Once again, assisted suicide is making headlines.  Four members of an organization, Final Exit Network, were arrested this week in Georgia for providing assistance to a man who wished to end his life.  There’s now a multi-state investigation into this group’s activities.  Eight states are looking into deaths they believe might have been assisted with one or more members from this group.  According to its website, this is a group that dedicates itself to serving those suffering from an intolerable condition. 

At least a few of the members are medical doctors, psychologists and other professionals.  They’re now being charged with assisted suicide, evidence tampering and there are other charges relating to racketeering.   The death they’re charged with providing assistance for was a man in northern Georgia who’d suffered from throat and mouth cancer.  According to his mother, he’d been in pain for awhile and was depressed.  He was still facing other surgeries and at least one more round of chemotherapy.  His 85 year old mother then went on to say she knew he was depressed and that although she was in pain, she respected his decision.

This group has over 3,000 members who pay dues each month.  Those who wish to end their lives are provided an exit guide that reveals information for successfully committing suicide.  They’re then told to obtain two helium tanks.  An “exit bag” - a hood that’s worn over the head is provided and once the date has been established, two members of the group arrive at the person’s home to oversee the event.  They insist they don’t participate, but are there to lend support and to ensure there are no problems. 

The eight states investigators have in their crosshairs are: Florida, Maryland, Michigan, Arizona, Georgia, Montana, Missouri and Colorado.  There’s at least one specific death being investigated in Arizona.  If the four who were arrested this week are found guilty, they could serve up to five years in prison.

A final note:  Betty Celmer, the mother of the man who successfully carried out his suicide and who the four are charged with assisting, said that she didn’t believe the organization should face charges and that it’s her belief they helped her son end his pain.  She said, “If someone helped him, I think that was in God’s hands”.

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After seeing several different stories in different regions of the country in this weekend’s newspapers regarding child abuse (including yet another teacher who’s been charged with molesting one of her 12 year old male students) and drug abuse, I started thinking about the correlation with different problems that are wreaking havoc in our social structures. After about the four or fifth research report that discussed findings from many sociologists and psychiatrists, it became clear that there are not only predictable denominators, but the basic foundations are always very similar.

The vicious cycles associated with all forms of abuse are reliable by definition. For instance, some warning signs of abused children include:

• Depression at an early age
• Withdrawal from classmates, friends and those outside their immediate families
• Older kids are at much higher risks to become drug addicts and alcoholics
• MPD (multiple personality disorder) is more common that some may think. Most psychologists and psychiatrists agree that these other personalities are formed as protective mechanisms that allow another identity to “step in” to allow the child to escape while the abuse is being inflicted. This remains one of the most controversial diagnoses in the psychiatric field. Some are more comfortable with classifying this as a form of post stress disorder; regardless, there are many who’ve been diagnosed with MPD or DID (dissociative identity disorder), as it was most recently renamed. Another important factor is the ratio of female to male diagnoses is 9 to 1 (girls are ten times as likely to be sexually abused).
• Suicide attempts
• Acting out with inappropriate sexual behaviors even before puberty (most often saw in children who have been victims of sexual abuse)

Once these children reach adulthood, the myriad of problems they’re likely to encounter are extensions of those that developed years earlier. Often, without resolution via counseling or not being allowed to pursue legal avenues to prosecute these abusers, the cycle begins once again. Often, women who were abused as children grow up to marry men who continue the abuse into the marriage, and any children that are born during the marriage become victims themselves of the same abuse his parent(s) suffered. Too many times, mothers who were forced to submit to incest with siblings or even their fathers will be helpless to ensure her own’s child’s safety. These women are most likely to become chronically depressed, addicts, alcoholics and are almost always passive in nature. They’re not capable of protecting their children from the same fate that’s destroyed their own lives.

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this cycle is the common profile of a pedophile. Many pedophiles were abused as children, had parents who were addicts and alcoholics, had low self esteem and were pulled out of school. Clearly, the cycle repeats time and again. Other factors of victims once they’re reached adulthood and have become parents include neglect towards their children and provided they’re not removed from the custody of their parents, those who do drugs can sometimes introduce their own children to these addictive patterns, thereby ensuring a new generation of drug users.

So, what is the answer? Experts, of course, disagree on the best solution, but some of the most obvious include allowing the victim his day in court. If kids don’t have an adult to step up to the plate for them, they will certainly carry that with them and will equate it to not being important enough to seek justice. Legislation efforts are also awaiting the review process, and most agree (or at least hope for) the punishments will become harsher for abusers. Despite all of the many programs that are in place, far too many fall through the cracks and sadly, some don’t live to tell the tale. For those who are removed from the abusive homes and are placed in foster care or other protective custody are sometimes returned due to lack of proof of abuse. The most frustrating aspect is, of course, breaking the cycle when there seems to be no one agency or methods to slow it down long enough to break it before it gets the desperate places that send up the red flags. With that said, there do appear to be ways to protect some of these little ones. By using a team approach designed to protect the rights of these kids, a lawyer or lawyers who represent these minors often work hand in hand with government agencies, counselors and even the foster parents at times when appropriate. These combined effort works to the advantage of these young clients and are often the first time these kids feel as though someone is looking out for them.

With DNA exonerating more and more innocent people on a daily basis, law makers and police departments around the country are looking for ways to ensure more accurate photo lineups.  A new computer program slated to be put into use by Dallas, TX police will hopefully provide some insight as to why there are so many inaccurate choices made by witnesses. 

The procedure in Dallas is for a detective to show an eyewitness six photos of “suspects”.  Five are photos that are somewhat similar and the sixth photo of the suspect.  Since 1989, DNA has exonerated 220 people across the country.  Of those, 75% were initially convicted based on photo lineups.  Further, Dallas County leads the country in inaccurate lineup picks.  Of the 19 exonerations in Dallas County, all but one was due to inaccurate eyewitness picks during photo lineups. 

The new study, designed to lessen the possibility of an inaccurate pick, will include at least 800 lineups and will only be done in Dallas County’s robberies and assaults divisions.  Police will load six photographs into a computer; one of the suspect and the remaining five that are similar in size, hair color, etc. of the suspect.  The computer program will then randomly determine if the photographs will be viewed simultaneously with all six photos on one screen, or sequentially, with one photo at a time via a slide show.  The computer program will also determine if the computer itself will conduct the lineup or if a detective will lead the photo display. 

These tests, conducted by The Urban Institute in Washington, DC, will hopefully determine if a detective’s body language and unconscious verbal cues influence a witness’s pick. 

One of the first cases that was overturned by DNA was that of Ronald Cotton.  He was accused, identified via photo lineup and convicted of raping a North Carolina woman in 1984.  He was 22 years old.  Eleven years later, DNA proved he wasn’t the rapist.  There are a group of psychologists who are using this case as an example of how wrong eyewitness accounts can be.  Their recommendations include limited feedback from police during a lineup as well other methods that lend towards a more scientific approach and less of an emotional scenario.  That seems near impossible.  Anyone who’s ever been a victim of a crime can tell you that removing the emotions is simply not possible.  Still, everyone agrees a better solution, via technological advances, must be found that will prevent innocent people from serving any jail time.

In the meantime, Dallas County, TX is expected to implement the study immediately.

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As usual this time of day, I start searching for my next post. Usually, something jumps out at me within a few minutes and I’m suddenly presented with my next subject. Tonight, however, there were more than a couple references to what’s now just become this post. This is one of those posts that leave me staring at the blank Word document wondering how I can pull this off without going off on some tangent filled with pure anger and a degree of hatred. Here are the three headlines:

WOMAN GETS LIFE SENTENCE FOR SEX WITH 5-YEAR-OLD

Woman Gets Prison for Secondhand Crack Smoke That Sickens Two Year Old

North Carolina Police Find 3-Week-Old Baby Living in Active Meth Lab

I can remember thinking when my son was born of how incredible his life would be and how he could affect every person he ever met. My goal, I decided, was to ensure his presence in someone’s life would be better because of him. It never once occurred to me that there would be so much misery and disbelief that exists in today’s society. I look at him and am just amazed at the incredible human he’s become. He’s chasing his dreams, he’s pursuing his education and he has a family that would kill over him…and we’d probably hurt one another trying to be the first to get to source who has jeopardized him in any way.

What adult could allow such evil to happen? At what point does someone decide that it’s OK to rape a 5 year old because her husband made her do it? And with all of the horror stories associated with meth labs and the destruction left behind, including risking entire neighborhoods, innocent people who might be walking past a meth lab disguised as a home and the kids who have no choice but to breathe it in, is an addiction so powerful that the human spirit can justify the repercussions? What stories were told when these people were caught and arrested? What stories did they tell their lawyers? Were they so far gone that they had no interest in even assisting their lawyers? In a world where criminal attorneys have learned to expect anything and to prepare themselves for the dark sides of human nature, along with the psychologists who are asked to provide a disturbing snapshot of their mental health and the teams who must go in and detox entire buildings, you’re left feeling defeated and with no confidence in people in general. And then you realize that this one perfection you’ve managed in this life is finding his own way and it’s then you realize you wish he’d never had to grow up. As a little one, you can protect him and he’s actually SUPPOSED to have his family running interference for him and fighting his battles, but once he’s grown and pursuing his own passions and dreams, the best we can hope for is he’s not ever one of those innocent people taking a walk in front of a cleverly disguised meth lab as it explodes.

Life in prison for these folks? The imperfect human in me hopes that it’s a miserable existence.

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You will respect me!

Do those words sound familiar? Maybe a blast from your childhood? My sister and I can evoke the evil eye from my mom to this day with a perfect imitation of her words from our childhood: “You don’t have to like me, you don’t have to love me, but you will respect me, young lady! Do you understand me?!” Oh, make no mistake, we definitely understood. We were more afraid of Mom than Dad. Mom could never be manipulated. She was on to us from day one.

With so many people who believe spanking should be outlawed, this debate will continue and everyone has an opinion, including those in the psychology field. In fact, it’s the psychologists and behavior analysts who are most vocal in their adamant beliefs against corporal punishment. The general consensus is that it impedes emotional growth and leads to adult depression and low self worth. I doubt that. My self worth is just fine, thank you very much. It suffered no ill effects from childhood spankings. There was a time kids had a healthy respect for teachers too. Well, unless you were my sister. One teacher broke a ruler on her butt, which led to two rulers being taped together to serve the purpose and ensure baby sis got her just desserts, although it’s not clear anymore which rule she’d broken since at one time or another, she’d broken all the rules. In true form, she’d had a bellyful and commenced to taking the taped rulers away from the teacher and broke them after the first lick or so. This, of course, triggered the phone call to Mom. Let me say this: I’d have preferred five rulers being taped together or recess taken away forever than to have my mom come to the school for something like this. It didn’t matter if a teacher had shaved our eyebrows off, glued our hands to our desks and forced a kid to eat the mystery meat from the cafeteria - we knew parents and teachers were on the same side. Period. The double ruler episode was no different. As spirited as my sister was (and still is), she knew she didn’t have a chance once Mom showed up and took the teacher’s side.

With so many TV shows showcasing a British nanny’s approach to discipline, it seems as though there’s another way. But for every family who allows a camera crew and an assertive nanny to come into their homes for a week to show these desperate parents another way, there’s thousands who don’t have that option. More times than not, when an exhausted and defeated parent says, “I just don’t know what else to do.”, I find myself thinking “Yeah. Maybe you don’t, but I do.” That’s a bit disturbing to me since screaming kids who kicked and threw things at their parents like these just didn’t exist in the 70s when we were in elementary and jr. high school and on the rare occasions it did, parents sure didn’t expose it to the outside world because that meant the parents lacked strength to keep their kids in line. And “timeouts“? Yeah, right. That’s a new word exclusive to current times. Timeouts back then referred to something a referee yelled at a ballgame. And God forbid we back-talk. Our “smart mouths” were by far the worse thing to display. As kids, this resulted in (and in this order): the evil eye that told us we were in for it, followed by the finger directing us to step right “here” and do it now, and that was followed by, “Young lady, you can assure yourself that once we get home, that little stunt you just pulled has guaranteed a spanking. Now you get back over there and behave yourself.” And finally, it ended with our heads dropped and sulking back to wherever we were before we’d dug the hole we were now in.

Most states are vague regarding corporal punishment. The laws seem to be worded differently, and honestly, some are open to interpretation. And surprisingly, many states still allow physical discipline as an option for teachers. Most states have wordings such as, “excessive punishment” and “physical injury” but don’t really make the distinction between abusive and disciplinary.

Tennessee’s law has this statement:

Permits criminal charges against a parent/guardian/custodian who administers “unreasonable” corporal punishment which causes “injury” to the child. Sec. 39-15-401 [Cr.]

California’s law has this statement:

Serious physical harm does not include reasonable and age-appropriate spanking to the buttocks where there is no evidence of serious physical injury.

Delaware’s law reads:

Force is justifiable if reasonable and moderate and by parent/guardian/foster parent/legal custodian/other similar person responsible for care and supervision. Intended to benefit child.

Keep in mind, these are only very small excerpts. Many feel that the lack of spankings and basically, a lack of discipline as a whole, have led to the problems with kids of all ages. I don’t know that I agree totally with that, but I do think it certainly plays a part. And the answers won’t be found in this post, but what I can tell you is that because we were raised in a home with very definitive roles (Mom was Mom…we had a lot of friends, but she wasn’t one of them. She was too busy being a mom) and clear expectations of what the rules were and the consequences of breaking them, we’ve suffered no ill effects.

In a time where child abuse cases are daily happenings in courts across the country and are analyzed on every primetime news show, it’s clear there’s no balance. The laws should be written to provide clear and definitive definitions of what constitutes child abuse, which is a crime, and less about what defines responsible discipline and parenting. And for what it’s worth - the evil eye counts as responsible discipline - and quite effective, at that.

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