I had mused before about the fact that I was unaffected and dispassionate in dealing with criminal cases with children victims when such cases seem to bring out the inner murderer of other adults, and assumed it was because I was not a “kid-person.” I’d wondered if I’d feel differently if I were a mom. Today, I figured I would get to find out.
This morning we were given an assignment to do a preliminary hearing in which the victim is a 17-month-old little girl. Allegations are that the 22-year-old mother’s boyfriend (who is not the father) slammed the little girl onto the floor or some other hard surface, causing fractures and enough damage to her skull and brain stem that it killed her. The mom and defendant seem to say that the kid fell off a chair on accident while in the defendant’s care and it was not child-abuse related. The defendant is charged with a count of murder and a count of assault of a minor.
Before knowing anything about the case, just flipping through the evidentiary photos almost brought me to tears, and the autopsy photos of her skull were…*gag*. Now we’re in the midst of an expert witness pediatrician’s testimony about the injuries, and we’ve heard a part of the mom’s testimony. None of it has moved me to tears and the mom was rather giggly and rather clinical in her testimony (she’s a nurse). So I’m doing pretty well, I haven’t lost it in a fit of hysteria, yet. This is going to go on for a couple of days.
Meanwhile, I think this is a good time for sharing something I saw the other day and loved, cuz it’s SO TRUE. I have friends who occasionally comment about how we Asians don’t age, and I usually respond something to the effect of, “Yeah, but when we turn 60, overnight we look like our grandmas.” Observe: