a cliff into the ocean and dies.

The defense claims it was a case of a clueless dad taking his daughter to a dangerous spot and failing to keep a close enough eye on her. The prosecution claims the defendant planned to kill the little girl to get out of paying child support. Many observers are stunned that any parent would act in such a way. Some even are unable to believe that any parent could be as careless as the defense has admitted this man was.

The only surprise I have is that cases like this are as rare as they appear to be. When the gift of a child is so widely viewed as a burden to the point that contraception and abortion are ubiquitous, is it any wonder that some parents try for the post-term abortion? People who want to take advantage of the institution of legal abortion (if they aren't trying to defend it) instinctively recognize what abortion is and see the current legal standard that allows a parent to kill the child before birth, but not after as the artificial distinction that it is.

The jury is still in deliberations. The maximum sentence being sought is life in prison without the possibility of parole. If, as I suspect, the defendant is indeed guilty, this is entirely fitting and proper.