[My Favorite Headache]

Sorry...this is outrageous. Jail? How about a program of some sort here? The kids have been through enough. Yet it is these same judges in Naples that let go raping muslims for 50k bond. This just puts the family in a worse situation.

Florida....Wish You Were Here!

[crazykatz]

The whole family probably suffers from depression and or emotional shock. Sometimes that can cause avoidance problems. Folks just sort of "freeze-up"... they cannot keep a schedule or leave the house for long periods. I have see in it the elderly after the death of a spouse. Children could be affected that way as well. Poor dears.

Many times some of the refugees we assist show some signs of this "freeze-up" but if they get some counseling, they usually move right along with their lives.

[Pontiac]

Phillips said she is a single mother of four children. She works full-time and attends classes at International College.

An East Naples woman will spend 25 days in jail

Her plea agreement had not required jail time, but Collier County Judge Eugene Turner "reviewed the file and felt that some jail time would be appropriate,"

Well hear is judicial excellance at its best. </sarcasm

This poor woman is working her butt off for her children and this judge thinks she should spend time in jail.

She waits tables. So if she doesn’t work she doesn’t get paid. So this judge is laying a real hardship on this family. And who is going to take care of these four kids while she is in jail?

[freebilly]

Her plea agreement had not required jail time, but Collier County Judge Eugene Turner "reviewed the file and felt that some jail time would be appropriate," said the prosecutor, Assistant State Attorney Beverly Brennan.

"Oh, your child isn't attending the mandatory Sex Education and Diversity Training Classes? Off to jail with you!"

[JediGirl]

Hon. Eugene C. Turner

Judge Turner graduated from the University of South Florida, attended law school at Stetson University and received his JD from the University of Baltimore in 1974. Judge Turner served as Assistant State Attorney in the Twentieth Judicial Circuit from 1974 - 1977. He entered private general practice until 1983 when he was appointed to the Collier County Court. Judge Turner is married with three children.

From http://ca.cjis20.org/20th%20Judges/Hon.%20Eugene%20C.%20Turner.htm

[lavaroise]

Let me ask this here. Who is guilty of blatant confinement? THose asking the child go to school, virtualy incarcerated, or the parents? Those jailing the parents or those merely protesting the court ruling? These judges have way too much power, there is a need for a curtailment of power there through some kind of executive or legislative effort.

[The Duke]

I'm going to go way out on a ledge here and predict that
this judge is a Democrat. Anybody wanna take me up on that
one?

[Ajnin]

If I were to have children, I would never send them to a public school. I would never submit to the government on this issue. Educating children is the parents responsibility.

[boris]

"She said her 42-year-old husband, Joe, died Feb. 28, 2001, after accidentally taking too much Valium before going to sleep. He had a heart problem and used Valium to help him rest at night, she said."

I guess she said it.

Journalistic writing at its finest.

However I have a problem here. I don't know what the normal dose of Valium is, but even taking twice the normal dose should not kill a person--even with a heart condition. I bet even three times wouldn't necessarily be fatal. Any medics here who can give us the straight, um, dope?

--Boris

[Endeavor]

Hello? This seems more than reasonable to me.

These kids need consistency - they need to be in school. They need to know that life goes on and you learn to cope. NOT that you fall apart at the seems and just almost getting by sometimes may be good enough. It isn't.

There's more going on here. I'm with the Judge.

[tutstar]

ping

[LBGA]

I hate it when I get intrigued by issues of which I have had personal experience, but I can't help but weigh in on this one.

When my daughter was in 8th grade, I got a letter from the county that if I couldn't exercise better controls on her, I would have to appear before the judge, and the punishment would be possibly a jail sentence.

The issue: she was tardy too often. Even though we lived 2 blocks from the school, I couldn't get my daughter, who was in the gifted program, out of bed. We had a shouting match every morning, and I had to drive her to school to try to get her there on time.

The history: her father had been killed when she was in kindergarten, and she didn't handle it well emotionally. From kindergarten on, the yuppy kids in our neighborhood (those who did have fathers) picked on her mercilessly, and she hated showing up for the daily humiliation. If she did show up, she went to the clinic every morning before lunch claiming she had thrown up in the bathroom.

The end result: my last shouting match with her was waving the letter from the county in her face when trying to get her up and telling her I WOULD NOT go to jail for her. She got her a$$ out of bed and continued to do so.

That solved the immediate problem of her attention to her job, going to school, but we still had years of dealing with the emotional problems that being different in an affluent neighborhood caused, not to mention the lack of a male parent.

My take on the issue of this woman, and my heart goes out to her, but she needs to employ whatever shock treatment she can to get her daughter to do what she is supposed to do... go to school. The state needs to butt out unless they are willing to help her find counseling that gets helps this child deal with her loss. Jailing the only surviving parent will not solve the problem.

[healey22]

This reminds me of when my father died when I was just 13. He was sick for a long while and killed himself. I rebelled somewhat, but instead of a truant officer showing up at the house it was the IRS. My fathers body wasn't 2 weeks in the ground when our government decided they wanted to audit the books. My mother had 4 children and the government thought they could intimidate a widow. My fathers accountant was there and in the end the IRS owed my family $3000 dollars.

Your government agents at work, harrassing and intimidating widows and their children.

[wingnuts'nbolts]

Good thinking! Now there's nobody home to see that anything is done, and the children are well served?. This is outrageous!

[FreeTally]

But Mary Phillips, 32, says her daughter, Amber, missed school because of the sudden death of her husband in February 2001. The death of their father mortified her kids and made them afraid to sleep and unable to go to school, Phillips said.

Sounds horrible. But wait, hold on.....

Brennan said the school and the authorities are willing to help a family who has had a tragedy. But school records show most of Amber Phillips' absences occurred before her father's death, including 33 days missed in the 1999 school year.

Oh, so she missed 33 days in a year, two years before her father died?

So, it seems to me that the father's death isn't keeping the kid from school. The kid has just found a way to get out of going. 33 absences in one year in 1999. Looks like the daughter has been "playing her parents" for several years.