Sometimes our country is truly depressing. For example, this story from the New York Times:
Justice Patricia M. DiMango, of State Supreme Court in Brooklyn, spoke of sleepless nights while contemplating a sentence. That sentence could keep Ms. Santiago, 30, in prison for up to 17 years longer than her husband, Cesar Rodriguez, 30, Nixzmary’s stepfather, who delivered the fatal beating and was sentenced in April by Justice L. Priscilla Hall to 26 1/3 to 29 years.
Justice DiMango said that Ms. Santiago, who was convicted of manslaughter and two counts of assault but acquitted of murder, had ignored her lawful obligation as a parent to try to save the dying child. But the wide gap between the sentences raised questions about whether Ms. Santiago shouldered an extra burden as she faced judge and jury: the duty to be a good mother.
As far as I can tell, the facts of the case are as follows: the father beat the child to death. The mother was present and did nothing to stop it, and even failed to do anything once it was over. The police only arrived because a neighbor called 911.
Now, that is tremendously sad for all the obvious reasons. It’s only magnified when some of the supplemental information comes out: her miscarriage right before the death, her own abusive relationship with the father. A reasonable person might look at those facts and recognize a troubled mind, someone surely in need of help, perhaps someone deserving of punishment. But how can anyone say that she, who merely witnessed but did not act, should receive a more harsh punishment than the man who actually killed the child?
Apparently, in America, that question is not so simple as it might seem. It’s a stark reminder that differences in social perception of gender are deeply ingrained, not to mention deeply embedded in supposedly neutral systems like the law. In this case Nixzaliz Santiago is being punished for failing to comport with an idealized motherhood. That she herself was terrorized by her husband is given no weight. And the failure of motherhood in this instance makes her equally (in fact more) culpable.
One of the jurors even makes this explicit, saying ““I was deliberating between ‘Is there intent or not?’ I came to the conclusion that there was intent, in the form of her lack of action.” She refuses to accept that a “real” mother could simply stand by and allow this to happen, and so looks for motives. The cultural imagination can picture a fallen mother, one who kills her child. And it can, of course, include space for the virtuous mother who intervenes. But no other space exists; nowhere in the equation is the possibility that she simply feared to act. Our collective social understanding of motherhood forces the choice into only these two paths. Which means if she let it happen, she must have wanted it, and thus deserves every bit of punishment.
None of which is to say that she deserves no fault. The evidence seems to suggest that she provided encouragement for the general pattern of beatings – though there doesn’t seem to be any proof that in this instance she did anything other than let it happen. And I do firmly believe that anyone, simply by virtue of being human and certainly in their role as a parent, ought to step in and prevent such things from happening.
But this case appears to reside right at the center of the sad intersection of restrictive gender norms and the over reliance on an approach to criminal justice that emphasizes punishment over treatment and rehabilitation. And when the two meet, the punishment that may be unleashed is extraordinary.