August 6, 2011

"He made a big mistake, but really somewhere in his heart he (is) funny, lovable, caring and a great father."

"Everybody in my family ... is giving him a second chance... Will you?"

Said the 11-year old boy whose father tortured him:

He ripped the pre-teen's clothes off, beat him with a spatula and burned both his hands on a hot stove.

With the skin peeling from Christopher's hands, his father then punched the naked kid in the face and forced the screaming boy into the oven.

"I'm going to burn you alive!" he howled, according to law enforcement sources.

Moss eventually relented and let Christopher out of the oven - only to throw the nude child with the burned hands into the front yard.

When he let the injured boy inside, Christopher was ordered to sit on the floor "like a dog," court documents show.

But the boy cuddled with his father inside the courtroom before taking the witness stand to plead for his dad's release.

"Dear judge, I will fight so hard (for) my dad to live with me," the little boy began.
The judge gave the man "four months of weekends in jail and five years probation" instead of a 7-year sentence. 

44 comments:

Mark said...

HAVING REPRESENTED CLIENTS CHARGED WITH CRIMINAL OFFENSES SINCE 1985, THE ONLY THING I CAN SAY IS THE JUDGE SHOULD RESIGN, OR BE REPLACED IMMEDIATELY. THE SENTENCE IS OFFENSIVE, AND THE CHILD NEEDS COUNSELING.

Ralph L said...

I don't know who needs a psych evaluation more--the vile father or the idiot judge.

Unknown said...

Empathy gone awry.

Ah Pooh said...

The judge is a fool. The boy must learn that what his father did was vile, and that those family members that are forgiving him are in their way rejecting the worth of the boy. If the boy wishes to forgive his father that is his right alone. No one else should.

John said...

The judge has apparently never heard of Stockholm syndrome.

vnjagvet said...

Either this judge does not know about the Stockholm Syndrome or is ignoring a clear example of that behavior.

I am in the "get rid of him" contingent. Anyone so obtuse has no business judging anyone.

oldirishpig said...

Why hasn't the father killed himself? People can (and do) flip, but how does any reasonably normal human not commit suicide once they realize what they've done?

vnjagvet said...

I should have refreshed before posting. John beat me to it.

Ashera said...

The boy is a child, and he is not capable of properly understanding what happened to him. Apparently the judge has never heard of Stockholm Syndrome.

coketown said...

He didn't make a big mistake. He made several big mistakes one right after the other. Somewhere between burning the kid's hands on the stove, stuffing him in an oven, and then throwing him naked outside on the front lawn, he should have stopped and thought, "Dis really messed up. I's gotta stop dis."

Rialby said...

Public hanging stat.

edutcher said...

Do to the judge what was done to the kid, then send Dad back for re-sentence.

sakredkow said...

"Dis really messed up. I's gotta stop dis."

I like the attempt to mimic black dialogue. This helps us to understand the issues more clearly.

Sorin said...

I say death by firing squad.

Anonymous said...

Occasionally you hear of something that makes you feel like a stranger in your own country. This one is a pip.

jamboree said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Joe said...

Will they use that for the epitaph on the boy's tombstone?

Steven said...

Hang the judge.

FloridaSteve said...

Jesus Christ. Time for a recall on that Judge.

ddh said...

The seven-year jail sentence seems light to me, much less five years of probation.

Deborah M. said...

Look at the size of that guy: 6'2" and 270 pounds. Letting him essentially get away with doing what he did to a child is beyond words.

Jim Bullock said...

When you demonstrate that you can't act responsibly, you lose the right to act responsibly.

Two crazy people & a child. Where is the rest of the family, getting that kid the hell out of there?

He doesn't have to be executed. (Not "the father." "Father" is a role & responsibility that's earned.)

I'm OK with permanently shackled, like Man in the Iron Mask welded-on shackles. Plus, never again alone with another human being, come to think of it farm animal, pet or houseplant. And visitation, if allowed is only in the presence of 5 or more football linemen, MMA fighters or Marines, all themselves survivors of child abuse.

2 practical questions. How is a "sentence" like this even possible? How do we fix it so a sentence like this can't ever happen again?

Fred4Pres said...

I am not a fan of torture, but the fitting punishment for this judge would be to go through exactly what that kid went thorugh.

Fred4Pres said...

I recognize cases with insane rulings like this are not the norm, but it is stuff like this that makes you lose faith in the system. Meanwhile, check out some judical sanity here.

Fr Martin Fox said...

Some questions:

> What is this judge's history?

> Were there any mitigating factors? Not saying I know what they'd be.

> Was there anything else that might have influenced the judge in this decision?

It could be the judge really is this loony. But this is a pretty strange sentence, given the story as presented.

Anonymous said...

I certainly would hope that Dad's employer fires him. What with a felony record he'll have a hard time finding another job. Hardly an appropriate punishment, but better than nothing.

Peter

Anonymous said...

And not 60 minutes ago I was discussing with my wife some cases of people getting extremely long sentences for minor crimes.

Nichevo said...

Peter, you know, no income for the dad, no food for the kid.

The correct answer is: Two to four dozen lashes. Plus monitoring till the kid is big enough to break fatso in half. Then turn the monitoring off.

Oh, but corporal punishment is wrong! Yeah, I forgot.

jr565 said...

The father might even genuinely be remorseful, and I have pity for him. But he tortured his kid, and has some issues way beyond anger management. He needs to do proper penance just to drill into his head that fathers don't do that to their kids. If he was at all honorable he himself would demand a longer sentence for himself"

The Crack Emcee said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
The Crack Emcee said...

Funny, but I didn't hear ANY complaints when the daughter of Schwarzenegger's maid stuck up for mother - in what I consider a much worse offense - deceiving and destroying two families while creating a child trapped by a isolating history of controversy:

That said, I am happy for this father, proud of his son, and I think the judge saw the situation clearly and did the right thing.

I would've said and done the same for my Dad, who made many mistakes, any day.

Except in this insane feminized society, everything can't and shouldn't be diagnosed as a medical problem. Shit happens. Bad shit. Whatever this was, Stockholm syndrome is a crazy way to describe a child's love for their parent.

I think y'all should be ashamed for even going there. It's not called a family for nothing.

The Crack Emcee said...

And this, in an era when most parents, teachers - society itself - can't muster up the authority to tell a kid to pull his pants up.

Pathetic.

Paul said...

"He ripped the pre-teen's clothes off, beat him with a spatula and burned both his hands on a hot stove."

Here in Texas he would be thrown in prison for 20 years. And prisoners here HATE CHILD MOLESTERS (as they would consider him.)

The live of a child molester in Texas prisons is a very unhappy one.

Unknown said...

The Crack Emcee --

"That said, I am happy for this father, proud of his son, and I think the judge saw the situation clearly and did the right thing."

Like I said, you *do* have beliefs, we just disagree about them.

Unknown said...

The Crack Emcee --

"I would've said and done the same for my Dad, who made many mistakes, any day."

Funny, I took a hammer to mine in response to torture.

The Crack Emcee said...

Oligonicella,

Like I said, you *do* have beliefs, we just disagree about them.

You're a stupid liar who doesn't understand atheism.

That's the last I have to say on the subject.

Unknown said...

I wasn't talking about those kinds of beliefs, bud. The word has more than one definition.

Sig: Atheist longer than you've drawn breath.

The Crack Emcee said...

For the last time - we're done.

The Dude said...

A mistake is wearing mismatched socks. What this monster did was barbaric.

damikesc said...

This is why legislatures started dictating sentences...because judges tend to hand down horrible verdicts.

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

The Crack Emcee--

"For the last time - we're done."

One last commercial though eh?

Flight in the face of error *is* the final resort.

Robin said...

It's at times like these that I wish The Boondock Saints really did exist.

SJL said...

That is so disgusting!