• The Hate And Rush To Judgement

Tammy Alicia Holycross Filicide..Patrick PierceDe Paul University, Chicago IL

The death and or abuse of a young child is repugnant to hear or think about. The first thought isthe need for retribution regardless of facts. Could there be any extenuating circumstances orother guilty parties? Where there mistakes made by other parties or organizations? What elsemay have been involved? The gut feeling is one person is to blame regardless of other facts orcircumstances involved. The articles written about this case reflect large amounts of hate mixedwith selective presentations of facts. This attitude also filters down to the judicial system andother involved parties like CPS. With suicide there is a great deal of effort made to report thesurrounding circumstances and facts, with an effort to try and find an answer. I understand theemotions involved by reporters etc. involving filicide but this is a serious occurrence which needsto be addressed in full to reach justice. Society needs to focus on addressing this problem withunderstanding of scientific research for future preventative actions. Simple or randompunishment has and will accomplished little or nothing.

2/5/96 Retired Superior Court Judge Eugene Gualco is appointed to lead the committee toinvestigate the boy’s death and determine whether problems in the county’s child protectionsystem contributed.. The committee concludes that CPS made mistakes which leave children atrisk. The committee issued 43 findings and 35 recommendations to CPS. CPS workers“appeared to be heavily influenced by a bias toward family preservation.” Sacramento County’sChild Protective Services has been forced to change its policies. There is plenty of good researchavailable which was not utilized at the expense of the families and children they were responsibleto protect.

SUSAN HATTERS FRIEDMAN and PHILLIP J RESNICK from the Department of Psychiatry,case Western Reserve University School of Medicine Hanna Pavilion, University Hospitals ofCleveland, OH 44106, USA wrote on patterns and prevention. Among other things they foundfilicidal mothers to be suffering from a definable group of mental disorders and social problems.Tammy Holycross was experiencing many of these conditions such as frequent depression andsuicidal thoughts to name a few. Over a third of filicide happened during pregnancy. TammyHolycross was pregnant at the time. Help for women like Tammy Holycross for prevention isdifficult because many risk factors’ such as maternal depression and social disadvantages, arecommon among non-filicidal mothers.

Tammy Holycross was well-known to CPS, first in Yolo County and then in Sacramento. Thefact that the committees findings that CPS had been making mistakes (43 findings and 35recommendations) never became part of the evidence in the trial, and more important now, thesentencing. Tammy Holycross was denied to take a lie detector test she requested. She had nohistory of violence.

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Geoffrey McKee, a psychologist at the University of South Carolina’s medical school and noted author said: “These women are not freaks.”

Cheryl Meyer, a professor in the School of Professional Psychology at Wright State University inDayton, agrees.

Cheryl Meyer said “I’ve met at least 40 women who’ve been convicted of killing their kids. Iwent into the room the way anybody would go into the room-expecting to see a monster, andwhat I saw was me. These were people just like me.”

Cheryl Meyer said: “ MALTREATMENT: The most common category is made up of childabusers who aren’t necessarily trying to kill their children, but do so in the course of physicallyabusing them.”

“There are exceptions, but there aren’t very many, in almost 100 percent of the cases, you can seethat the woman had no support and were at the end.”

The moms are not evil, says Stephen Nofffsinger, a forensic psychiatrist at University HospitalsCase Medical Center.

“When women kill in the context of serious mental illness. It is usually through no fault of theirown. The parallel is diabetes or hypertension - chronic physical illnesses that cause long-termcomplications.”

Tammy Holycross’s attorney, Eric Escamilla of Fresno, confirmed that he has newly discoveredevidence but plans to appeal her case based primarily on what he called “procedural errors.” Theattorney said he believes there was a rush to judgement by police, and that her case should havebeen moved out of Sacramento because of publicity.

I am not making a judgement of weather Tammy Holycross was guilt or not. I’m only pointingout the lack of justice in her case and what appears to be an emotional rush to judgement. I amalso pointing out an unfair sentencing. Too many important facts were disregarded, CPS mademistakes and in many cases like these scientific psychological and social information wasdisregarded in regard to sentencing.

Patrick Pierce BA Psychology, De Paul University, Chicago, IL