Wednesday, December 07, 2011

Penalty Fits The Crime ... Or Does It?

According to the American Heritage Dictionary:

Felony Is Defined As...

One of several grave crimes, such as murder, rape, or burglary, punishable by a more stringent sentence than that given for a misdemeanor.

Child Abuse Is Defined As...

Child abuse is the blanket term for four types of child mistreatment physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, and neglect.

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All of the above sounds like and is serious stuff. People who go about Felonying (don’t write me, I know this is not a word) and Child Abusing ought to be dealt with by society sternly because they have done serious bad stuff. I ask you, does the case I am about to relate fall into the area of our law called “Serious Bad Stuff”?

According to my local newspaper...

Ø A father drank so much that he became a Drunken Dad.

Ø Drunken Dad had his 9-year-old daughter with him.

Ø To be on the safe side driving home, he let his 9-year-daughter do the driving.

Ø The police stopped the vehicle in which they were riding and saw the 9-year-old in the driver’s seat and Drunken Dad immediately was in a whole bunch of trouble.

He should have known better. The police saw the vehicle being driven erratically and decided to stop the vehicle... Right? ... Wrong!

Actually the vehicle was being driven in a very safe manner but Drunken Dad and his daughter had stopped for gas and Drunken Dad had bragged about his 9-year-old daughter driving his drunken butt home

The late Paul Harvey just came into my computer room and asked me to tell all of you The Rest of the Story...

The police stopped the safely being driven vehicle because the people in the gas station called the police and told them about the Drunken Dad and his 9-year-old safe-diving daughter.

OK I agree Drunken Daddy did something wrong. He probably ought to have some kind of charges brought against him. How about something like?...

Ø Charged with Being Stupid?

Ø Charged with Not Calling His 45-Year-Old Brother-In-Law to come drive them home?

Ø Charged with not buying his 9-year-old daughter a soda pop to drink while he slept his drunken self sober on in the corner of the bar?

What was he charged with? You have probably guessed by now. He was charged with Felony Child Abuse.

Go back and read the Italicized beginning of this posting. Do you think that this Penalty Fits This Crime?

Would I kid u?