Get News & Views Updates
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
Why Persecute the Poor for Being Poor?
Raquel Nelson's conviction for causing her own child's death by jaywalking shows America's indifference to the cost of poverty
I love to cook and was delighted when a friend requested a pan of my favourite dish. In search of my "secret ingredient", I rode to the grocery store in the air-conditioned comfort of my car, focused on my task, with not a thought that it is a luxury to have several grocery stories in my vicinity, a working vehicle that can take me to those stores, and the disposable income to spend on life's basic needs and a few wants. Like most middle-class Americans, a trip to the grocery story is an errand one takes for granted. However, it is a story, like that of Raquel Nelson, which humbles me and deeply troubles my soul, reminding me that poverty in the United States means a special brand of persecution. Instead of waging a war on poverty, we are waging a war on poor people.
Nelson was convicted of vehicular homicide in her own child's death, although she does not own a car. Her conviction carries more time in jail than the person who actually hit and killed her four-year-old son. Nelson, who had taken two buses to Wal-Mart to shop for groceries, attempted to cross the street with her three children at the bus stop, located on the opposite side of a highway from her home. The bus stop is on a busy Atlanta road, a five-lane highway with no marked crossings, and the housing complex where she lived required crossing this dangerous intersection.
The driver of the vehicle, who admitted to being under the influence of alcohol and pain medication, and who is partially blind in one eye, pleaded guilty to a hit-and-run charge. He has already served his six-month sentence, despite this being his third hit-and-run conviction. The mother, Nelson, whose son was killed at the tender age of four, has been convicted of vehicular homicide for "crossing the street other than at a crosswalk" and "reckless conduct", a crime for which there is a three-year prison sentence.
I keep trying to understand this conviction and the crime that the jury believes she committed. How is one guilty of vehicular manslaughter without a vehicle? Why does the grieving victim face a stiffer penalty than the convicted driver? Why are there no safe crossings in front of a residential complex? Why were the complaints about traffic from other tenants of these apartments ignored? Why not lower the speed limit in this residential neighbourhood? Why design a city and a transportation system hostile to those who need it the most? Why persecute the poor for simply being poor?
Because I believe the jury convicted Nelson for the crime of being poor in this country – the crime of not being able to afford a vehicle; the crime of needing to take two buses to buy groceries; the crime of living in an apartment complex located on a busy highway; the crime of being reminded that while many of us live in relative luxury, others are risking their lives for basic necessities. This quote from the advocacy group, Transportation for America, sums up the true scope of Nelson's crime:
"Nelson, 30 and African-American, was convicted on the charge this week by six jurors who were not her peers: all were middle-class whites, and none had ever taken a bus in metro Atlanta. In other words, none had ever been in Nelson's shoes:
They had never taken two buses to go grocery shopping at Wal-Mart with three kids in tow. They had never missed a transfer on the way home that caused them to wait a full hour-and-a-half with tired and hungry kids for the next bus. They had never been let off at a bus stop on a five-lane speedway, with their apartment in sight across the road, and been asked to drag those three little ones an additional half-mile-plus down the road to the nearest traffic signal and back in order to get home at last."
I take for granted my ability to run to the grocery store and pull my car up to my door without having to negotiate a five-lane highway with my small child; these are the luxuries of my current existence. But as a child who grew up in the unrelenting poverty of an inner city, I understand this story all too well. It is a story of trying to provide for a family, even when that means two bus rides for fresh groceries. It is a story of food deserts in urban areas, where the only food available is the unhealthiest food available. It is a story of a city that doesn't care enough about its poorest citizens having access to efficient means of travel. It is a story of human indifference to the true cost of poverty.
It is a story repeated in cities all over this country. We continue – whether in planning our cities to privilege those who have vehicles or implementing an educational system based on property taxes – to disadvantage the poor. Nelson may have erred in attempting to cross the street at the bus stop, but the crime for which she was truly convicted was her poverty. She is poor in a country that hates poor people, a country that hates the reminder that there are those who must scrape together the barest necessities of life.
At the final sentencing hearing, the judge gave Nelson probation and the option of a new trial. She will not have to serve the jail time that the guilty verdict of vehicular manslaughter usually warrants. Perhaps the judge felt it was the height of cruelty to send a mother to jail, one who had witnessed the brutal death of one child by a drunk driver and who had two surviving children at home. I still think about those 12 jury members, the group of her "peers" that found Nelson guilty in the first place. And I continue to think about the larger structural forces in place in the United States, from our tax system to our educational system, that issue a "guilty verdict" to some, simply because of their poverty.
• A version of this article appeared on Yolanda Pierce's blog
Comments
Note: Disqus 2012 is best viewed on an up to date browser. Click here for information. Instructions for how to sign up to comment can be viewed here. Our Comment Policy can be viewed here. Please follow the guidelines. Note to Readers: Spam Filter May Capture Legitimate Comments...
93 Comments so far
Show AllThe judge should just have thrown out the conviction, not given her probation. That might have gotten the attention of the jurors who are too stupid to be trusted to make a rational decision. Also, it might have pentrated the pea-brain of the prosecutor who indicted her.
message to the (unknowing) peasants of america:
some of you are feeling like you've been had by a system that george carlin says "threw you overboard 30 fucking years ago" but most have no idea what is going on
wealth is now concentrated in 1/10 of 1% of america
400 people own it all
consider this:
"Last year, in my analysis, extrapolating data from 2008 National Academy of Science findings, I estimated that the number of Americans living in poverty in 2009 was at least 52 million. Recently, the National Academy of Science released their latest findings, backing up my claim by revealing that 52,765,000 Americans, 17.3% of the population, lived in poverty in 2009."
"While 68.3 million Americans struggle to get enough food to eat and wages are declining for 90% of the population, US millionaire household wealth has reached an unprecedented level. According to an extensive study by auditing and financial advisory firm Deloitte, US millionaire households now have $38.6 trillion in wealth. On top of the $38.6 trillion that this study reveals, they have an estimated $6.3 trillion hidden in offshore accounts."
"Most people cannot even comprehend how much $1 trillion is, let alone $46 trillion. One trillion is equal to 1000 billion, or $1,000,000,000,000. To put it in perspective, last year the entire cost of feeding all 40 million Americans on food stamps was $65 billion."
"in Q1 of 2011, America’s top corporations reported 31% profit growth and a 31% reduction in taxes"
"As for statistics on Americans being buried in financial debt, the indentured servant has evolved into the indebted citizen. As mentioned before, from 1990 – 2010 costs of living have increased 67%, while wages have stagnated and declined. As the national debt has reached a record $14.6 trillion, total personal debt is now over $16 trillion. Consumer debt is $2.5 trillion. Credit card debt is $805 billion and student debt now exceeds $1 trillion."
"So while the government and the Federal Reserve claim that inflation is low, at 3.6% over the past year, food prices have increased 39% and US gas prices have increased 34% over the same time frame.
The increase in gas cost over the past one-year masks the severity of total gas price inflation, which is currently 125% more expensive since December 2008, increasing from $1.67 per gallon to $3.75."
"the dollar lost 7.5% of its value from January 2010 through March 2010. From August 2010 through March 2010, the dollar lost 17% of its value."
http://ampedstatus.org/exclusive-analysis-of-financial-terrorism-in-america-over-1-million-deaths-annually-62-million-people-with-zero-net-worth-as-the-economic-elite-make-off-with-46-trillion/#elite
free download
Why wasn't the bus stop located next to the safe crossing? We should change the name of this nation to Moronica (thank you Three Stooges)!
It was located where it is becasuse there is a large apartment complex at this location. The bus stop at the location of the accident is well-used. There should have been a dedicated pedestrian button crossing and stoplight the bus stop locaiton. If the car-drivers dont like it, tough.
Or a crossing bridge. Or, let's outlaw cars.
Excellent essay.
Truth and Justice are absent in most US Courts.
Remember the other case of the Mother who was prosecuted because she had her children live with a relative so that the kids would be in a better school district......And the case of the little boy who died of a tooth abscess because his Mother did not have money for a dentist...
In a Vermont town, there is a hazardous strip of highway where children and those without cars must walk. There is no public transportation. Years ago, federal money was allocated to make it safer. The money has been sitting there for years. Recently the topic came up at a town meeting. The local debate showed an incredible lack of empathy for those who are too poor to own a car.
Being poor in America is dangerous.
Visiting Prof...Thank you. Prejudice based on economic class is accepted in the US culture. Also, prejudice based on college degrees. Many of the most intelligent, productive people I know have been self educated but remain poor because the prejudice against them is institutionalized. Also, how about the prejudice based on the location of a person's mother at the time of his birth. We get to call them "illegal aliens". Prejudice by any other name is still prejudice.
---"Also, prejudice based on college degrees."---
Don't worry, "visiting professor" is just his nick. He is not actually a professor.
Yes and being a poor black mother is one of the most dangerous. To see these two brave and caring single black mothers persecuted for hideous crimes just for trying to care as best they could for their children shows the racist and sexist disdain the filthy white rich in this country have. We should be so ashamed to see this behavior. An all-white non-poor jury convicted Raquel Nelson for this ridiculous charge of homicide. How must more disgusting can this country get??
This country's justice system is a joke now and maybe it always was one. And a really bad joke at that.
How in the hail was there an all white jury in Atlanta, Fulton County, Georgia??? There are several disturbing aspects to this case that demand review. How does a previously convicted for DUI; as in HABITUAL offender, garner such an absurdly short sentence? How is it permissable for a prosecutor to determine that the mother was also at fault; I mean permissable as in HOW COULD IT HAVE BEEN ALLOWED? How could there be an entirely caucasian jury empanelled in a city and county that is 50% african american and the other 50% is every other "type" of person?
I'm thinking that calling the justice system a "really bad joke" doesn't do justice to a system that is more foul than a sewerage treatment plant.
"In a Vermont town, there is a hazardous strip of highway where children and those without cars must walk. There is no public transportation."
So much for those Vermont liberals. Bourgeois snobs, all.
Give me the rust belt.
Next we'll see poor folks charged with "Child Endangerment".
They should have had the foresight to be born rich.
This article raises good questions. But did not another writer on this site state earlier that poverty is a crime or criminalized in America? This article certainly supports that statement.
I have a car too, and I can drive to the store, but if I want to be frugal and responsible to save energy, it is really hard to get to the store on foot or by bus.
What a system.
I think a large part of our socio-economic system is to have a large army of poor and unemployed: 1. It gives others someone to look down upon, and 2. It threatens those who are still employed, to keep them cowed.
You are absolutely right about that. Outside of the south, the poor give working class whites someone to look down at, just like they look down on "illegals", who are mainly Mexican immigrants. In the south, tho, the poor whites have always had blacks to look down on and fight over the crumbs with, instead of trying to take on the rich and business owners down there.
It always works very well there in keeping the working class and poor divided so they don't organize and have unions. No doubt in the south it also provides a nice mental distraction, with racism, of poor whites not having to remember or think about the fact that they are not much better than the slaves of the old south. By this I mean the whites who have figured out the truth and have given up trying to fight The Man anymore.
Sad
You said it yourself Ms. Pierce, this country hates the poor. What I can't understand is why it makes it impossible for them to stop being poor.
Exactly. If one does not have the money for college, one stays poor. One always has the lowest income and is a renter for life and job promotions are not to be had by those with no degrees. No vacations and every penny is necessary. The system is designed to keep those who do not have money for college to stay "in their place".
It needs a permanent underclass of slaves.
Who were the prosecutors who brought this case to court? What was their point - what message were they trying to send? Who was on the jury [goes to shows that so-called 'jury nullification' can sometimes serve the cause of justice]? And yes the judge should have overturned the conviction & just threw the case out of court - to send a clear message to the prosecution.
Its extremely doubtful that this case would have went to court if the mother had been white & affluent. If she had left the kids at home unattended she would have been accused of neglect - even if she went shopping for food. How does a drunk driver w previous infractions who in-effect committed negligent homicide get a lesser sentence than this grieving mother?
Why was there no bus stop at a cross-walk or put a cross-walk & stop sign or light at the stop -or- even have at bus stop in her housing complex like occurs in many more affluent housing estates?
This story is an indictment on society - It appears this society in full assault mode on the weak!
---"Or- even have at bus stop in her housing complex like occurs in many more affluent housing estates?"---
Do you live in the US? An affluent "housing estate" would never allow a bus route through their neighbrhood.
A few years ago, this happened at exactly such a new upscale subdivision on a reclaimed and revegitated slag dump in the city limits. The transit authority routed a new route through this neighborhood - thinking that it would be a welcome service, as is likely that the residents worked at either the "academic downtown" of Oakland or the downtown traingle, both served by this route. Instead, it got howls of protests from the new residents. Fortunately the transit authority dismissed the complaints. They can run a bus on any public street they wish. But last year the route fell victim to deep system wide service cuts.
Where I live, the bus route I most frequently used was changed so the end-of-the-line stop is at a suburban shopping center, and another route changed to pass this shopping center. The transit authority thought that this would be a welcome imporovement by providing public transit access to what is as close to a "downtown" as Whitehall Borough has. Even though the buses stay entirely on public streets and pulls well off the roadway at the stop, the bus drivers have been harassed by the store mercants, shopping center management and the police. They have pestered the transit authority until they caved and moved the stop for one of the routes to an unmarked location next to the smelly waste-grease bins of a restaurant.
Suburban USANs associate the bus (and in my area, even the trolley/light-rail lines) with niggers, retards, feeble minded old people, cripples, criminals, and other "losers" (a uniquely USAn slur), who lower real estate values.
As long as I can remember, American culture has been condescending towards poor black people. The words "inner city," used by this author is a euphemism for slum. There are too many euphemisms in the way we talk about poverty and race.
If the woman failed to go to a side walk to cross the street and thereby put her family in jeopardy then the state should remove the children. Convicting her of vehicular homicide is irresponsible.
ETOI sounds like a jury member with this gem:
"If the woman failed.."
The word FAILED already indicts. The articles explains that there were no safe bus stops in her area. I know how hard it is to try to get from point A to point B with just 2 small children, one can only imagine the challenges with 3.
Your post reveals the specific sort of smug empathy deficit that plans communities so that people like this badgered mother will be forced to pay the price; and then you have the indecency to blame the victim? Please grow a heart, and while you're at it, a soul.
ETOI,
The 4-lane roadway in question had sidewalks, but how can you cross a street on a sidewalk? Ever heard of the parallel-line theorem in Euclidian geometry? Where she crossed the roadway, there is a concrete median with curbs and could be crossed reasonably safely with children if the speed limit was lower and they enforced it.
In error, I meant crosswalk. I have heard of Euclid.
The conviction was based on "reckless conduct" and "crossing the street other than at a crosswalk."
If the women is reckless, a danger to her children, then the state should remove the children.
If the women needs help raising her family with more convenient access to public transportation then the state should provide this through closer crosswalks or a bridge over the street.
A vehicular homicide conviction is pointless and meaningless. It just shows apathy and negligence on the part of the judge and jury and the continuation of racism in America.
The article points out that the only marked crosswalk was a half mile down the road from the bus stop.
In other words after an entire day of shopping for Groceries, laden with the same on their return home the woman would have had to walk one half mile to a crosswalk and then one half mile back.
With three kids in tow and with all the groceries being carried this would have likely taken and extra hour.
The only "failure" here is on the part of the Authorities who could not be bothered to spend "Tax dollars" in a poor neighborhood to put up a marked crosswalk at the bus stop.
The real crime is how we have allowed compact, walkable/bikeable public transit-friendly communities to be dismantled or their model to be abandoned and replaced with car-dependent suburban sprawl.
This is more than an issue of "the poor"; NOBODY should be dependent on a car for a resonable quality of life (or in many traffic-clogged suburban areas, non-quality of life). And, as long as so many USAn communities (especially in the midwest and south) view public transit as only a welfare program for the poor, we will never improve this situation.
Such an an accident would have been much less likely where I have chosen to live - a compact city community where pedestrians are given reasonably equal rights as cars through the generous use of 4-way stop signs and well-marked crosswalks - sometimes with their own stop signs or even lights. Aside from the few interstate routes that penetrate the city, the maximum speed limit in Pittsburgh is 25 mph and most streets are such that it is physically unsafe to go much faster than that.
In contrast, the piece of road (it was at an intersection btw) where this accident happened, in spite of being in a built-up area, had a 45 mph speed limit, traffic lights spaced a mile apart, and cars frequently going 60 mph between the lights.
Atlanta is a terribly ill-concieved bunch of sprawl and freeways. I'd never live there.
Jim Crow redux.
Jim Crow redux. But it's not just for African-Americans anymore.
Your first paragraph nails it. European neighborhoods, most Australian neighborhoods are, in general, pedestrian friendly. This suburb or city described here is decidedly pedestrian unfriendly. It seems to me, as you say, that people are forced to own a car in order to have a reasonable quality of life. We should not be forced to own a car. In these days of global warming, oil wars and oil depletion, it should be a sin to own a car.
Here's what I'd like to know. How many of those jurors proceeded to go to church the following Sunday? I'll bet most of them. Jesus I wish Jesus would get on with his second coming already. He'd be utterly ashamed.
Amen! Pass the "cake" brother.
This is unbelievable. There is something entirely wrong with a society that would inflict such a punishment on a grieving mother.
While the utter injustice of the prosecution of this woman is on its own enough to condemn the State, there are other far reaching consequences.
Who will raise her children if she in jail? How will this woman find a job if she has a criminal record and is black? This is the collective punishment of the entire family for a crime someone else committed.
One can see a parallel between this injustice and the injustices visited upon peoples the world over by the Military of the United States of America, wherein people are collectively punished in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere for crimes THEY did not commit.
"Why Persecute the Poor for Being Poor?"
______________
The question is the answer.
Persecuting the poor is intertwined with a nasty strain of "blaming the victim" embedded in Amerikan culture, and most virulent in traditional social and political conservativism.
As with all such sour, mean-spirited toxic impulses, it's devolved from high-minded moral and ethical traditions abundantly represented in Amerikan literature from Mark Twain's Missouri to Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon.
It arises from elements of classic Stoicism and Anglo-Saxon-- especially Scots-Irish-- traditions: self-reliance, rugged individualism, and personal responsibility. It's in tenets of Puritanism and especially Calvinism.
And it's a straight line downhill to latter-day sanctimonious, self-caricaturizing pop-culture media celebrities, pundits, and demagogues who rail against those who "play the victim" or "game the system".
It manifests as a broad prejudice floating freely in the Amerikan ether, either absorbed or rejected according to one's temperament, upbringing, and experience.
It's the knee-jerk tendency expressed as far back as Job's kibitzers in the Book of Job to believe that one's fortune, or misfortune, is always something over which one has control, and for which one must be held responsible; thus, the default assumption is that one is somehow to blame for any misfortune that befalls one.
It's the sort of "principle" that seems most reliable, self-evident, and true in the abstract; it's readily applicable and atomistic; it resists considering the bigger picture, general overviews, and the totality of the circumstances. In short, it's conducive to a spirit of bullying that generally keeps the adherent in a superior, one-up stance.
Broadening the focus beyond this aggressively narrow-minded scope complicates matters to a point that precludes the rush of self-righteous satisfaction that comes with pronouncing swift and harsh judgements.
People cling to it most because it reinforces their own faith in personal power and control; if they are too quick to sympathize with, or excuse, another's seeming misdeed, failure, or victimization, it undermines their own sense of security and confidence in the essential benevolence of society and their own ability to control their fate and destiny.
So if one's gun is loaded and primed with potent "victim-blaming" gunpowder, the poor are the proverbial fish in the barrel or ducks in the shooting gallery. After all, the rich and powerful tend to have powerful guns of their own, and are inclined and disposed to both better withstand persecution, and to persecute back.
It's so much easier and more rewarding to wring one's hands, point or wag one's finger, or shake one's fist at the weakest and most disadvantaged and vulnerable among us.
Spot-on - and entertaining to read as your posts always are.
Your observatons explain why, in the USA, the word "loser" is laden with uniquely USAn meaning that goes way beyond just, say, a description of the US Womans Soccer Team after that penalty-kickoff finale with Japan in the Womans World Cup a few weeks ago...
loser rhymes with USer.
OS, thank you for writing this.
"It arises from elements of classic Stoicism and Anglo-Saxon-- especially Scots-Irish-- traditions: self-reliance, rugged individualism, and personal responsibility. It's in tenets of Puritanism and especially Calvinism."
Reading this sadly reminded me of one of my relatives, whose ancestry is entirely Scots-Irish and British. Although not especially religious, she refused psychiatric treatment (especially medication) for much of her life because of a generational/regional/ethnic mentality that told her 1) she should be able to cure herself, and 2) seeking help was shameful.
No one in my immediate or extended family or in my parents' mainstream (non-fundamentalist) church ever actually said "God helps those who help themselves," but this was certainly implied in the subtext.
Stoicism, self-reliance, rugged individualism, and personal responsibility are admirable. . .in moderation. So are emotional honesty, empathy, compassion, and voluntary socialism.
Right on, OS, as usual. Especially like the reference to the Book of Job, the Bible's own poetic challenge to theodicy. We don't think too much about good and evil, but what we do to our poor certainly qualifies as the latter. (see Susan Neiman, Evil in Modern Thought)
Punishing a mother for the death of her child at the hands of a drunken driver is evil and we should call it that. This sort of evil happens every day in our criminal courts. We put children in prison for life without parole. It is just one more symptom of Amerika's overall violent attack on all things decent and good.
The prevailing sentiment among Americans-with-income is that God is rewarding them, and so punishing the poor. It is a small leap to then conclude that the poor must have done something wrong to incur the wrath of God, and deserve our punishment as well. Poor people are seen as a burden to society, and poor people with children especially so. That's why we are number one in incarceration--and even a cursory study of the prison population statistics shows a social contempt for poor people, especially "ethnic" poor with children.
As downtownwalker says, this is all the culmination of a belief system held by the Unitedstatsean upper crust. They believe, wholeheartedly, that possessing wealth is proof that one deserves to have wealth, and likewise, that being poor is also deserved. Hiding behind this belief in the hearts and minds of the wealthy is the fear that the poor (and that now includes a lot of us who used to be in the "middle class") will rise up and strip their wealth away. I found some quotes from Alexis de Tocqueville 1835 book Democracy in America that to me seem truer now than when they were written.
"The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money."
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years."
"When the taste for physical gratifications among them has grown more rapidly than their education . . . the time will come when men are carried away and lose all self-restraint . . . It is not necessary to do violence to such a people in order to strip them of the rights they enjoy; they themselves willingly loosen their hold. . . . they neglect their chief business which is to remain their own masters."
"There are two things which a democratic people will always find very difficult -- to begin a war and to end it."
"The surface of American society is covered with a layer of democratic paint, but from time to time one can see the old aristocratic colours breaking through."
"Tyranny in democratic republics does not proceed in the same way, however. It ignores the body and goes straight for the soul. The master no longer says: You will think as I do or die. He says: You are free not to think as I do. You may keep your life, your property, and everything else. But from this day forth you shall be as a stranger among us. You will retain your civic privileges, but they will be of no use to you. For if you seek the votes of your fellow citizens, they will withhold them, and if you seek only their esteem, they will feign to refuse even that. You will remain among men, but you will forfeit your rights to humanity. When you approach your fellow creatures, they will shun you as one who is impure. And even those who believe in your innocence will abandon you, lest they, too, be shunned in turn. Go in peace, I will not take your life, but the life I leave you with is worse than death."
This is one more in a very long list of cases where the jury was just not smart enough to do the right thing. Look at the way voters vote in the US. Look at jury verdicts. We have been dumbed down to the point that systems no longer work. The legal system and the system for selecting our 'leaders' are based on the assumption that citizens are capable of critical thinking. Even a coin toss or a lottery system would be an improvement.
I think the legal system and the system for selecting our 'leaders' PRETEND to be based on the assumption that citizens are capable of critical thinking while the Powers That Be hope that the citizens never actually become so, at least in large enough numbers to threaten their privileged status. The only possibly effective thing that can be done is to continue putting it out there where things are really at and what's really going on. There are faint indications that more and more people are beginning to wise up. Let's hope enough catch on in time.
VP...And let us not forget about the more than 254 who have been freed from Death Row by The Innocence Project and DNA evidence. Makes you wonder how many innocent were executed.
Rosemarie,
The jury probably had something to do with it, but in my experience, most criminal defense lawyers suck, most judges are prosecutors, and most prosecutors will do anything for a conviction, including lying and hiding evidence. And I have a lot of experience in the area of ineffective assistance of counsel and prosecutorial misconduct.
In Amerika, we have no prospective, objective standards for attorney competence. Our law school training sucks and there is no post law school training for most lawyers. Instead, we have retrospective (allopathic) review of an attorney's performance based on subjective "norms" of attorney performance. In other words, to prove ineffective assistance of counsel, you have to show the lawyer's performance fell below the norm for lawyers in that area. But because the "norm" is so low, you have to prove you have a D student lawyer, where you can get a C grade with a 60% performance. You also have to prove that in addition to the terrible performance, it prejudiced the defendant
Despite this enormously high burden, in the last few years I have had many serious convictions overturned on the grounds of ineffective assistance. That is because some truly terrible lawyers get some of the most serious cases. The day a lawyer passes the bar exam and gets sworn in, that lawyer can represent a defendant in a death penalty case. No law or standard of practice precludes it, despite such things as rules of professional conduct.
Where is this woman's husband, the father of her children, and why is he not providing for their transport and other needs?
dwatkins9... That is a good but irrelevant question, and I hope that you do not mean to make a negative judgement of the mother and children. As founder of Justice for Children (1970), I have devoted a lot of time to this issue and am sensitive to the prejudice against abandoned/poor families. Maybe the father was working at a low paying job. Or maybe he abandoned the family. In either case - that does not address the issue at hand.
Being poor IS a full time job, because everything is harder when you are poor.
If it's irrelevant, how can it be good? My point is, maybe it's not such a prudent idea to have children with no husband, or with any man who is not going to be a good, solid provider. I have no doubt that everything is harder when you're poor. I also know that everything is harder when you have children - a lot harder. It's hard even for people with money. I truly do not know why it seems like a good idea to bring children into the world with no means - "We're broke and likely to remain so. Let's have kids!" What is the thinking there? It seems to me it is a matter of responsibility, and I do mean individual responsibility. Sorry to have to spell it out.
dwatkins9... I thought that was what you meant. Here are a few facts. Most children living in poverty were born within a marriage. The amount of unpaid child support is staggering. Having a husband is no guarantee that the children will have a loving dedicated father. Human behavior is not always predictable. Nice guys sometimes abandon their children.
No child has been born without a father recently. There is no bright star shining in the East. The bottom line is that some people are irresponsible and kids don't vote so politicians often ignore their needs.
Which is why no-fault divorce has been a disaster. We need to return to the days when you had to go before a judge and show cause before you could get a divorce - the old ways recognized that marriage was part of the social contract, not just an individual thing. Men who abandon families do not need to pay child support - they need to go to prison. You are right that things are hard to predict, esp. the future, but here are some things to consider if a lady would tilt the odds in her favor. If the guy hasn't finished high school (at the very least), dump him. If he is not prepared for some learned profession or *skilled* trade, ditto. If the guy has ever been in prison or jail, even if for one day, even if he says it wasn't his fault - dump him. If he drinks to excess or does illegal drugs at all - even if it's "just" pot once in a while- lose him. If he gambles, he's history. If he can't keep a job, kick him to the curb. If he's rude, chronically late, or just irresponsible - buh-bye. If his family relationships are bad, keep on moving. If he rides a motorcyle, have him ride on out of here. All of these and more are danger signs. It's better to be alone and childless than to get stuck with any of these guys. The advice that grandmothers and mothers gave to young women a hundred years ago is good advice today. Get a copy of _The Rules_ and read it, learn it, live it - it's the best advice for women published in the last 50 years.
You seem to have all the answers---not one of them worth a damn