A couple in the United States were sentenced to life in prison on Wednesday for the murder of their six-week-old son. Prosecutors argued that the parents, vegans who fed their son breast milk, soy milk and apple juice, did not make sure that he was properly nourished.
A jury last week found the couple from Atlanta, Georgia, guilty of ”malice murder”, leaving a judge little option but to impose a life sentence.
The baby, Crown, weighed just 1,4kg when he died. Doctors said he was so emaciated they could count his bones through his skin. Although the family lived across the road from a hospital the baby never saw a doctor during his life.
Before the sentence was handed down the couple pleaded for leniency. ”Not once was I asked if I loved my son,” the mother, Jade Sanders (27) told the judge. ”I loved my son — and I did not starve him.”
The father, Lamont Thomas (31) said that the court case had been unfair because the couple did not have the resources to rebut the prosecution’s allegations.
Thomas said: ”We had no idea involuntary manslaughter was a felony. We were told for three years this was a misdemeanour. It takes money to prove this wasn’t a felony — money we don’t have.”
A lawyer for the couple announced that they intended to appeal against the verdict, which the jury reached after five hours of deliberations.
Prosecutor Chuck Boring said that the case was not about the parents’ vegan diet but their failure to give the child enough food. ”No matter how many times they say, ‘We’re vegans,’ that’s not the issue,” he said. ”The child died because he was not fed. The vegan diet is fine. These parents lied about what they fed him. He just was not fed enough.”
In court, he argued that the baby was given such small quantities of food that he died from complications from malnourishment. The cupboards in the couple’s kitchen were empty at the time of the baby’s death, prosecutors said.
During the trial Amy Lanou, author of Healthy Eating for Life for Children, told the court that while the child’s health might have been affected by the diet he should not have died if fed enough food.
Sanders told police that she fed the baby organic apple juice and soy milk, supplemented by breast milk. But the soy milk containers found in their home clearly stated that soy milk is not to be used as a substitute for baby formula.
Their lawyer, Brandon Lewis, said he believed they unintentionally starved their child because the apple juice worked as a diuretic and blocked the absorption of nutrients from the soy milk.
Thomas denied the couple had deliberately mistreated their son. ”We’re vegetarians, we are against animal cruelty, so why would I be cruel to my son?” the father told the court. ”We are against animals being murdered, why would we be cruel to him and try to do something to his body.” – Guardian Unlimited Â