Mother gets ten years for allowing friend to blow pot smoke in her 7-year-old’s face

Maybe somebody can help me understand the American concept of “justice”. In this first story, a mother is convicted of not preventing an act of child abuse against her seven-year-old:

NBC NEWS – Prosecutors in Caddo County say this video shot last year shows a woman blowing marijuana smoke into the mouth of a 7-year-old boy, who has Downs syndrome.

Investigators say the mother, Caroline Beavers, sat watching nearby.

Workers at an electronics store notified police last April after finding this video on a computer that had been repossessed.

Beavers was arrested and charged with one felony count of enabling child abuse.

(The Express-Star) District Judge Richard Van Dyck has sentenced a Caddo County woman to 10 years after she entered a blind plea to allowing a co-defendant to blow marijuana smoke into the mouth of her seven-year-old handicapped son.

Van Dyck ordered that Caroline Marie Beavers of Anadarko be incarcerated for three years, followed by seven years probation.

So, in summary: parent lets another person blow pot smoke in kid’s face and video tapes it, which is accidentally discovered by a repairman = three years incarceration.

Now, in our second story out of Virginia, a father is convicted of actual child abuse in failing to prevent his wife from unlawfully wounding and abusing their child:

(Fredricksburg.com) Brandi L. Blanken Wallace, 28, was given a total of 7 1/2 years in prison after being convicted of child abuse and unlawful wounding.

Joshua Scott Wallace, 33, was convicted of child abuse and got a recommended sentence of two years and six months.

The minimum sentence for child abuse is two years. Judge Charles Sharp will formally sentence both Wallaces on July 27.

The child, also named Joshua Wallace, was 10 weeks old on Dec. 30, 2005, when he was flown to MCV Medical Center in Richmond with skull fractures, a broken clavicle and severe retinal hemorrhaging.

The child nearly died and has permanent brain damage, according to the evidence presented during the three-day trial. He eats through a feeding tube and cannot walk.

The parents claimed that Brandi Wallace dropped the baby onto the floor during an epileptic seizure.

Two doctors testified in detail that the extensive injuries suffered by the child could not have occurred during such a fall.

Prosecutor Eric Olsen argued to the jurors that Brandi Wallace hurt the child and her husband tried to cover it up. He called the parents’ explanation for the injuries “ridiculous.”

Joshua Wallace was the only defendant to testify. He said that as far as he knew, the baby was fine until he was dropped.

So, in summary, a parent lets another person fracture a baby’s skull and clavicle, threaten its eyesight, enable permanent brain damage and inability to walk, and require a feeding tube for life, and then tries to cover it up = 2.5 years of incarceration.

I’m not trying to defend the blowing of pot smoke into a kid’s face at a pot party.  It’s certainly not good parenting – every parent should prevent their children from being exposed to smoke blown in their face.  But what is the rationale for such harsh punishment when failing to prevent a child from suffering extensive permanent physical damage gets you six months fewer in prison?  Would the mother in the first story get three years prison and seven years probation if her friend blew tobacco smoke in the kid’s face, which is demonstrably more harmful than cannabis smoke?  All I’m asking is, with a child of child abuse, don’t you have to at least prove some harm befell the child?

Week after week I peruse stories like this where parents are given draconian sentences when their kids come in contact with marijuana.  Each week there are also stories I read where physical and sexual abuse of kids gets a lesser punishment.  We have truly gone Reefer Mad when parents get punished more for exposing kids to pot plants than a punch in the face or a pedophile.