An Oregon couple is upset after recently learning the state’s law bars their babysitter from being charged for allegedly abusing their son because the boy is too young to describe his pain.
According to Joshua Marbury and Alicia Quinney, the parents of Jacob, 1, their babysitter may never face any charges for allegedly hitting their son while they were out on a date in March.
The couple claimed to have come home to find the unidentified babysitter – who is also reported to be best friends with Marbury – asleep on their couch while Jacob was crying.
The next morning, they found marks all over Jacob, including a black eye, multiple bruises on his face, arms and his back.
“The bruising says enough. It’s so bad – it was everywhere,” said Quinney to KGW News, an affiliate of NBC. “And now two days ago I was told they can’t [charge the babysitter] because it’s law.”
The law Quinney is referring to is the 2012 ruling by the Oregon Court of Appeals from a case of a 14-year-old girl who was covered in “welts and bruises…wounds sustained when her mom whipped her over and over with a curling iron cord,” according to The Oregonian.
In that ruling, the 14-year-old girl claimed she didn’t feel any pain because she was “used to getting hit.” Because the teen said the abuse didn’t hurt, the appeals court ruled her mother could not be charged.
The ruling created a loophole in state law, which essentially allows parents, or alleged child abusers, to get away with harming their kids as long as it isn’t to a certain extent.
Meaning that if a felony charge is to be laid against the abuser in question, then prosecutors must be able to prove beyond a responable doubt that the victim sustained substantial pain or received a physical injury.
Lawmakers are asking for this Oregon law to be changed because for younger children, such as Jacob, or those who suffer from a disability, it may be more difficult to explain the pain they endured during the alleged incident.
“We had a confession from the abuser saying they did it. Still this person was not arrested,” continued Marbury in his Facebook post. “After two months of waiting we only find out that charges are dropped because my one-year-old cannot tell you verbally he was abused and my son did not show he was in pain or that this person ‘intentionally’ did this. I am so furious.”
Global News reached out to Sherwood Police Department in Oregon who said they cannot talk specifics about the case because it’s an active investigation.
If Jacob was able to describe his pain level, the babysitter could have been charged and convicted on the highest felony assault charge, but bruises, according to KGW, don’t “qualify for a felony.”
Now, Marbury and Quinney are looking to help change the state’s law to help those who are too young or have a disability preventing them from describing an alleged abuse.
The couple started an online petition at Change.org.
As of now, if the babysitter is to face any related charges, it would be a misdemeanor charge, which to Quinney is not enough.
“A misdemeanor is not enough, no. He admitted to abusing a child,” Quinney told KGW. “This guy is a big, huge guy – no matter who it is no one should be able to abuse a child.”
The babysitter has reportedly fled to California, according to the television news program Inside Edition.
Comments