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Jewish World Review Nov. 1, 2000 / 3 Mar-Cheshvan 5761

Bob Greene

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Consumer Reports


'He will never know what it is like to ride a bicycle'


http://www.jewishworldreview.com -- COLUMBUS, Ohio | For all those who have asked the question "What can we do?" in response to the reports here about the killing of 3-year-old P.J. Bourgeois:

In the next few days, as we conclude this series of reports, we will offer suggestions about how citizens who are saddened and disgusted by what was done to that child -- and by the early release from prison of his killers -- can try to make changes so that children in the future may be spared the indignities he faced not only during his short life, but, because of the Franklin County courts, after his death.

Today, though, a specific example of how P.J.'s death has already served to prevent judges from treating people who torture and kill children as leniently as Franklin County Common Pleas Court Judge Nodine Miller treated Patrick Bourgeois and his girlfriend, Tracy Lynn Bratton.

As we have been reporting, Bourgeois and Bratton were charged by Franklin County prosecutors with involuntary manslaughter instead of murder. Judge Miller sentenced them to 7 to 25 years in prison (they would have faced possible life sentences had they been charged with and convicted of murder). Then Judge Miller -- with the assistance of the prosecutors, who did nothing to oppose the killers' release -- freed them from prison before they even would have been eligible to appear before a parole board. Bratton served only 3 years and 2 months of her sentence; Bourgeois served 3 years and 10 months of his.

Ohio State Rep. Amy Salerno decided that enough was enough. If prosecutors were going to be so timid and lazy, if judges were going to be so forgiving of people who kill children, then Salerno wanted to change the law.

"Prosecutors were always saying they could not get juries to convict people like this, who kill children, because the killers could get away with saying they didn't mean to kill the child -- it was just `discipline,'" Salerno said. "Prosecutors said it was difficult to prove intent.

"My feeling as I spoke with pediatric nurses and emergency room doctors was that we just can't take this attitude anymore. How could we continue to allow people who torture and kill children to get away with light sentences by saying they really didn't mean it?

"Part of this had to do with the public not being able to envision anyone doing such a thing to a child -- not being able to imagine that adults can possibly do something this bad.

"I wish that every law student, every medical student, every student studying to be a schoolteacher, would be required to spend one night in the emergency room of a children's hospital. That's all that it would take for them to understand the problem.

"If you don't see it for yourself, you can't imagine how severe the problem is. Once you've seen a 6-month-old child with his eyes blackened, you realize that it didn't just happen accidentally."

Salerno sponsored a new Ohio law -- homicide by child abuse. It carries the same penalty as murder -- 15 years to life in prison. "If a child dies as a result of your abuse, you can be charged with homicide by child abuse," she said. "My idea was to remove the issue of intent [to kill]."

She got the bill through the Ohio House; she got it through the Ohio Senate. Ohio Gov. Bob Taft signed it into law. It's in effect right now.

She feels revulsion that Bourgeois and Bratton are out on the streets, and feels certain that if they had killed P.J. today, and had been charged under the new law, they would still be in prison.

"I can't get P.J.'s face out of my mind," she said. "There is absolutely no defense for what they did to him. I can't bring back a dead child. But I can do everything in my power to make certain there is justice done to the person who killed a child."

She is unmoved by arguments that people who torture and kill children should be allowed to serve light sentences and move on with their lives.

"Patrick Bourgeois and Tracy Bratton are out of prison now," Salerno said. "They killed that boy. He will never know what it is like to ride a bicycle, to play a basketball game, to start school, to graduate, to get married. . . . All of that was taken away from him by the people who decided to torture him.

"I don't want to hear about their desire to go on with their lives. He didn't get to go on with his. They belong in prison."

Tomorrow: Some specific ways for citizens to make their voices heard, ways that can make a tangible difference for children whose own voices are not powerful enough.



JWR contributor Bob Greene is a novelist and columnist. Send your comments to him by clicking here.

Up

10/31/00: 'It makes you feel that you are absolutely powerless'
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10/26/00: `I'm not going to go up there and yell and scream'
10/25/00: With prosecutors silent, the other killer is released
10/24/00: The boy's killer: 'I've served my time, and I'm out'
10/23/00: Blaming the boy for bringing on his own killing
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10/19/00: Words that the judge would not allow to be spoken
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