Zero Excuses, Zero Room for Tolerance Where Irresponsible Gun Ownership Is Concerned
A western Pennsylvania man has lost his 7 year-old son, apparently because he discharged his handgun accidentally as he climbed into his vehicle outside of a gun store, shooting his child in the chest. From what has been reported so far, he had cleared the magazine but didn't realize there was a round left in the chamber.There is no excuse for this. None. Regardless of how badly this man and his family are dreadfully being punished already, the accidental shooter is a person who should never handle a firearm again. I grew up and remain close with several responsible, law-abiding gun owners and enthusiasts. Their children will eventually die as we all will. But they won't die at the hands of their fathers because of frankly idiotic mistakes like this.Owning a firearm s a harrowing responsibility. Every single thing related to its use, maintenance and storage must be meticulously attended to by its owner. Failure is not an option. Ever. There is simply too much at stake.
The 11 Year-Old "Spider" in Texas, Luring Her Rapists
So she was described by a defense attorney in the trial of one of the roughly 20 men charged with gang rape against an 11 year-old girl in Liberty, Texas in 2010. Describing her as having lured the attackers on cross-examination, the lawyer in question, Steve Taylor, proved he's not only a child victim blamer but also a terrible cross-examiner. Let the lawyer jokes continue; it's richly deserved.Media note: The article linked above from the Houston Chronicle says, in a photo caption, that the defendants in the case are charged with "having sex" with an 11 year-old girl. That isn't possible in Texas or any U.S. state. The act is rape, not sex. The Chron should know better.
Accusations Against Elmo Creator Kevin Clash: Hard to Face, But Less Hard to Believe
The suspicion, backlash and contempt that's been unleashed against both of the men who have accused Sesame Street's Kevin Clash did not surprise me. Nor did the compounding of baseless gossip-column nonsense against Sheldon Stephens- Clash's first victim- when he reaffirmed his allegations against Clash around November 18th, a day or two before the second victim came forward on November 20th.For most, the blind defense of Mr. Clash and the knee-jerk rejection of the claims of the young men he is alleged to have sexually abused are a result of ignorance. Simply put, most people don't understand the dynamics behind the sexual abuse of adolescents. Given that the subject of the complaints is a celebrity, and one whose inspiring personal story and universally loved character are involved, the rejection of the victims as money-hungry celebrity hunters just gets more tempting.But ignorance shouldn't stand unchallenged, regardless of an Internet onslaught that seeks to bury the truth in an avalanche of self-perpetuating nonsense. A few points worth mentioning:-The first victim to come forward (Stephens, whose name I only print because it's in the public sphere) announced his allegation on November 12th. A $125,000 settlement appears to have followed between Clash and Stephens, the result of which was conditioned on an official recantation of Stephens' allegation, so that he acknowledged only a sexual relationship when Stephens was at least 18. He then, around November 19th, reaffirmed that Clash had abused him as a minor. The Internet has since roiled with accusations of Stephens as a "flip-flopper" and someone who "can't make up his mind" about what happened to him.In fact, recantation and reaffirmation are extremely common in child sexual abuse cases. Studies I've seen put the rate of recantation around 25% (my personal experience reflected a higher rate even into adulthood). Of the many reasons for recanting valid allegations, unwanted attention and a backlash for accusing a famous and beloved figure are two that should be easy to understand. Of those who do recant, about half eventually reaffirm once the initial shock and backlash can be digested. Stephens was offered a settlement to take back the actionable facts, but has since reaffirmed and wants to undo it.-Stephens has a criminal record, another fact leveled against him as the story develops. But adolescents and young adults with the kinds of tough upbringings, emotional difficulties and other stressors that often lead them into criminality are exactly the kinds of victims predators look for and find. Kids or young adults who commit crimes suffer credibility deficits; they are less likely to be believed. Even if Clash wasn't specifically looking for a troubled kid easy to victimize, he was most likely to find someone like that on the chat rooms he was apparently visiting in search of younger sexual partners.-Neither of Clash's victims ever went to the police, another "gotcha" moment for those who don't want to believe them. But a very small percentage of victims- in both child and adult cases- ever tell authorities, let alone close in time to the abuse. In theory and apparently in cyber-space, "calling the cops" is as natural as ringing a fire alarm. In reality, doing so is remarkably daunting and frightening. Many victims figure they're powerless regardless of what they allege. Some don't even know if they've been legally victimized. Many blame themselves and feel they have no right to press charges. Most are terrified of everything that the criminal justice system is for almost everyone- a process both intimidating and unknown. And when sex is involved, particularly with older children who will both feel and be seen as more blameworthy for their "participation" in their victimization, the urge to tell authorities usually shuts down.I can't say with certainty that Clash is legally responsible for anything. But we know that he at least acknowledges a sexual relationship with a much younger individual, and that another young man has come forward with similar allegations. I have no desire to see Clash unjustly accused or punished. But neither should those accusing him suffer unjustly because of ignorance and cynicism.
Predators as Coaches: MaleSurvivor.Org Takes Them On
MaleSurvivor, an advocacy group focusing on the sexual victimization of boys and men, scored a big hit this week with a great conference in New York and a well-reported piece in the New York Times on how boys involved with sports are often victimized by coaches and mentors within athletic environments. These athletic institutions- formal and informal- attract, feed and support predators. The boys who are preyed upon suffer greatly as a result.
Racist Tweets From Teens and the Adolescent Brain: Trying to Withhold Judgment
The online magazine Jezebel published a long and disgusting list of racist, sometimes violent tweets sent out by mostly teenagers in response to the re-election of the President. Today, editors reported on efforts to track down the schools the kids attend, in order to alert them to the behavior. I don't blame Jezebel and I hope the people charged with educating these kids intervene while there's- perhaps- still time to correct their self-destructive behavior if not their poisoned thinking. One thing that should be kept in mind, though, is the neurological development level of the kids who are now being exposed, disciplined and in some cases very publicly punished. The American Bar Association's Juvenile Justice Center has an excellent article on the subject: crimjust_juvjus_Adolescence.authcheckdam. Bottom line is we don't learn to control impulse well until much later than has been previously believed. Actions have consequences and these kids are learning that fast. That's just. But as the floodgates of social media retribution open, it's fair to consider the source.
Child-beating Judge William Adams Will Return to the Bench
The Supreme Court of Texas has apparently approved the reinstatement of Judge William Adams of coastal Aransas County, provided that he doesn't hear child abuse cases. Adams was suspended last year when his daughter released a secretly taped video of Judge Adams from 2004 mercilessly beating her with a belt and cursing at her (she was a teenager at the time and suffering from a form of cerebral palsy; I blogged on that issue here). There is no higher honor for a practicing attorney than to be chosen to sit in judgment under the law. The judicial robe carries with it respect, authority, and immense, raw power over the lives of others. William Adams has proven- in a rare and startlingly clear image of his true character- that he is not fit to wear it. Is Aransas County that devoid of men and women who can take the bench and who have not viciously beaten and cursed a disabled child? The Texas judiciary should be ashamed, period.
Arkansas Candidate Advocates Child Execution
An Arkansas candidate for state representative (he's already served in the state house and once represented the Arkansas Department of Human Services) has been quoted in his own book as advocating in certain cases the execution of one's own "rebellious children" under strict Biblical principles. The candidate, Charlie Fuqua, has been roundly ridiculed in places like Gawker for this tragically misguided statement, but it's worth noting that cyber critics outside of his district won't have a say in whether he's elected (again) to the state house. What's more worrisome to me about an attitude like Fuqua's is less how literally some will take it or how much power he's likely to amass in any political arena. I worry more about attitudes like Fuqua's- even when much less extreme- because of the potential effect they have on child protection. Fuqua's opinion might seem somewhere between clownish and horrific, but the idea that God has given parents ultimate authority over their children is one that can foster hostility toward any societal or governmental effort to protect them from abuse and neglect. I get it- religious parents want the freedom to raise and discipline their children without government intrusion or societally crafted 'rules' on how to do so. That's understandable. But the fact is, abuse, neglect and child murder sometimes happen at the hands of parents who are followers (often strict followers) of all types of religious practices. Those who wish to hide behind religion in order to destroy a child or get away with it have an ally in Fuqua, however unwitting.
Two More Attributes Boy Scout Leadership Could Use: Introspection and Shame
A boy scout for years, I remember well the Scout Law, those twelve traits we were taught to cultivate as we approached manhood. Presumably, BSA's national executives should embody them. But two recent revelations (decades of substandard attempts to protect boys from predators and the denial of an Eagle rank to a gay scout), suggest that, at the leadership level, two other traits should be added to those venerable twelve: One would be introspection. The other, a sense of shame.Introspection- the willingness and ability to take cold and honest inventory of their own values, responsibilities and limitations- might have helped BSA stanch the emotional (and in some cases physical) bleeding of untold numbers of boys abused by trusted and empowered leaders over the years. We now know that the feeble, naive and ultimately self-serving efforts by the national organization to prevent predatory access to children were largely feckless. "Perversion files" secretly kept in order to prevent predators from reentering scouting were at best incomplete and improperly cross-checked, allowing known abusers to rejoin troops in other communities and continue to offend. A lack of clear standards from above, coupled with an execrable desire to protect the reputations of abusers even in compelling cases meant that oftentimes a file wouldn't be created at all.Scouting's leaders, much like religious leaders who failed repeatedly to protect anything other than their institutions, can be forgiven for not fully comprehending what research has, relatively speaking, only recently revealed: That active child molesters, usually heterosexual, in most cases abuse dozens to hundreds of children over the lifespan; that promises by the abusers to get treatment or simply stop are almost always worthless; that "evidence" of rehabilitation and pledges of being "healed" are often either ruses played by skilled and unrepentant predators, or sincere but ultimately ineffective barriers to a grave compulsion.So, too, we can forgive the common but misguided belief that criminal background checks (instituted in 2008) would do much to prevent molesters from joining scouting. Most molesters have no criminal history of any kind and remain undetected because rates of reporting are so low, especially with boys. Requiring suspected abuse to be reported to authorities (as medical professionals have been required to do for years) is a better step, albeit one that should have been instituted far sooner than 2010.Far more disturbing than missteps and delays, though, is the familiar sense that BSA, at least in part, protected itself over the desperate needs of its scouts as the cases invariably arose. It's easy to claim the need for a secretive process allowing little to no public knowledge in the name of "protecting victims, witnesses, and the falsely accused." It's also largely unnecessary as victims can often be de-identified and false allegations are extremely rare. What secrecy does instead is to conceal a shameful but addressable problem, and in a way that only temporarily protects the institution and exposes ever greater numbers of children to life-altering damage. Worse, it perversely attracts even more predators who understand innately that what's valued within is not the boys but the brand.Introspection would assist with correcting both the well-intentioned missteps and arresting the more cynical urges to protect the institution over the very children it seeks to nurture. Introspection would allow for more transparency, the invitation of outside experts (to be fair BSA is doing this now) and cross-checking within the leadership to assure that priorities are in line.What might a sense of shame create? Maybe a hesitance, after such dismal failure on a much more important front, to deny the rightful honor of an Eagle badge to a young gay man. BSA spokesman Deron Smith himself used the term "sexual orientation" (rather than "preference" or "lifestyle choice") to describe exactly what Ryan Andresen's sexual identity is: A natural and unchangeable characteristic.Regardless of its regrettable insistence that homosexuality is a legitimate bar to scouting, perhaps less self-righteousness and a more penetrable institutional conscience would inspire honoring anyway this remarkable and brave young man's accomplishments. Rather than judging and rejecting Ryan Andresen, better the Boy Scouts of America remember the largely heterosexual monsters it failed to bar over the painful decades instead.
Kayla Harrison's Uncommon Valor, and Society's Far Too Common Shame
“I think,” she said, “it’d be pretty cool to be a kid.” – Kayla Harrison, the New York Times.If I knew her as a baby, with enough clairvoyance to know of her remarkable talent and drive, I would have made some assumptions about the path she’d take, for better or worse. I would have assumed she’d have a very different experience from most children, interacting less and less with them as she grew. I would have assumed confidently that, before adolescence, she would be at least partially separated from her family and entrusted with little oversight to a coach known for grooming champions. I would have assumed that the influence of that coach over her would be profound, and that she would have looked upon that person as an ultimate authority in many areas of her life.And I would have been very frightened.I’m in no way implying anything negative about the choices Kayla or her family made. Nor could I have been certain she would suffer any harm, much less the harm that found her. Some children gladly trade a “normal” childhood for the glories, rewards and growth that come with top levels of competition. Athletics aren’t the only activities that create these kinds of experiences; chess champions, musical prodigies and other unusually gifted children find themselves in similar situations. Whether a lifestyle of practice, pressure and endless drive is healthy depends in large measure on the child and the family dynamics involved. Some kids flourish, and the price exacted is balanced by the goals achieved.What’s undeniable though is that the typical environment of a child at a global competitive level will be at least challenging and at most very dangerous. For many parents, when a child’s abilities swiftly surpass their ability to coach or instruct her, the obvious next step is to entrust her development to coaches who can both assess her potential and then nurture it forward. For most parents, the intention is not to abrogate parental duties or to in any way abandon their child. But at world-class levels of competition, the time, intensity and level of commitment that must be sustained mean that mentors in many cases become surrogate parents. Their relationship with the child involves close-quarters time alone for hours on end, often on travel. It involves emotional intensity and a high level of discipline and deference to the coach. The stakes grow higher as the child progresses.Enter the predator.As in all situations, it’s not because anything about the experience of working closely with a child or getting to know her somehow “warps” the coach into becoming predatory. Rather, predators go where victims are, where opportunities are, and where detection is least likely. The urge to harm a child and the ability to nurture one to glory are not at all necessarily joined. Most mentors, be they tough but benign or effective but cruel, are not predisposed to sexually abuse children. But as well, no link exists between professional ability and inherently decent character. For a predator who has the needed skills, child mentoring at the highest competitive levels is simply as good as it gets.Kayla’s experience was atypical in that she was moved eventually to disclose, and her abuser was imprisoned. This is a just and often healing outcome, but hardly a common one. Most victims bear the abuse, fold it into their lives, and go on, more commonly so, I’d bet, at Olympic levels of competition. As we stand in awe of the grace, beauty, poise and skill of our competitors, we should also be aware of the pain and abuse- most of it grossly under-reported- that might have been borne by them during the process. We must assess whether our thirst for victory in our competitors is eclipsing our concern for their welfare.Kayla is a champion in every possible respect, content not only with a gold medal but an angelic desire to pave a better world going forward. We honor her best by acknowledging a cruel but accurate fact: Kayla Harrison is anything but typical. But her experience as a world-class athlete is far more common than most will acknowledge. Or anyone should tolerate.
A Statue is Removed, and Still Warnings Will Go Unheeded
As a rookie prosecutor in Alexandria, Virginia, I brought my first cases before an ancient and distinguished judge who at times had a penchant for the impeccable and brilliant aphorism. One he used when adjudicating minor traffic cases has stuck with me throughout the years. “The world is basically divided into two groups. The caught, and the uncaught.”His meaning was simple: Folks, we’re all guilty of minor traffic violations. If you’re here, you’re probably just caught. If not, you’re uncaught, but only for now. That is the Penn State Community in a nutshell. It is devastated. It is bewildered. It is ashamed. It is grieving, reflecting, adjusting and hopefully persevering. But what’s important to remember is that PSU is not doing these penances because it is unique or alone. Simply put, PSU is going through these things because its leadership was- to put it bluntly- caught. They were caught harboring a predator for at least sentimental and naïve reasons, and at worst for cynical, self-protecting ones. But as the reality of the sanctions settles and the pain to this remarkable and time-honored community is fully realized, it’s worth noting a basic and persistent truth: Predators like Jerry Sandusky are everywhere, and operating- as my fingers type these words- as efficiently as ever.Sandusky’s circumstances were mournfully peculiar in that he was a god-like figure in his environment, backed by the most pervasive and defining aspect of the culture, Penn State Football. But far below these uncommon circumstances, predators like him have found havens, and are doing untold amounts of damage, in academic communities and organized social settings of all kinds, right this minute. Every venerable, time-honored and values-based institution has a predator problem. All that separates the exposed from the unexposed is the machinery of victimization, cloaking as it does- for a time- the horrors of the abuse and the cries of the abused.If there is anything positive that can emerge from the deep sadness permeating PSU, it is not the belief- for other institutions- that “there but for the grace of God go we.” Rather, it’s the darker and more terrifying reality of “there we are as well- simply unexposed as such.” This, while desperately needed, will be the pill tragically unswallowed by similar organizations watching events at PSU unfold.Rather than do what they must, which is to take an unvarnished look at their own environments and the endless vectors for infiltration that exist, they will confidently and foolishly distinguish themselves somehow from Penn State and assure themselves that they “know” the mentors, coaches and leaders that direct and control their environments. They’ll fool themselves into believing, for a string of ironically specious reasons, that their venerable and respected enclaves are simply not the kinds of places that bad people would seek to infiltrate. Indeed, it is this terrible dichotomy- predators seeking prey and protection in an environment so antithetical to what they are- that has foiled so many great institutions blind to their own weaknesses and tricked into thinking they are somehow above the invisible but very real laws of osmosis that attract bad actors to good environments.Rather than do the difficult but crucial work of self-examination, rather than seek transparency within their own leadership structure with the help of outside observers trained to assist in making best-practice recommendations, they will retreat to a pernicious blind-spot and convince themselves they are somehow oddly enlightened, even “blessed” with introspection and unusual clarity- again because of the sanctity of their mission, whatever it is.Rather than engage internally in honest, open debate about whether they have at any time placed the reputation, value and productive capability of their institutions over the well-being of even the least notable of the people affected by it, they will delude themselves into believing they are led by an unassailable and internal moral compass.And the suffering will continue, until the stone is finally rolled away and light is allowed to penetrate, wounding the institution that believed itself protected and impenetrable. But this damage can only follow the most shameful of all- the destruction of human beings who looked to it for the opposite of what they received.
Matt Sandusky's "Delayed Report" and What it Really Means
After many years in this business, it was a brilliant young Army JAG who showed me an entirely different way of viewing the "delayed report" we almost always see in sexual violence cases."When you consider that most victims never report at all," she said, reasoning this out beautifully at a training we were conducting together, "then delaying is actually natural. What's unusual is when a victim is actually compelled to report, almost always after some time passes. That's usually because something triggers it, right?""Correct," I said, knowing that disclosure is a process, and one usually triggered, exactly as she put it, by any number of stressors or circumstances."So we should be calling them triggered reports, not delayed reports."Bingo, Captain. I could not have said it better. And I didn't. She did.The national lexicon on this subject, to the extent it's been expanded sadly but usefully by Sandusky, should lead the courts into the 21st century as well. Delay in reporting any sexual violence case is more than common- it's all but assured in most cases. Exceptions are the horrific but much rarer cases of stranger rape, the traditionally viewed crime that systems take to take much more seriously and that we hold victims the least responsible for. For those reasons among others, victims of stranger rape- an attack in parking garage by a masked assailant, for instance- are usually reported immediately. Many people equate an immediate cry for help with proof that a crime occurred rather than some sexual encounter now regretted. But in stranger cases, the prosecution usually has that anyway- the circumstances almost always suggest that no consent occurred.Vastly more common are sexual violence cases where perpetrator and victim know one another, whether for a matter of hours in a bar or for years in a trusted, familial or mentoring relationship. It's these cases that produce the urge not to cry for help (in both children and adults) but instead to turn inward in order to process so much more. Why did this happen? How much of it was my fault? Is it really abuse/was it really rape anyway? Who would believe me? What will happen to my family, my life if I tell anyone?The questions go on. And on. The perpetrators, like Sandusky, know exactly how this process will play out. They know that in most cases, whether the victim is a child or an adult, the calculus will work in their favor. The victim will tell no one, let alone the police. There's too much shame associated with what happened. Too much self-blame. Too much continued fear. Too deep a feeling of helplessness. This is changing as awareness of the dynamics of victimization increases. But slowly.In Pennsylvania, a jury instruction must still be read to jurors (and was in Sandusky) that allows them to potentially discount the validity of "certain sexual offenses" because an ordinary person would be expected make a prompt complaint. Where this antiquated logic came from is no mystery. What's mysterious is that Pennsylvania continues to tolerate an instruction for its jurors that lacks even a passing acquaintance with reality.I don't know what exactly triggered in Matt Sandusky the decision to reveal the fact of his abuse to investigators during the trial itself. But I am confident that a triggered and valid report is what it was. He was, for a time, included in a circle of witnesses expected to testify on Sandusky's behalf. Maybe that constituted a final burden that the man could simply not bear, after silently bearing so much for so long.Few places are lonelier than the heart of a survivor living with sexual abuse, or having been the victim of a sexual attack, who feels he or she can't reveal it. The struggle is titanic, and usually the decision is made to simply bear the abuse and move on. Again, this is changing, but slowly. And survivors who decide to remain silent are blameless for it and should never be judged. But when a trigger finally does compel a survivor to speak out, the mere fact of a delay in the interim should not cast doubt on it.
"That's My Boy?" Sandler, Covert: What Were You Thinking?
Allen Covert is an old friend of Adam Sandler’s, appears in many of his movies (I loved him in “The Wedding Singer”) and co-produces “That’s My Boy,” Sandler’s latest. Covert is also an outspoken conservative and “family values” promoter. So how he or Sandler thought this was a great idea makes zero sense to me.Sandler plays a rape victim whose rapist became pregnant with a son he now reconnects with, first for cynical and later sentimental reasons. It’s that twist, of course, Sandler’s tender shtick, that supposedly excuses this abominable idea. And I’m sure most will see a harmless plot driven by a snarky, devil-may-care 13 year-old who impregnates his sexy teacher.It isn’t. It’s child rape.But the victim is a boy and the abuser an attractive, white woman, so who cares? Bring up the crimes of Mary Kay Letourneau or Debra LaFave, and you’ll likely get eye-rolling, then air quotes around the word “crimes.” Their victims, many believe, are really the luckiest boys on earth, fast-tracked James Bond’s with the world on a string. The 80’s saw a few awful movies with similar themes. But to my memory, the boys were around 16. Sandler’s character is 13. Older boys can and do suffer just as much from rape by women. But younger ones almost always fare far worse.Vili Fualaau, a victim I wouldn’t name except that he’s living his life story publicly, was 13 when he was first raped by Letourneau, a relentless predator who never stopped hunting him. He is now a 26 year-old high school dropout, convicted of DUI, and a survivor of a suicide attempt. The only success he seems to have found is in capitalizing on his victimization (with Letourneau) at promoted events in bars for a few bucks.The victim of LaFave, according to the testimony of his sister, remains in psychiatric care still devastated from the rape he endured. LaFave was released years early from probation by a judge who joked with her while compromising both the punishment and treatment she earned when she destroyed the boy she victimized.What we call “compliant” victims of child sexual abuse are remarkably common, especially in adolescence. The older the child, the more society blames the child for at least knowing the score, if not outright luring or asking for the abuse. Predators know and rely on this. Female “tweens” and teens are certainly judged, shunned and blamed for their own victimization by adult males, as almost all adult victims are. But a boy, unless the perpetrator is a male, must celebrate his abuse, and at the expense of far more than just looking like some mysteriously disgruntled lottery winner.Sandler’s character as a boy is shown smirking and proudly high-fiving classmates when his rapist appears in court pregnant. The message sent to boys are who are similarly victimized is clear: You’d better react the same way, or you’re not a man. You’re a loser, and the affections of a “real woman” were wasted on you. But alas, in reality when guilt, shame, fear and confusion surface due to a clearly pathological relationship, the boy is utterly alone. No one- absolutely no one- will understand if he dares voice any disturbance. Instead they’ll smirk. They’ll joke about how it should have been them. They’ll wonder aloud what else isn’t quite right with him. And so on.I am highly unpopular, generally, with men’s rights groups familiar with me. But this is one area where I find some common ground with them. Adolescent female victims of men are commonly mistreated and unfairly blamed when they report. But boys victimized by women had better not report at all. Or else. But if the abuse is discovered and the woman prosecuted, she is usually under-punished if at all.The fact that Sandler’s adult character is a failure could presumably be called instructive, and act in defense of trivializing something tragic and evil. But that’s a sorry argument. Clear enough from the trailer is that the character, while a loveable loser, is still happy-go-lucky and serendipitous, not alone, desperate and suffering. Child rape as humor promotes nothing redeeming, despite the Sandler soft-touch. It’s garishly misplaced as such.
Trayvon and Five Pounds of Pressure
For decades and maybe longer, gun rights enthusiasts have sought to end the gun control argument with the following statement: “Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.”This is technically true. It is also meaningless.Of course, guns don’t kill. And pencils don’t make spelling errors. So what?Not a single assassin of a United States president has accomplished altering history by being a terrific knife wielder. James Earl Ray did not end the blessed life of Martin Luther King with a slingshot. John Lennon was not felled by a punch. James Brady would not have gone from a dynamic, affable new press secretary to a man still struggling with a disability had his attacker approached the side entrance of the Washington Hilton in 1981 with a baseball bat.It’s also true that guns don’t have mystical powers over the human mind, seducing to reality their own use. Again, so what? It is undeniably true- and frankly common sense- that killing is more likely to happen when a loaded gun is within easy reach of a person familiar with its use. Police officers take their lives in greater numbers, it is believed by experts, at least in part because of the ready presence of guns. We in the anti-violence world know well that access to firearms increases the risk of intimate partner murder around five fold.No, this isn’t because guns in these homes suddenly come alive like brooms in a Disney movie, begging to be used.It’s because the handgun is an object as perfectly designed for killing other humans as a chess board is for chess. The opposable thumb and its meaty base folds securely around the grip. The index finger- the one we control with far greater dexterity than any other- slides against the trigger like a key in a lock. Propelling death at hundreds of feet per second is now a squeeze away. For millennia, killing was by necessity a contact sport. Beating, strangling, stabbing and other forms of inter-personal violence required a victim, in most cases, no further than arm’s length away. Guns changed all of that. Now death could be dealt from a distance, both physically and- inexorably- emotionally.But handguns reduced it to little more than the dexterity and strength required to snap one’s fingers.George Zimmerman, the apparent shooter of Trayvon Martin, carried a snub-nose 9mm pistol, very simple in operation and something my Virginia friends growing up would have called a “belly gun.” Five pounds of pressure are required to fire the thing and rip apart human tissue like hamburger. To maim. To paralyze. To kill. To alter not one life, but dozens and who knows how many more in the web that contains us all. If Trayvon Martin was to cure a disease, build an empire, or simply live happily and productively in the glow of his family’s love, we’ll never know. A compact, death-black device with a five pound trigger wiped that out like sunset does the day.In Zimmerman’s shooting hand, I have no doubt it rested like a calming infant’s rattle.Whether Zimmerman was remotely justified in using it is, apparently, still unknown. Was the child he killed truly an aggressor, or was it just the combination of the hoodie and the young man’s skin that prompted Zimmerman in some hateful, idiotic flash to provoke a confrontation and then create the “need” to kill? Zimmerman’s own ethnic background seems to be relevant to some, complicated apparently by his being not black but not quite white either. Personally I find the juxtaposition of skin color in this case to be gasoline on an already raging fire. But the reality of how Trayvon’s skin color likely did lead to his death is impossible to ignore. I cannot blame the millions out there who refuse to do so.But for me, and for now, the misery of this situation comes down mostly to the demonic presence of a handgun in the hands of a pathetic rogue or worse. Zimmerman is by all appearances a character police officers know too well- the community-watch vigilante with the itchy trigger finger. Maybe that’s why, for all the gun enthusiasts still defending it, Florida law enforcement officials find the “stand your ground” law pointless bravado waiting to become far, far worse.Money in the hand of a fool simply disappears. A gun in the same hand changes everything.
Where Do We Go From Here?
This week I had the honor of speaking at the DePaul University College of Law in Chicago, sponsored by their remarkably vibrant and inventive Family Law Center. I was joined by Lester Munson, a senior sportswriter and legal analyst at ESPN. Munson is funny, blunt, opinionated, and apparently a big part of the conscience of pro and college sports. He’s doing exactly what a journalist and a sports fan should, in my view.I listened to him discuss the Penn State case, with some detail and context that I lack simply for want of his understanding of the game and the dynamics of the Paterno dynasty. As I listened, it struck me even deeper how inexcusable the decisions were that slithered out from the circle of men in control of it.It also begged the question of what we can do going forward. What can we do to prevent another predator at another venerated institution from leaving a long and concealed trail of wreckage? What can we do in general about this miserable part of our own nature?I am often invited to make observations based on what I know from research and my own professional experience. That’s the easy part. I can speak for hours on what’s wrong, why it’s wrong, and even a little bit about where it stems from. The hard part is when a sincere, decent person in the audience asks me “what, then? What do we do?"For now at least, this is what I had to offer:-Do more to understand the urge that leads to sexual violence, because it is anything but obvious or easy to comprehend.-Consider prevention efforts, but be fair and realistic about them. Most of the traditional ones do not work.-Abandon foolish ideas that many or most complaints are false or incorrect, or that violent situations are just the product of mistake, intoxication or just ‘roughness’ on the part of a violator.-Reduce the power and mystique of institutions by valuing human beings individually more than we value the institutions themselves.-Finally, accept that sexual violence, for now, is a part of the human condition.The last one is the hardest, for most, to really own and internalize. But we must.We have done much, in rich cultures at least, to add abundance to our lives and sanitize our physical experience so that we can be dignified, clean, clothed and presentable. More importantly, we have made great strides in nurturing our minds and souls. We can free ourselves much more effectively from depression and dysfunction. We can sow hope where it’s been banished. We can bind emotional wounds that formerly truncated our own lives and infected countless others.But where our sexuality is concerned, we’re still surprisingly in the dark. We know what appeals to us and what makes us more appealing. We certainly know what sells. But we don’t fully understand the line between sexuality and sexual violence- a line that, once it’s crossed, marks the end of defensible eroticism and the beginning of misery and injustice.We do not yet know how to fully acknowledge our sexuality without the intrusion of myth, mores, and standards. I do not, for the record, believe that all mores and standards are wrong it comes to our sexuality. Part of what lends us our dignity is the ideal that our sexuality can be robust and varied, but closely controlled and never a weapon. Nevertheless, it’s undeniable that some of the standards we’ve imposed on each other sexually do more harm than good, and perpetuate damaging ignorance and misunderstanding.Most importantly, we still don’t know how to keep from judging each other when one of us is sexually abused. We can’t effectively protect each other from the abuse that springs from our most cherished creations- our institutions. We can’t yet do these things because we have neither fully grasped nor fully faced what we are, and are capable of, as sexual beings. That won’t happen until we open our minds first and our mouths second.Take a page from the gay and lesbian movement during the plague of AIDS.Candor and understanding move us forward.Ignorance and denial hold us back.Silence equals death. Still.
Brownian Movement and Penn State
“Presumed Innocent” was perhaps the one book that led me more than any other into law school and prosecution.In it, Scott Turow describes “Brownian Movement,” the apparently random collision of particles in the air, resulting in a hum that children can sometimes hear before the bones of the inner-ear harden in puberty. Turow’s character, a married man, describes the allure of other women as something akin to Brownian Movement before meeting the woman in his office who becomes his love interest and is already murdered as the story begins. When he meets her, that movement rises to a fever pitch.The fact of evil in the world is something I’ve often related to Turow’s view of Brownian Movement. The circumstances of my professional life assure me that it is there. I accept it. On streets and in train cars, passing houses, farms and city blocks, I am aware of its presence. It hums, usually just above or below the surface of my thoughts. I can, thankfully, usually tune it out when I’m with my toddler nephew or in the festive company of my parents and other loved ones.But then sometimes, as it did to the tortured character of Rusty Sabich, it hums louder. It sings.That is the Penn State sex abuse scandal. Many fans and members of the university community would prefer that it be called the Jerry Sandusky sex scandal, but I won’t (even the word “scandal,” frankly, trivializes this horror as if it was a torrid affair between celebrities). That’s because Sandusky is, as happens when institutions inadvertently protect predators, almost a minor character in the volcanic ugliness that is this situation. Of course, Sandusky allegedly represents the center of the pathos that stalked the Penn State community and now threatens to scar it forever. But Sandusky is not the embodiment of it. Rather, he is ultimately a trigger in the larger, full horror of the situation. The cover-ups, the rug sweeping, the second-guessing and rationalization, all in service to a 70 million dollar a year enterprise, represent the true scope of the evil that is Penn State.And the cancer grows.A young man mercifully cloaked- for now- as “Victim 1” has left his high school, about 30 miles from Penn State, because of bullying. He has apparently been blamed by fellow students for the unearthing of the truth surrounding the revered and local behemoth. This is an excruciating multiplication- in numbers at least- of the type of incomprehensible betrayal child sex abuse victims often feel within their own families when the abuse is uncovered. Victims are usually never more alone than after the abuse is discovered, whether they purposely revealed it or not. Siblings, non-offending parents, even grandparents are suddenly distant or much worse. The victim, after all, has “torn the family apart,” interrupted possible financial support, brought shame upon the family because of a ‘splash effect’ that will surely color the whole clan, etc, etc. The fact of the perpetrator’s utter and sole guilt for all of these depredations simply gets lost as younger siblings grapple innocently but cruelly with the separation, the shame, and the doubt. Older members who should know better still often fail with wildly differing degrees of willfulness to shield the child from blame. And of course, in many cases, this is exactly what the perpetrator warned the child would happen if s/he dared reveal anything.This is perhaps the farthest reach of the anguish that is child sexual abuse. When perpetrators warn children not to tell, they are not always bluffing. In fact, when they warn of betrayal, anger, collapsing support and utter isolation, they are more often than not right on target. The system can only react one way, which generally confirms fears related to a separation of the family, time in foster care, police presence and judicial appearances. This is terrifying beyond words for most adults, let alone children. But when the second shoe falls, when family members disbelieve, equivocate, or flat out resent despite believing, the suffering blooms like blood in water. The child is forever changed. Recantation is typical, and valid cases more often than not go nowhere.Sandusky, according to statements, demanded secrecy and seems to have leaned on his alleged victims actively, calling them repeatedly and appearing even needy and clingy at times. I have no idea if or how he warned them of other consequences for revealing what he was doing, but frankly it would have been superfluous. He was Jerry Sandusky, and they were in or near State College. He allegedly hunted through his own charity and perpetrated in athletic facilities. He was figuratively at God’s right hand.And there’s the rub. If that phrase- God’s right hand- offends religious readers, I apologize. But the point needs to be made. Penn State football became, through a confluence of circumstances surrounding an iconic and otherwise honorable coach, a deity to be worshiped rather than a college team to be rooted for. The resulting millions in revenue silenced anything that might have tainted or challenged this entity. If reports are true, then Sandusky allowed a beast inside of him to run free in the permissive environment that the god-thing allowed. That’s what happens when institutions become godlike: Predators either seek to infiltrate them, or blossom within them once it becomes obvious they can.Allegations at Syracuse’s equally revered and powerful basketball program and the Boston Redsox organization now follow. There will be more, as sure as Catholic dioceses the world over exploded in fire-cracker sequence, breaking my heart around the time I entered this field. Skeptics and die-hard fans will cry foul and insist there is money and fame to be gained in jumping on the bandwagon Penn State has started with false allegations. In almost all cases, they’ll be wrong. And God help the victims who will come forward despite the scorn, the bullying, and the dull, mean hate that coming forward will win them against these institutions.By all appearances, the wide world of sports must now endure a bloodletting. For the sake of the many good things athletics brings to players and fans alike, I hope its leaders stand tall and its fans prove gentle and open-hearted. But regardless, the world of sports is cracking, opening, splitting. That high, insistent hum is rising yet again.
Of Angels, A Stranger, and an Absent Father
“Though we share so many secrets, there are some we never tell.” William Martin (Billy) JoelHe called it “The Stranger” and titled a 1977 masterpiece after it. In my business we sometimes refer to it as the “third persona” with a nod to Jungian psychology. A persona is simply a mask, the figurative one we put on to interact with others as we go about our lives. Most of us wear several of them. Our first persona, generally, is what we show to the viewing world. A second may be what we show a lover or a trusted friend, sometimes intermittently and whether we want to or not. But the third is a dark animal indeed. It’s the face we show to no one. It’s the side of ourselves we seek to conceal at all costs. We all have these shadows of ourselves, these Strangers, inside of us. As the song says, they are not always evil, and they are not always wrong. But whether our third persona is harmless or not, a wicked trick of the mind is that we almost always to fail to recognize that it exists in others. We assume, tragically at times, that we can fully know people around us because of the personas they reveal to us. We tell ourselves that we can sense, we can see, we can discern.We can’t. The Stranger remains, hidden and invisible.Jerry Sandusky is no exception. He was charitable. He was hard working. He was skilled, admired, and accomplished. He was also, according to eye-witness testimony, a child rapist. His third persona was apparently demonic, and regardless of how ugly and evil, his closest relatives, his wife, his co-workers and his legendary boss would not have detected it based on what he chose to show them. Thus reveals the one merciful thing that can perhaps be said about the group of men who, from all appearances at this point, conspired to protect Jerry Sandusky at the expense of so much. They didn’t understand the third persona, and believed they knew a man because of accomplishments and attributes that say nothing about what he is capable of otherwise.But mercy for men like Paterno, Curley, Schultz and others in the Institution that is Penn State evaporates with the reality that Sandusky’s persona was exposed at crucial times. There were revelations- a smaller word will not suffice- that vomited a glimpse of it to the great Institution and to its “sainted” mastodon at different points on a long timeline. These revelations are sometimes the only indications an otherwise decent community will receive that a predator stalks its children. The child victims themselves, God bless them, are often the last who will reveal the Stranger in the man; it’s just a bridge too far most of the time.Those without faith will call these revelations nothing more than dumb luck, inattention on Sandusky’s part, or the blind weight of circumstances. But my own framework of faith suggests to me that these brief flashes of light in the darkness- the anal rape Mike McQueary saw in 2002, for instance, or the oral rape the janitor before him saw in 2000- represent the extremities of desperate and semi-potent angels, using whatever cosmic power they can summon to poke momentary holes in the darkness, thereby alerting the powerful to what the powerless cannot utter.When these extremities reached Joseph Paterno in March of 2002, the angels must have shouted with joy. A more powerful man, one with more credibility, perceived decency and moral authority, could not possibly have been reached in the community in which Sandusky apparently hunted. Ironically enough, a recognized origin of the name Paterno is a shortening of the Latin Pater Noster, or Our Father, the first two words of the only prayer Jesus allegedly taught his disciples. The great man, the father figure, “St. Joe” himself now knew, and the Stranger in Sandusky would be exposed.But alas, there was an Institution to protect as well, and in the end it won out. An all-too human Paterno responded as feebly as he legally could. The two officials he went to responded by restricting Sandusky’s access to facilities and his ability to bring boys onto campus. The Institution was protected. The community that surrounded it, and its wide-eyed, star struck boys, could be damned.Perhaps these men can be forgiven for not knowing what I know; that the eight victims Sandusky is alleged to have abused is probably more like 80 or even much, much more than that. That the after-effects of child sexual abuse result in a panoply of emotional, psychological and physical disorders that literally truncate lives, poison future relationships, stunt potential and shred hope itself like shrapnel. That the “loss of innocence” suffered by boys abused in the way Sandusky is believed to have done so is almost trivial compared to the bleak, mental torture that follows. That the only way out is through, and that many simply never make it through. That the morally bankrupt and cynical decisions made in 1998, 2000, and 2002, as well as before and after, allowed a man to further manufacture misery, betrayal and violence that will haunt lifetimes in its wake.Perhaps. But at the end of the day, in 2002 and God only knows how many times before and after, these men bet an Institution and its football program over their community and the tender lives of its children. While the victims themselves have paid most dearly for this terrible wager, their fate is tied inextricably to that of the community. Now the suffering of both will echo louder than the joyful sound of the throngs in the stadium, and longer than the legacy of victories under fall skies.And the angels wept bitterly.
Judge William Adams, A Camera, and the Power of Light
Roughly 2000 years ago an itinerant rabbi gave a sermon about light. The right thing to do with a lamp, said the rabbi, was to let it shine, not put it under a basket. That made sense in a time where light after sunset was a luxury; hence the parable. And of course, in the spirit of parables, there are other forms of light, and other functions for what we know as light. Light illuminates, and in so doing exposes.In 2004, a remarkable young woman with a disability shined a light in the form of a video camera on the pathology, hatefulness and pure evil of a man who, until last week, had been a sitting judge in Texas. The video shows him, her father, beating her with a belt in a breathtakingly brutal way, over seven interminable minutes.I am using words like “pathology” and “evil” distinctly, although as the study of psychology evolves, the difference between what we might call mental illness and what we have historically called evil are blurring in ways that make people like me- prosecutors, and arbiters of legal blame- uncomfortable. But for now, I’m comfortable, perhaps recklessly so, with discussing the two separately. I believe the man is probably sick. I also believe he’s evil.Millions have seen the video. Millions more, thanks in part to the appropriate “trigger” warnings that have been associated with it, have demurred. I watched every second of it, and more than once. The video’s subject is my job, after all; I have seen things far worse, but in many ways I haven’t seen anything quite as naked and telling as this. Because sometimes it takes a camera in the right place at the right time to truly expose what lies beneath far more facades of normalcy than most of us understand. A camera won’t flinch. It won’t turn away. It will simply record with passive silence, and in situations like this one perhaps its growing ubiquity in our lives is a positive thing. After all, it allowed a 16 year-old Hillary Adams to preserve something that is simply unbelievable to many- that a respected member of the judicial bench, a smiling, reasonable looking man, would nevertheless be capable of a vicious beating laced with profanity against a young girl with cerebral palsy.You see, I have prosecuted and assisted with hundreds of cases where I knew the truth, but also feared I’d never be able to infuse a jury with the courage to convict. I never had proof like the kind Hillary possessed; the kind she had the wherewithal and technology to create. And so doubt would creep in at the edges, doubt fueled by myths that protect men like William Adams and his now estranged wife. Myths that whisper that couples like the Adams’ aren’t the types who could hurt a disabled child that way. Myths that education, privilege, community stature, the genetic accident of white skin, and other niceties can’t co-exist with methodological torture and wanton cruelty. Myths like the one William Adams is selling right now, that the issue was really “discipline” and that what the video shows “looks worse than it is.”Ah, but then sometimes, in blessed fashion, a camera shatters the myths; a camera placed by an intelligent and desperate child who has learned, as many family violence survivors do, to predict the escalation of hostilities that leads to violence.So the video depicts exactly what occurred; it was Judge William Adams, community leader, outwardly decent parent, arbiter of justice, ripping into his child’s body with a lustful but eerily calm exuberance, armed with a leather strap. It was this man, uttering the word “f—king,” 14 times as he did so.It was also Hillary’s mother, Hallie, whose participation was less violent but no less sickening. I’m glad that she has repaired her relationship with her daughter, and that Hillary has forgiven her. She’ll get nothing from me. I understand that I am running afoul of many domestic violence experts who maintain that a battered woman can be rendered powerless over years of brainwashing and abuse to where her own violence or failure to protect her children cannot be attributed to her in terms of blame. I am sympathetic to the dynamics that exist, and attribute the lion’s share of the blame to William Adams, where it belongs. But I draw the line on anyone who fails to protect their own children, regardless of what they are facing in another relationship. Hallie Adams’ explanation on Today was, to me, less than impressive. She calmly deflected blame by claiming victimhood herself and assigning an addiction to William. I’m sure this is accurate, but it doesn’t give her a pass where I’m concerned. She’s clearly not the primary abuser in the nightmare world Hillary navigated for so long. But she made choices that I cannot abide, and one of them was graphically showcased on this video with its own dose of profanity.A five-year statute of limitations will likely protect both from criminal prosecution. Adams’ judicial career might be over, which would perhaps be the most just event he’s been witness to since that career began. There are many other ways to look at this case, Hillary’s courage and healing, and also the response to the video as Hillary is launched into a temporary but bright public spotlight. I wish nothing more than for her to live a full and happy life unencumbered by the evil visited upon her.For me, though, the deepest value of what Hillary did by placing a running camera on her dresser and a scarf over the tell-tale blinking red light, was to allow a robotic, impassive eye to simply witness what far too many believe to be impossible. My friend and colleague Anne Munch once told me the story of a police chief in a small, idyllic Colorado town who was asked a typical ‘softball’ question by a reporter: “So, is this town a safe place to live?”Rather than giving the pat and expected answer, the wise chief apparently looked at the reporter evenly and said what I believe might be the most plainly accurate thing that can be said about literally any locality on the globe.“It depends on who you live with.”
Homeschooling, Risk, and Grand Canyon
“Grand Canyon,” from 1991, is one of my favorite movies of all time. In it, Mary McDonnell’s character says in exasperation to Kevin Kline’s, “there are people ready to shoot you if you look at them. And we are getting used to it.”That time was, by most markers, the terrifying crest of the crime wave that began sometime around the year I was born. Although it looked hopeless, it did recede, and continues to do so at a gratifying rate. This is thanks to many factors including some heroic policing, public investment, and the efforts of social workers, prosecutors, civic groups and faith-based organizations nationwide.Also dropping are child abuse rates, and to the extent I’ve been able to assist in this effort I’m deeply gratified. But recently a spate of sickening stories have me again scratching my head. The new, terrifying zeitgeist in child abuse seems to be torture, caging, and starvation, accomplished behind closed doors. In a particularly horrific, four victim case of out Washington DC in 2008, and at least one case I consulted on recently, the slow murder was carried out under the guise of homeschooling. I’m at the point, especially after the latest rapid fire examples of kids kept caged and hidden, where I’m ready to declare that there are children being starved to death by our neighbors and under our noses, and we are getting used to it.The case I consulted on involved an otherwise healthy 10 year-old boy, literally starved to death by his mother and step-father. The post-mortem photographs of the child were nothing short of shocking to the group reviewing the case, and we don’t shock easily. The child was visibly emaciated and obviously near collapse if not death. For the final months of his life, though, as his condition steadily worsened, he wasn’t noticed by anyone outside of his household. That’s because he rarely left the house. Since school was ostensibly at home, there was no need for him to do so.At the outset, please understand I am not against homeschooling. Two college friends of mine, a couple, have homeschooled four children with great success. This is primarily because Kathleen, the primary educator, is brilliant, nurturing and highly educated herself. The issue with homeschooling, as with many practices, is less essential and more procedural. If done right, homeschooling seems to work quite well according to some studies.But when the wrong parent or parents homeschool, the results can be far worse than “just” a badly educated child. An abusive parent who homeschools has more than a captive audience; he or she also has essentially a caged one. Homeschooled children don’t report to an institution- public or private- on a daily basis where signs of abuse or neglect might be noticed. Mandatory reporting laws now exist in every state and require teachers and others in the community who professionally interact with children to report suspected abuse or neglect to authorities. Those laws won’t reach into a homeschool setting, however. Every state has different ways of regulating the homeschool response to compulsory education laws. But none, to my knowledge, require parents of homeschooled children to provide, to any civil authority, any sort of recurring evidence that a child is simply healthy and growing normally in terms of physical well-being (as opposed to academic, moral or civic).Of course, homeschooling advocates with libertarian tendencies would most certainly bristle at such a requirement. The idea of having to essentially present one’s child to the government (in some shape or form) at regular intervals is something a large segment of the population would view with alarm and suspicion. Additionally, homeschooling advocates will point (fairly) to the disturbing statistics on how much harm visits children in traditional school settings each year. Where homeschooling requirements are concerned, they’ll point to studies suggesting that more stringent regulations on homeschoolers aren’t scientifically proven to produce better results. The argument then goes that the trend toward parental freedom to educate children as parents see fit is a positive one.This debate is worth having, as is the one sparked by libertarians and the like-minded who believe that most things run or mandated by government are grossly inefficient at least and harmful at worst. And beyond this, a growing number of Americans seem to simply favor freedom over regimentation even in the face of the accompanying risks.Fair enough, but children are not abstract statistics, ideals, or the products of breezy discussion. They are breathing human beings who need at rock bottom a certain calorie count every day and who bleed, bruise, suffer and perish when injured profoundly enough.Government can’t and shouldn’t be expected to have the primary responsibility for child rearing, and I’m not about to suggest any model to replace what we generally know as the family unit. It’s simply an undeniable fact that when we extend to parents more and more freedom over the fates of their children with no backstop in the form of a communal place for them to assemble at least periodically, we risk losing them to an unobserved and sometimes shockingly cruel fate. Traditional schools and the laws that empower them are no panacea to child abuse, but they at least allow for an opportunity for abuse to be detected.In the case of the child I consulted on recently, his parents gave written statements that demonstrated vividly their utter inability to educate anyone, themselves included. The image of their child, unspeakably gaunt, graying and lifeless on a morgue slab, bespoke their view of him as a living being. What liberty may seem to philosophically demand, or what trends may be suggesting in academia are immaterial to him now, and they won’t bring him back. A teacher or fellow student at a traditional school certainly might have harmed him as well, but more likely they might have alerted others to his circumstances before it was too late. Instead, he died behind doors closed to the community around him. At home.
Casey Anthony, and Where to Put Your Anger
A terrific character actor named Daniel Benzali once scored a role on NYPD Blue (it led to an OJ-inspired 90’s TV series) where he played a marquis defense attorney with a shady reputation. When dispatched to help a cop charged with murder, the client initially rejects him, stating that she wants no part of an attorney with his reputation defending her. Benzali’s character smiles and delivers one of the most brilliant lines I’ve heard describing bare-knuckle trial law: “That’s entry level perception, detective. Reputations swiftly give way to the skill of the practitioner once the doors of the courtroom are closed.” Amen.I wasn’t there to witness Jose Baez’s advocacy on the Casey Anthony case. But I know from the coverage that he and his team brilliantly exploited an alternative explanation for her child’s death, and in so doing painstakingly and methodically generated the necessary amount of precious doubt necessary for 12 Florida citizens to utter “not guilty” on charges of murder. Perhaps, as some have claimed, the jury was cowardly or malfeasant in ignoring the legal weight of circumstantial evidence. Perhaps they were collectively cynical or stupid, as some have speculated. The declaration by one of them to the gossip site TMZ that he’d talk about the case but only if he was paid to do so certainly lends some credibility to that theory. But all of this is beside the point. Baez did his job.As offensive as it is to many, Baez is technically correct when he claims he could tell his daughter after the trial that he “saved a life today.” He did. The state of Florida, under its death penalty statute, sought to end the life of Casey Anthony for the murder of her daughter. Baez and his team stopped that from happening. In pretty much every sense of the word, he is correct.I happen to wish Baez had failed. I believe Casey Anthony is a psychopathic killer, and I know how to use the term “psychopath” professionally, not just colloquially. It’s not easy to find a doctor who will do a permanent tubal ligation on a 25 year-old woman, but despite what my religion commands I hope she gets one. I’d very much prefer that she bring no further children into the world, as I am convinced that she will snuff out their lives as quickly as she snuffed out Caylee’s once they become inconvenient. That’s what psychopaths do with things, living or dead, that inconvenience them. They remove them. The creativity, skill and labor they must engage in to eliminate the obstacle differs depending on its nature. But the underlying drive is the same.But none of this was Jose Baez’s concern, nor should it have ever been. He was rightfully focused on his client alone, protecting her as best he could from the efforts of the state to imprison and execute her. That’s how the system works. Baez stated publicly after the trial that his client did not murder her child, and perhaps he believes that. But frankly, he doesn’t have to. Far more offensive were the crass remarks of co-counsel Cheney Mason who insinuated that the media had engaged in “character assassination,” presumably with regard to Casey. Note to Mr. Mason: Your client was not found “innocent.” She was found “not guilty,” meaning that the government failed, in the jury’s determination, to meet an extremely heavy burden regarding her legal guilt. They adjudicated that question in the negative, and thus it is legally correct that Casey go free for those charges. Whether it is morally correct, logically correct or factually correct is beside the point. The verdict addresses none of these questions.In terms of what disgusts me, (other than what I believe were the actions of Casey herself), I can’t help but mention the fixation this country had for this particular case when children suffer fates like Caylee’s every day across 3.8 million square miles of America and generate no media frenzy. It’s perhaps awkward but no less accurate to note that Caylee herself was a white, physically beautiful child, and her mother a telegenic, thin, and yes -sexy- woman. The media hyped photographs of Casey (other than the ones with evidentiary value) showing her taunting the camera with pursed lips in Halloween costumes or football jerseys were no accident. There are certainly aspects of this case- the search efforts, the slowly leaked details regarding evidence and litigation- that made it particularly compelling. But ultimately, when it comes to what sells copy and gets people to tune in, the murderer is more interesting, and so is her act, when both she and her victim are photogenic and culturally appealing.Baez acknowledged correctly that there were no winners in the the State of Florida v. Casey Anthony. His mini-rant regarding the death penalty was misplaced as the issue wasn’t reached in this case, but his other remarks, including the tender message in Spanish to his mother and family, were appropriate. His statement about the American Constitution was particularly spot-on, regardless of his point of view. Casey Anthony was tried, competently and at great cost, in a public trial by the representatives of an elected attorney empowered to bring the force of the law and its iron accouterments against one citizen. Efforts to prove her guilt to an appropriately lofty standard failed. Out she goes, then, into the stream of life with the rest of us.Casey Anthony, it can be compellingly argued, will not face justice in this life. But as a prosecutor I learned a long time ago that earthly justice is a “long ball” concept that must be viewed separately from any particular case.If you are among the many, many people convinced that justice was not done in this case, I beg you: take that long view. Let Caylee’s fate not be in vain by raising your own awareness and that of others to children everywhere who suffer neglect, abuse and death in cases less titillating but no less horrific. Support groups that fight for the lives of children. I’ve listed a few below, but it is by no means exhaustive.The greatest gift of faith, to me anyway, is the impish games it plays with the blunt force of words in our language; the ones I’ve been battered with as an attorney for 15 years.“Caylee is dead.”“Casey is free.”Examine those two statements through the prism of a God-gifted, God-ordained and God-ordered world, and they are not so horrific, offensive, or final.Again. Amen.National Child Protection Training CenterNational Center for Missing And Exploited ChildrenLove Our Children USANational Center for Prosecution of Child Abuse