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While it seems unlikely that Mark will be able to make a plea of innocence considering that there are photos and other proof that he abused Alycia, it is shocking that Mark was even able to obtain custody of his daughter with his record. It draws attention to the flaws of the judicial system regarding child care and how Alycia's life could have potentially been saved if the courts had done a more thorough check on Mark's status, especially when authorities were aware of crimes he had already committed. Child safety should take precedence over ensuring that the child stays within the family.
Some could argue that the 4th amendment would protect a case like Mesiti's and should guarantee his right to privacy, however others, like myself, find it more important to ensure that the child has a secure environment and it is significant to invade privacy of the parent in the best interest of the child. Do you think that the court is partially to blame for Alycia's death? Why or why not?
27 comments:
Custody, on paper, is determined by who the primary caregiver is in the family and who the best fit for the child is. Although women gain custody more often than men, in this case there might have been something problematic with the wife, even more so than the husband. Since the article doesn't detail any problems with the wife, her being the better parental option for custody may not be true.
However, this guy's guilty plea shouldn't be revoked. He now fully understands what will happen when he's going to be put in a general prison population, and intends to get out of it with the death penalty. To some, life in prison is worse than death.
I believe that the child should not have stayed with either her mom or dad in this case. With the information from this article it is clear that neither parent was able to take care of the child safely. But, the court was too lazy to send a social worker to check and see if her father’s house was a safe place. I believe that if a social was actually sent to the father’s house they would have found his meth lab, and therefore found it and unsafe environment for a child. In conclusion, I believe the court is partially to blame because they allowed the daughter to stay in an unsafe, rather than figure out a safe solution that was outside the mom or dad.
I agree with Isabela, I believe the court system can be partially blamed for the death of the girl. Unfortunately, it tends to be a trend that it is too easy for unfit and maybe even dangerous biological parents to keep custody over their children. The courts claim this is because they favor children being with their biological parents over a foster parent, however, I think the courts are just too lazy to really investigate possible unfit parents and search for a safer foster home for children. This goes into a whole other issue with the foster care system in general, but as for this specific situation, I think it is complicated. The daughter clearly should not have been placed into the custody of her father, yet if the courts really didn't know about the meth lab, a DUI and bank fraud are definitely dangerous crimes but maybe not seen as dangerous enough to the courts to prevent the girl from being with her father. Overall, the courts should have been more thorough with their investigation to prevent the majority of the unfortunate results of this case.
The fourth amendment protects against unreasonable searches and seizures. Therefore it does not apply here. In a child custody case, the guardian must be thoroughly reviewed before custody is granted. It is obvious that this man had a criminal history, and one would think that a thorough background check would at least leave some clues towards the man's involvement in a meth operation. I agree that this reflects poorly upon the court system, as it failed to conduct an adequate background check when it was clear that one was needed.
Emphasis on "unreasonable". A background check is both reasonable and necessary in this case, so the 4th doesn't apply.
In a case as unfortunate as this one, the child has no choice in her own life leading to her own death. Agreeing with Isabela's point, the court should have done a much deeper background check for the sake of the child. Since the mother was unable to care for the child, the background check showing that the father has received a DUI in the past should automatically be a red flag to not put their full trust into Alycia's father. I agree with many other people that courts are getting lazy with their work, yet in turn, innocent children are getting murdered or even traumatized against their own will because the courts don't do enough. The court isn't the only one to blame for this case, and I believe that Alycia's father should spend a lifetime in jail and not try to get around it by taking back his plea of being guilty.
As everyone above has mentioned, the child should not have lived with either her mother or her father, and the court should have conducted more research regarding the backgrounds of both parents. The court is definitely at fault for this incident, as they had the resources to prevent this unfortunate death from ever occurring. This raises some alarming questions about the current judicial system, as the courts knew of the father's previous charges, and allowed the child to stay with him despite them. With such an important role in many people's (such as this girl) lives, the authority should be more responsible doing their jobs so they can prevent such a disastrous event from happening again.
Is it really the court's fault? Well, maybe. It should be the case that a background check would be necessary for transferring custody. He did have a history of drug use and abuse before. Though, that may have not been recorded. Anyhow, if it were, I think it would be the court's fault. However, if somehow, the man hid his bad habits well, I wouldn't say it was the court's fault. Really, America is too attached to freedom, so things like this will still happen. Unfortunate casualty that comes with freedom, but too bad. Even with these tragedies, we are still quite well off compared to an oppressed society, like old Communist China. Back on topic, I think in situations similar to these, privacy should be void.
I believe that the court should not be at fault since there are requirements that need to be met in order to gain custody. The wife at the time might have been experiencing some symptoms or has done something that the court viewed as "unfit." In this case, the alternative option would be the father. I feel that neither of the parents should have been able to receive custody of their daughter because both are clearly unfit to take care of the daughter, especially the father operating a meth lab and fraud charges.
The court should be at fault in the ratio between good and bad. It is true that mark should be entitled to his fourth amendment and that he has the right to privacy. However, the facts of breaking the law prior to the case shows that not all laws could be amend. Especially if there is an innocent person involved, in this case, his daughter. By giving mark his fourth, his daughter loses her rights to a safe environment and eventually leading to her death.Laws and interpretation of the amendments should have leaned in the innocence favor,but the court is to blame for switching it the other way around.
I don't think the Court is really at fault in this custody case. I'm obvious not a Child Services worker, but I think they try to keep the child within the family before putting them in the foster system. Also, we do not know what charges the MOm had against her and hypothetically, it could have been worse/ a psychological disorder that physically makes her unfit to care for the daughter. Anyways, I don't think the court should be blamed, as they had no way to foresee that this man would kill his daughter and rape her.
Next, the father should not be able to un-plea guilty (if that makes sense). If he does, he's obviously lying anyways. Obviously, there is sufficient evidence (photos) that prove his guilt.
Building on Andrea's ideas, it is not the court's fault. I think this because the court does as much as it can for the child to stay within the family. I doubt the case workers knew about the meth lab and even though a DUI seems careless, we do not know if it was from many years ago.
In cases where both parent seemed to have records of being unfit to take care of a child, I believe the child themselves should have the choice to choose to be relocated with a foster family or stay with a relative or one of his or her parents under supervision of another. So in a way, the court is to blame. And also because not a thorough enough background check was done on the father. Perhaps more options and more careful research in custody cases would prevent recurrences of this tragedy. As for revoking the guilty plea, I do not support that. I believe that the accused should suffer the consequences of his actions and reflect on what he has done.
I think that the court has some blame in this incident. The daughter shouldn't have been in the custody of her father after his numerous charges and the fact that he had a meth lab during the time she lived with him. But I still don't think the father should be able to blame the courts for his actions. He shouldn't have been able to care for his daughter, but that doesn't mean he isn't guilty of rape and murder.
I think that there are truly issues with the court's custody system, even if it possibly isn't reflected in this case. There's been countless cases of children who don't even have say in who gets custody of them, even if they strongly prefer one parent over the other, and there need to be changes made to reform this issue. However, for this particular issue, I don't really think that the court should be to blame, especially because we don't exactly have information about the mother. Minor infractions should not block a parent from caring for their children, but I do believe that if these issues escalate, there should be an easier outlet for children to speak out and get help.
I think the court is partly to blame in this situation. I think with a more thorough check of the man's background and what conditions he lives the situation could have been prevented. Of course this is a really extreme situation and the court couldn't have known he would drug and rape her. If someone who operating a meth lab can be approved for custody of a child then I think changes need to be made to the legal system. I am wondering if the child had any say in who she could live with because she would know how she is treated at home but since she is a minor I doubt she did.
The fourth amendment protects people against searches and seizures without a warrant or probable cause (which includes suspition of drug possession or muder suspect), and because Mesiti was both a suspect of murder and in possession of illegal drugs, he is not protected under the fourth amendment. The fact that Mesiti had previous criminal charges that show irresponsibility and carelessness means that the court definitely should’ve done some more investigation (they could’ve alternatively had child protective services or the police do some investigation) on his background. Though the foster system is difficult to go through, it would’ve given a better chance to Alycia for a life than living with a meth producer.
I think the court should have done a better background check when it came to the father, but I don't think that in reality there was anything they could have done without violating the 4th amendment. The DUI might have been a while back to where the court disregarded in when comparing him to the mother. The court does not necessarily have an obligation to do a thorough background background check of the parent unless there is a cause. I think courts always value children and if they knew the father was running a meth lab they would not have put the daughter there. I think it is only the fathers fault that she had been killed.
I agree with Marlene that the court was in a difficult situation in deciding on the custody of Alycia. The court might not have seemed justified if it had placed her in foster care if they only knew of Mesiti's bank fraud and DUI, as those are two non-violent crimes that do not necessarily indicate that someone is unfit to care for a child, only that that person should be investigated more carefully to see if there is other criminal activity going on, like running a meth lab. I would hope/think that if the court knew about Mesiti's meth lab, they would have denied him custody of Alycia, but I do not know enough details about its decision to let Mesiti keep custody of his daughter to see their reasoning.
I think that the court is partially to blame because this occurrence could have been avoided if the court had thoroughly checked the father's background, and as a result, determine he was unfit to to care for the daughter. However, it is unclear how much the court knew about the father before coming to the conclusion that he would be fit to care for her. With seemingly minor charges of bank fraud and DUI, it is not completely unreasonable for the daughter to still be placed under his care. However, because he was granted custody of his daughter despite minor implications with the law, I think that the standard for people who committed minor infractions must be raised higher -- it must be made clear that there was change in the person's behavior and that there are no warning signs of future occurrences.
I think that the court is not to blame, as they did not know that he was violent or running a meth lab, and there are rules that they have to follow about giving parents custody. Because both of his previous crimes were nonviolent, the court most likely thought that he was simply the only option for the daughter, as her mother was deemed unfit. I think that to stop awful things like this from happening in the future, there should be more extensive background checks on those filing for custody of a child.
I think the court is partially to blame for Alycia's rape and death. If the courts saw both parents were unfit to take custody and had records, they shouldn't have handed her over to the least bad parent, they should have put her in foster care until the parents proved to be fit to care for her.Although the fathers crime were non-violent, they showed his poor judgement that would not be fit to care for his daughter.
In retrospect it is easy to blame the court but at the time of the decision the father was probably the most obvious better choice. The fact that the father ended up having custody over the child likely means the mother was even more unfit to care for the child. Bank fraud and DUIs are not exactly crimes that help suggest someone is likely to rape and murder his own child. If the courts knew his involvement with drugs, perhaps it may have made them reconsider more carefully. Either way, hopefully the courts will learn from this and start doing more careful background checks in these kinds of situations - or just not allow her to live with either parent at all.
I agree with Karena that it is very hard to determine the more fitting party in these cases. It is also important to know that many of the custody cases usually goes to the mother so in this case, it would be wise to note that the wife may have also been very unfit to care for this child. In retrospect relative to the consequences of their decisions it would seem infinitely wise to give custody to the mother but such thinking would be a hindsight bias. It is also important to note that there were many important events that the courts do not know about as fraud does not necessarily translate to abuse. It would not be the court's fault as they probably had a very challenging decision to make yet (i don't know if this is possible) another solution could be assigning the child to a care provider for a temporary amount of time.
I am disgusted beyond words by this. I do not think the fourth amendment should apply to Mesiti, because, like the original poster, I agree that a child's safety is more important than protecting the privacy of a criminal. I think given Mesiti's history, the court should have taken that more into consideration when deciding who gets custody of Alycia, but I do not think the court is to blame for this. I think perhaps she should have been placed in foster care, especially since Mesiti was a known law-breaker. This event is tragic and shocking, and I do not think he should get his sentence revoked under any circumstances.
I agree with the comments above because this case is so sickening. Child safety is so important, and having an unfit father should not change that. The blame is on everyone because the courts obviously knew that he was an unfit father in the first place. Better care for the daughter should have been given, especially because of the circumstances she was already in.
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