Is 13 years behind bars a suitable amount of time to serve for engaging a child in a drinking “game” that ultimately caused his death?
We don’t think so.
Is a 20-year prison term enough time to “pay” for beating a 2-week-old baby and leaving his bones shattered? Bleeding on the brain, caused by an animal who punched the baby and dropped him to the floor from a standing position, has confined the child to a wheelchair, unable to walk or crawl.
So, is 20 years enough? We don’t think so.
The Globe carried reports on both of these plea agreements in Tuesday’s paper. In the first case, Dale Phillips, the uncle of an 11-year-old boy, challenged his nephew to a drinking game. Tyler Fecko died of alcohol poisoning while spending the night at his uncle’s home on July 27, 2009. Phillips made a deal that calls for a term of “no more” than 13 years for the murder of his nephew, and five years for child endangerment. The terms would run concurrently. He is to be sentenced March 26. Linda Petrait, Phillips’ girlfriend, was assessed an identical term after earlier pleading guilty in a deal.
The father, Dwight W. Pierce, who so brutally beat his own child on Feb. 27, 2010, pleaded guilty in a deal that means he will spend “no more” than 20 years in prison.
On one hand, the deals offered mean sure prison time. On the other hand, a jury could have sent any or all of these three to jail for life.
Life. It’s the sentence Tyler Fecko got for trusting that grown-ups would take care of him and protect him.
A damaged life. It’s the sentence an infant paid just for being born.
In our view, justice got the bad end of these deals.
And so did two innocent lives.
Opinion
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Discussion
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