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Well I have always maintained that if you had to be "Licensed" to be a parent there would be a lot fewer of them. Is this a "Fair" verdict?
Couple Guilty of Assault in Vegan Case
By GREG RETSINAS
A Queens couple who fed their baby daughter a strict vegetarian diet, including homemade infant formula, were convicted yesterday of nearly starving her to death.
A jury in State Supreme Court found the couple, Joseph and Silva Swinton, guilty of first-degree assault and two lesser charges. They were immediately taken into custody. Each faces 5 to 25 years in prison.
The case, described in some headlines as the Vegan Baby Trial, attracted widespread attention beyond the couple's Queens Village neighborhood. Prosecutors said that as exotic and sensational as it sometimes seemed, the facts were plain enough: a diet with no dairy products or infant formula is not adequate for a newborn child, and the parents should have known better.
"This community spoke through the jury and indicated that the weakest will be protected," said Eric Rosenbaum, the prosecutor. "The law protects children."
The results of the Swintons' care, prosecutors and medical experts said, were disastrous. By the time the authorities intervened when the child was 15 months old, she was toothless, had rickets, broken bones and internal injuries. She was severely malnourished and weighed 10 pounds — less than half the normal weight for a young toddler.
The girl, IIce (pronounced ICE), will be 3 in July and has been living in foster care since the authorities took her from her parents in November 2001. Prosecutors said yesterday that IIce was "now on the growth scale," and was physically progressing, but doctors suspect that she has neurological damage.
Lawyers for the Swintons said they would appeal the verdict, noting that the first-degree assault charge included a finding that an offender had depraved intentions. Part of the Swintons' defense had been that they were not knowledgeable enough about child nutrition and did not realize that they were endangering their child until hospital workers told them that IIce was sick.
"I don't see justice here," said Christopher Shella, a lawyer for Mrs. Swinton. "That they made the wrong choice doesn't make it depraved, given how much they cared about their child."
Mrs. Swinton, who is 32, gave birth to IIce at her home three months prematurely. They never received prenatal or postnatal care. In an interview yesterday as she waited for the verdict, Mrs. Swinton said she had been a wayward, 300-pound young adult when she decided to adopt the vegan diet. She and her husband of seven years, who is also 32, have been on it for several years.
Mrs. Swinton said she chose not to breast-feed IIce. After trying to feed her different kinds of commercial baby formula for several months, the couple decided to put her on a natural foods diet. Examining the label on commercial baby formula cans, Mrs. Swinton said she tried to replicate the chemical composition with natural ingredients, including ground nuts and puréed fruits and vegetables.
"We were brand-new parents trying to do everything we could for her," Mrs. Swinton said yesterday. She was rueful, noting that she had "never even got a speeding ticket" and now faced prison.
Amy Lanou, the nutrition director for the Washington-based Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, testified during the three-week trial that both vegan and vegetarian diets would allow breast milk, and barring that, soy-based baby formula.
Mr. Rosenbaum, the prosecutor, said the care given to IIce was akin to what a child might offer to a "pet gerbil." He said that no matter what the parents' intentions, their failure to seek any type of medical care as IIce's condition worsened merited the criminal charges. In addition to assault, the parents were convicted of first-degree reckless endangerment and endangering the welfare of a child. They will be sentenced on May 16.
Members of several black advocacy groups attended most of the trial and after the verdict, some said that from the start, the mostly white jury was against the Swintons, who are black. The jurors, who deliberated for two days, had been sequestered since Wednesday morning, prompting Judge Richard L. Buchter to remind them as they were dismissed that "there's a war going on, and it's people like you serving in this system that is what America is all about."
The verdict shocked the Swintons' relatives and friends, many of whom sat through day after day of often highly complex medical testimony regarding the ability of the human body to process certain chemicals. Some relatives, though, had testified for the prosecution, confirming that the Swintons were IIce's sole caregivers and had complete responsibility for her feedings.
Mr. Swinton's lawyer, Ronna Gordon-Galchus, said she believed that the nine women and three men on the jury were emotionally swayed by the disturbing testimony of the child's medical condition and that the Swintons' intentions should have played a larger role in the verdict.
"Everything they did for their child, they believed was in her best interest," Ms. Gordon-Galchus said.
The parents were arrested six months after the baby was removed from their home. Mrs. Swinton was able to post bail, but Mr. Swinton has been in Rikers Island since his arrest. She gave birth to a second child, a boy, named InI (pronounced I-en-I), last July. She said she hid him from the authorities for 15 days and was now limited to regular visits with him. He is also in foster care.
As she was led from the courtroom after being taken into custody, Mrs. Swinton called out to her mother, "Tell IIce and InI that I love them."
Couple Guilty of Assault in Vegan Case
By GREG RETSINAS
A Queens couple who fed their baby daughter a strict vegetarian diet, including homemade infant formula, were convicted yesterday of nearly starving her to death.
A jury in State Supreme Court found the couple, Joseph and Silva Swinton, guilty of first-degree assault and two lesser charges. They were immediately taken into custody. Each faces 5 to 25 years in prison.
The case, described in some headlines as the Vegan Baby Trial, attracted widespread attention beyond the couple's Queens Village neighborhood. Prosecutors said that as exotic and sensational as it sometimes seemed, the facts were plain enough: a diet with no dairy products or infant formula is not adequate for a newborn child, and the parents should have known better.
"This community spoke through the jury and indicated that the weakest will be protected," said Eric Rosenbaum, the prosecutor. "The law protects children."
The results of the Swintons' care, prosecutors and medical experts said, were disastrous. By the time the authorities intervened when the child was 15 months old, she was toothless, had rickets, broken bones and internal injuries. She was severely malnourished and weighed 10 pounds — less than half the normal weight for a young toddler.
The girl, IIce (pronounced ICE), will be 3 in July and has been living in foster care since the authorities took her from her parents in November 2001. Prosecutors said yesterday that IIce was "now on the growth scale," and was physically progressing, but doctors suspect that she has neurological damage.
Lawyers for the Swintons said they would appeal the verdict, noting that the first-degree assault charge included a finding that an offender had depraved intentions. Part of the Swintons' defense had been that they were not knowledgeable enough about child nutrition and did not realize that they were endangering their child until hospital workers told them that IIce was sick.
"I don't see justice here," said Christopher Shella, a lawyer for Mrs. Swinton. "That they made the wrong choice doesn't make it depraved, given how much they cared about their child."
Mrs. Swinton, who is 32, gave birth to IIce at her home three months prematurely. They never received prenatal or postnatal care. In an interview yesterday as she waited for the verdict, Mrs. Swinton said she had been a wayward, 300-pound young adult when she decided to adopt the vegan diet. She and her husband of seven years, who is also 32, have been on it for several years.
Mrs. Swinton said she chose not to breast-feed IIce. After trying to feed her different kinds of commercial baby formula for several months, the couple decided to put her on a natural foods diet. Examining the label on commercial baby formula cans, Mrs. Swinton said she tried to replicate the chemical composition with natural ingredients, including ground nuts and puréed fruits and vegetables.
"We were brand-new parents trying to do everything we could for her," Mrs. Swinton said yesterday. She was rueful, noting that she had "never even got a speeding ticket" and now faced prison.
Amy Lanou, the nutrition director for the Washington-based Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, testified during the three-week trial that both vegan and vegetarian diets would allow breast milk, and barring that, soy-based baby formula.
Mr. Rosenbaum, the prosecutor, said the care given to IIce was akin to what a child might offer to a "pet gerbil." He said that no matter what the parents' intentions, their failure to seek any type of medical care as IIce's condition worsened merited the criminal charges. In addition to assault, the parents were convicted of first-degree reckless endangerment and endangering the welfare of a child. They will be sentenced on May 16.
Members of several black advocacy groups attended most of the trial and after the verdict, some said that from the start, the mostly white jury was against the Swintons, who are black. The jurors, who deliberated for two days, had been sequestered since Wednesday morning, prompting Judge Richard L. Buchter to remind them as they were dismissed that "there's a war going on, and it's people like you serving in this system that is what America is all about."
The verdict shocked the Swintons' relatives and friends, many of whom sat through day after day of often highly complex medical testimony regarding the ability of the human body to process certain chemicals. Some relatives, though, had testified for the prosecution, confirming that the Swintons were IIce's sole caregivers and had complete responsibility for her feedings.
Mr. Swinton's lawyer, Ronna Gordon-Galchus, said she believed that the nine women and three men on the jury were emotionally swayed by the disturbing testimony of the child's medical condition and that the Swintons' intentions should have played a larger role in the verdict.
"Everything they did for their child, they believed was in her best interest," Ms. Gordon-Galchus said.
The parents were arrested six months after the baby was removed from their home. Mrs. Swinton was able to post bail, but Mr. Swinton has been in Rikers Island since his arrest. She gave birth to a second child, a boy, named InI (pronounced I-en-I), last July. She said she hid him from the authorities for 15 days and was now limited to regular visits with him. He is also in foster care.
As she was led from the courtroom after being taken into custody, Mrs. Swinton called out to her mother, "Tell IIce and InI that I love them."
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