Response #2 A Doctor’s Daughter in Poor Health

A Doctor’s Daughter in Poor Health

By: Jonathan D. Livers

Eng. 102

Michael D. Benton

I feel as if child death cases are the biggest upraise for television entertainment. It’s a good reason for our grease belly, poor hygiene, ruthless society to sit back, relax (although they haven’t shown any bit of work all day) and watch the news for once. Child cases are ones that get all social media’s attention because of the emotional empathy that they can attract. It’s a great story line, but is this televised soap opera taking away from the truth of those involved in the case?

In the case of Ernie Lopez involving the death of Isis a month old child of Dr. Veronica Vas, I feel this is the case. Social media had proliferated the emotions already a part of this case twisting the abilities of examiners and witnesses to convey the true based on their profession. The case states that Dr. Vas was leaving and left their three children with the Lopez family (which watched over the kids commonly) when soon after the youngest, Isis, appeared to be having trouble breathing on her own, at the hospital she was pronounced dead shortly after. Examiner, Jodi McClain, ran the diagnostics and found bleeding near the vagina, which triggers sexual abuse, and bruises which would acclaim that she had been abused. Court showed no argument for Mr. Lopez and therefore the jury found him guilty.

Years later, a few publications took note of this case and ran a study into it. After gathering up the case documents, Propublica’s reporter A.C. Thompson took the evidence to some other specialist and examiners for a closer look at the details. What’s they came up with was details that weren’t presented in Lopez’s defense.

Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Thogmartin says, “Emotion content that comes with the cases like anger and dispose you’ll feel and others, you have to shield yourself from that to justify the kid and find out what happened to them.” Several cases which ProPublica looked at similar to Lopez’s case involved the immediate caretaker accountable, but later found that examiner’s emotions got the best of them, as in the case of Melanie Ware. After Mrs. Ware’s case was looked again at, they found that the three bruises which were looked at by the examiner were created by the doctor’s trying to revive the baby at the hospital. ("The Child Cases")

Details in child cases need to be looked at reasonably just as it was an adult, thorough, all details need to be taken into consideration. We need not the media to portray any specific belief because that thought may influence the case in the wrong way. Child cases should not be allowed to be televised because of the amount of emotion that is involved. Examiners should pass a board’s certification to be eligible to observe the cause of death, and be forced to give a testimony at the case’s court date. We need to minimize any chance of an innocent conviction.

Citation Page

"The Child Cases." The Child Cases: Sudden child deaths are often assumed to be murder and caregivers are frequently the accused. FRONTLINE, ProPublica and NPR investigate, uncovering evidence of questionable convictions.... Web. 24 Aug 2011. <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/the-child-cases/?autoplay>.