Posted on 04/02/2010 7:15:12 PM PDT by Chet 99
FORT WORTH, Texas — A Texas man has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for leaving his baby alone with his psychotic wife, who drowned their son in a hot tub.
Michael Maxon appears to be the first husband held criminally responsible in Texas cases involving mentally ill women who have killed their children, said prosecutor Alana Minton.
(Excerpt) Read more at chron.com ...
Say what?
I’m sorry the child died. But, I don’t know that I agree with this ruling.
That’s ridiculous. They’re just looking for a scapegoat.
Unless he was capable of staying awake 24/7 and watching every move she made, there is no way he could have prevented her from killing the child if she was really determined to.
All it would take is a couple minutes. She could have done it when he was in the shower or mowing the lawn or just using the bathroom.
What do they expect of him? Omniscience?
I suppose all husbands should now immediately dump their wives at the first sign of post partum depression, cuz it’s is a psychotic illness..
Before everyone goes crazy in defense of this man, no one here has the information on what the situation REALLY was.
It is possible that the woman had just been released or was going into a psychiatric facility and the father agreed to monitor his wife continuosly unti they could get the woman treatment, or until they were sure her medication was working.
In the Yates case, the family was NOT supportive of her continuing to get treatment and was anti -medication. Many times, the family will not cooperate with the best intentioned medical treatment.
I think there is WAY more to this story.
There’s not enough tragedy so you have to lock up the absent husband?
With the information given in the article, I’m fine with this. He could have taken the baby with him to “run errands” rather than leave him with a psychotic mother who thought the baby was the Antichrist. It’s not like she killed the baby in the middle of the night while the father was sleeping — I don’t think he would have been convicted if it had been something like that, really completely out of his control.
Rusty Yates certainly should have been locked up too — he’d been warned not to let his wife have any more babies, since her post-partum psychosis had been worsening with each one. So he promptly got her pregnant again anyway AND insisted she “homeschool” all the children while he went off to work every day (just imagine what sort of “schooling” that must have been).
But really, the state ought to be locking these women up in mental hospitals if they’re so mentally ill that they can’t be left alone with their children. When a mother is carving “666” into her scalp and rambling about how her children might be better off dying before they were old enough to be accountable because that way they’d wouldn’t have to go to hell (Andrea Yates), or claiming their one year old baby is the Antichrist, they’re past the point of being able to function as free citizens. For their own safety and that of their children and husbands, they should be taken out of society.
First rule of law: It is ALWAYS the man’s fault
It is not that easy to put “the woman in a mental ward” !
and for how long? Forever? We used to do that.
Have the “child removed from the home”???? there is a father there and where would you “put” this child? AND that would be very disruptive for the child. I think there is more to this story.
what condtion was this woman in? For how long had she been on medication and was it working? For how long was the father gone? Why didn’t he take the child with him on his “errands” or have someone else there? If HE is the father, he does have THE responsibility...Unless of course, you want the STATE to take the child.
Post partum depression and post partum psychosis aren’t the same thing. Depression doesn’t cause people to murder. Psychosis sometimes does, especially when the symptoms of the psychosis have included the person discussing killing someone as Andrea Yates had, and quite possibly this woman had too (saying a baby is the Antichrist is a pretty clear indication that the person is least thinking it should be killed).
And where would you put this woman and for how long???
She can be institutionalized for several days, or even several weeks, then she will be stabalized on medications and released....according to the law ! She will then be “free in society”. If she does not take her medications and deteriorates, the whole cycle goes on again...hospital, stabalized, out.
Unless this woman has committed a crime, we don’t take away a person’s freedom for what they “may “do. We can keep them in most states for at most several weeks against their will, usually its a few days or weeks.
Having said all this, I think the rest of your post was excellant.
Yup. feel better now? ha.
Weird.
Since only one of those children was of school age, I am not sure that she was schooling "all the children." It was a horrible situation, but I don't see what homeschooling has to do with it. Maybe the oldest one could have spared if he had gone to school, but there's nothing to keep a crazy person from waiting until school is over for the day before murdering.
There’s no reason why people who are flat-out insane shouldn’t be kept in a secure institution permanently. If medication seems to be working while they’re in an institution, or their symptoms actually subside even without medication, then it can make sense to try, cautiously, putting them back out in society under close supervision, and if that works well for a significant length of time, then without supervision. Back when this nation was founded, it was accepted as just plain common sense that utterly insane people shouldn’t be left to their own devices. How do we imagine that it’s now somehow “unconsitutional” to lock up them up long term or permanently, after proper court proceedings with medical professionals and others testifying?
Frankly, we have a much better handle now on what types of illness are likely to eventually subside and which ones certainly aren’t. Schizophrenia, for example, simply doesn’t go away, and when it’s advanced enough to be causing serious symptoms where the person is disconnected from reality, then medication is not a sufficient answer even if it seems to work, because a missed dose can bring the symptoms back quickly and leave the person believing s/he shouldn’t take any more medication or see any doctors.
There is no legal basis for the claim that society can’t take away a person’s freedom unless they first commit a crime. We do it all the time, and should do it more. When someone is profoundly retarded, they are either institutionalized or put under the care of a legal guardian when they reach age 18, and they are not free to go wherever they wish or handle their own financial matters. When an elderly person has Alzheimer’s and stops recognizing family and friends, we don’t wait for them to kill someone in their family who they mistook for a burglar, before we take away their freedom and have them either kept under lock and key at home by a relative or put them in an institution where they will find locked doors if they try to wander away and will not be allowed access to anything they could use to seriously harm someone.
Okay, then why didn’t the husband put her into a hospital? Has that been answered?
I just think it is a very slippery slope to hold a husband responsible in cases like this. Like I said, I’m sorry the child died. But to punish the husband seems a bit suspicious to me. It feels like because they can’t punish the wife, because she was incompetent, that the prosecution is just out to pass the punishment onto him.
If they could have held the wife criminally responsible, would they also have also found him guilty? Would they even have prosecuted him? I wonder.
I think the issue was that there wasn't enough punishment.
"...defense attorney Jack Strickland, who sought probation for Maxon, said his client was charged only because prosecutors thought "somebody has got to pay" after Valeria Maxon avoided prison..."
Normally I agree with Texas justice but there seems to be something not quite right about this.
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