Nanny skirts accountability

The release of Louise Woodward, the British nanny charged in the death of 8-month-old Matthew Eappen, is sickening.

Massachusetts Superior Court Judge Hiller Zobel reduced her second-degree murder conviction to involuntary manslaughter. The judge agrees that she killed the baby boy.
 

Zobel said in Woodwardâs ãconfusion, inexperience, frustration, immaturity and some anger, but not malice ... she was Îa little rough with him,â under circumstances where another, perhaps wiser, person would have sought to restrain the physical impulse ...ä

So theyâre letting Woodward, 19, go because her youth, somehow, stunted her. She didnât know she was causing harm, so theyâre sending her home.

We have forgotten about Matthew Eappen, the baby entrusted to Woodwardâs care. He had a 2-inch fracture along the back of this head. He had blood behind his eyes.

The prosecutionâs medical experts said the babyâs head was slammed against a hard surface. The defenseâs medical experts said Matthewâs injuries were old.

Should we believe that the Eappens, who are both doctors, were so uninvolved with their child that they didnât notice the wound?

I donât think so. Maybe Louise was too busy with her new social life in America that she didnât have time to tell the Eappens about their sonâs injury.

The babyâs mother, Deborah Eappen, said: ãI respect the judge. But I think there is something in him, in all of us, that does not want to believe that people
who look like Louise could do what Louise did.

ãWe want to believe that people who hurt children look nothing like us ...ä

What does that mean?

Would it be easier to believe the au pair was guilty if she looked like me, also British but of Jamaican ancestry?

Britain assailed Americaâs judicial system after Woodward was sentenced to life. One of Woodwardâs attorneys, Barry Scheck, was also part of O.J.
Simpsonâs dream team. Simpson beat a murder rap in a trial for killing his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and friend Ronald Goldman.

Her supporters couldnât believe the American judicial system could set Simpson free but condemn their girl to life in prison.

I couldnât believe Woodwardâs new sentence. The judge determined that 279 days in jail was enough time for Woodward to understand the gravity of her actions.

I donât think so. She didnât even say she was sorry that Matthew is dead until she was released.

How much common sense does it take to realize that shaking an infant is bad?

A 19-year-old who kills someone in a drunk-driving accident probably isnât acting with malice. But judges and the law make them accountable for their actions.

Woodward should have been held accountable for hers. She was in jail less time than Matthew was in his motherâs womb.

It doesnât matter that her ãconfusion, inexperience, frustration, immaturity and some angerä resulted in Matthewâs death.

Woodward is free because sheâs a round-faced, wide-eyed white girl from England.