Certain crimes are inherently so abhorrent that attempting to provide motivation for the perpetrator only serves to make us cringe even more. Such is the case with the current trial of Cesar Rodriguez, accused of beating, torturing and killing his seven year old stepdaughter, Nixzmary Brown. Our legal system insists that Mr. Rodriguez be defended but I wonder how wise it was for his lawyer not to waive a jury trial. And I wonder how skillful the lawyer is to propound the following argument before a jury comprised largely of women:
“It’s easy to say he killed the kid and beat her because of yogurt. Many of us don’t have yogurt problems, but when you’re poor and you can’t afford unlimited amounts of food and you have six children, you have to make sure that everyone gets what they’re entitled to get, so that you can ensure that everyone stays healthy.”
Is it necessary for me to add that Nixzmary took an unathorized yogurt from the refrigerator before being beaten to death? Did the lawyer notice that his sentence ended with ensuring that all the children stayed healthy, a hard thing to reconcile with starving and killing one of them.
Regardless of whether Cesar Rodriguez was solely responsible for this death or merely a partner with the deranged mother who assisted in murder, it makes us shudder to hear an educated man advocate that there are mitigating factors to consider before we make up our minds as to the nature of this crime. Are some children bad seeds? Was Nixzmary herself violent towards her siblings? Was she too willful and resistant to discipline? All these possibilities may be accurate but they are no defense for savaging a child. They are and should be irrelevant. If two adults are incapable of caring for a child for whatever reason, they should surrender the child to foster care. Describing how they were pushed beyond endurance by the child’s bad behavior doesn’t alter the fact that murder cannot be justified.
The French truism “tout comprendre, c’est tout pardoner” has the opposite effect in cases like this. Rather than encouraging forgiveness through understanding, the lawyer’s declamation of the child’s vagaries stains the public perception of him and his client. Is the lawyer so morally misguided that he cannot perceive the disconnect between a seven year old’s bad behavior and the resulting torture and murder perpetrated by adults? There are technical legal issues to be weighed in this case since the mother will be tried separately and part of the stepfather’s defense is to claim that he “only” beat the child but she finished the job and killed her. These issues should be addressed by a judge. Our child welfare agencies were inadequate to protect this seven year old from the brutality of her life and the tragedy of her death. Our courts are failing her again by disseminating the amoral blather of a lawyer forced to come up with a plea that makes a mockery of all the underpinnings of our hearts and minds. Such pleas corrupt our sense of justice and provoke anger instead of measured fair play.
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