The buck...well, bounces around a great deal

Anita Tedaldi, military wife and parent of five daughters, who has made a name for herself blogging about motherhood, gave up her adopted 18-month-old son when she realized she just didn't feel all that close to him. She told her story to Lisa Belkin of The New York Times, who also appeared with her when Tedaldi was interviewed on The Today Show. Apparently encouraged by her exposure to the world of journalism to be even-handed, Tedaldi gently informed her audience that the failure to bond "really went both ways." Well I'm all for holding kids accountable, certainly.

There is the awkward matter of Tedaldi having outspokenly criticized another adoptive couple, in print, for doing pretty much the same thing just last year, but, as Lincoln once observed, "The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present." Meanwhile, the U.S. Military, who owns the web site on which Tedaldi's earlier article appeared, is obligingly treating the matter about like they did the death of Pat Tillman; the text is no longer there.

I read a couple of years ago the troubling story of a single mom in England who adopted an African girl about the same age as the mom's biological 7-year-old daughter. If her account is to be believed, she did everything she could to welcome the adopted child and blend her into the family, to no avail. Eventually, the adopted girl's hostility, not only toward the mother, but even more so against her adoptive sister, reached a point at which the mother feared for her biological daughter's safety. With tremendous reluctance and chagrin, she made the decision to give up the adopted child. Perhaps there was nothing else she could do.

I certainly don't wish for little "Baby D," as Tedaldi refers to her adopted son, to grow up in a house where his closest caregiver is continually judging his bonding skills and finding them wanting; he deserves better, and I hope he is placed in an emotionally healthy home. I could even respect Tedaldi if, chastened by her experience, she took time off from blogging about motherhood for a period of reflection. But we must be realistic; book deals and appearances on Oprah wait for no one. Who knows but that one day the little tyke may pen his own book about "Mommy T" and the strange mismatch between her blogging skills and her nurturing abilities.

This week's other poster child for forgiving one's own mistakes and blowing off the stodgy critics is Roman Polanski, on whose behalf over 100 luminaries of the entertainment world have signed a petition demanding his immediate release from custody, following his recent arrest in Switzerland. These include Woody Allen, whose nude photos of his adopted stepdaughter broke up his long-time partnership with Mia Farrow, and the noted moral philosopher Harvey Weinstein, who can see more clearly than most of us that Polanski was sufficiently punished for his "so-called crime" with a 30-year inability to attend Hollywood parties.

As is well known, Polanski accepted an unchaperoned visit from aspiring 13-year-old model Samantha Gailey at the home of Jack Nicholson (never mind!) in 1977, photographed her nude, plied her with champagne and quaaludes, and then sexually assaulted her, ignoring her repeated protests and requests to leave.

No one but Hollywood libertines are in serious doubt as to the hideous nature of Polanski's actions that night. Yes, I know future Chief Justice John Marshall started courting his future wife when she was 14 and Marshall was 26, but that was in a day when Marshall would have been shot by her outraged father had he so much as kissed her and not followed through shortly after with a trip to the church to make good. And it may be that 15-year-old Nastassia Kinski acted with perfectly free choice upon beginning a sexual liaison with Polanski; frankly, if I had a maniac like Klaus Kinski for a father, I too might find even Polanski's company a desirable alternative.

Polanski's actions with Gailey, in any case, were completely beyond the pale, and he was rightly convicted. The moral issue is clear. What is tangled is the legal issue, an entanglement caused by the egregious misconduct of the late judge Laurence Rittenband, who first approved, and then gave every indication of intending to renege on, a plea bargain supported by the victim's own family. Rittenband seems to have done this, moreover, on the advice of a District Attorney who wasn't even involved in the case, itself an instance of judicial misbehavior. In desperation, Polanski fled the court's jurisdiction and then went abroad, which was another crime added to the one for which he had already been convicted.

If Polanski's celebrity status should not win him special treatment, neither should it have made him the special victim of a judge's personal pique, in violation not only of judicial ethics but of an agreement that the victim and her family had acknowledged was in her best interests. The larger legal issue is whether, having reached a court-approved plea bargain, a defendant for any crime, at any level of wealth or social prominence, should have to wonder if the court will honor its own agreement or decide, on a whim, to suddenly "get tough."

Polanski is apparently an unrepentant reprobate, and one could wish to see him humiliated and abused as his victim was that night all those years ago. But the law should serve justice, not become an instrument of popular revenge. If they wanted his hide, the court should have rejected the plea bargain and insisted on imposing the maximum sentence to begin with. If a foolish, publicity-hungry judge can do this to a celebrity, what might he do to any of us? Polanski's original sentence was for time previously served; to this, a reasonable penalty of additional time should be added for having fled legal jurisdiction.

© Michael Huggins, 2009. All rights reserved.

No bill of attainder or ex post facto law shall be passed

What legal issue was relevant to the MySpace® suicide? Really, there was none; two sets of prosecutors declined to take it up, for the very good reason that no existing law adequately covered it, and the jury wisely convicted Lori Drew on a lesser charge. Retired FBI agent and internet safety consultant Jeff Lanza told the Kansas City Star, "Legally, this case has nothing to do with suicide."

U.S. Attorney Thomas P. O'Brien tortured an indictment out of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, specifically a section that provides penalties for anyone who

intentionally accesses a protected computer without authorization, and as a result of such conduct, causes damage; and...the modification or impairment, or potential modification or impairment, of the medical examination, diagnosis, treatment, or care of 1 or more individuals

O'Brien's biographical page notes that he actually did go to law school (at the University of San Diego, where he was associate Editor of the Law Review); perhaps more significantly, he is a graduate of the famous Top Gun training facility, which is strangely apt, since he seems to build cases the way Tom Cruise flies. If his reasoning in this case means anything at all, it means that if I had told my former boss what I was often tempted to say, that he could best benefit his department by leaping from the roof of the building, and if he had done so, my conduct might have been reprehensible but immune to penalty, but if I had opened a hotmail® account under a false name, transmitted the same opinion in a single e-mail, and the message had been sufficiently persuasive, I would be guilty of a federal crime.

Of course O'Brien was thinking, not of my former boss, but only of vulnerable teen girls, as he explicitly stated; the problem, as he seems never to have realized, is the gap between what he wishes were true and what the law actually says. (Not to mention his absurdly coy formulation: "If you're going to attempt to annoy or go after a little girl and use the Internet to do it, this office will hold you responsible." Really? Annoying someone is now a federal crime?) As Robert Bolt has Sir Thomas More reply in his own defense, "The world may construe by its wits. This court must construe according to the law."

It goes without saying that Drew's act was despicable, a taint one hopes will not be erased no matter how often she appears on talk shows to discuss her progress in learning to feel better about herself. But suicide from shattered hopes and deceit in love are as old as society itself; what happened to Megan Meier could as easily have occurred with equally tragic results 150 years ago, with paper and pen. If registering a false name on a network server becomes a felony, does expressing false sentiments in a thank-you note constitute mail fraud? The real issues here are the creepy strain of infantilism permeating much of our culture, the rash misinterpretation of laws to punish acts they were never meant to forbid, and the nearly superstitious imputation of unique and irresistible power to technology in itself.

Meanwhile, HR 6123, offered in the House of Representatives by Congresswoman Linda T. Sánchez of California, is a step in the right direction:

Whoever transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication, with the intent to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person, using electronic means to support severe, repeated, and hostile behavior, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.

Sánchez's bill, though originating with a concern about the welfare of minors, wisely extends protection to all. And yes, I know that language such as "substantial emotional distress" and "severe...hostile behavior" are subject to interpretation, but so are "reckless driving" and "disorderly conduct"; in any case, both I and the 15-year-old down the street are entitled to a remedy if someone repeatedly transmits "I want to make you scream" to our respective in-boxes.

Speaking of severe behavior, one hopes that even O'Brien could find sound legal grounds for prosecuting those who trampled a Wal-Mart employee to death this morning in Valley Stream, New York. On my budget, I sometimes shop at Target (where, in fact, a heedless guard very nearly did trample my son, years ago, when my son was quite small), which I suppose must not be that much different, but there is something about the idea of Wal-Mart that makes me inclined to see shopping there at all as a candidate for a misdemeanor charge, at least.

© Michael Huggins, 2008. All rights reserved.