by James A. Bacon
Let us all applaud Ilona White, assistant prosecutor of Shenandoah County. She had the brilliant idea of offering Jessie Lee Herald, a 27-year-old man who had sired seven children by six different women, the option of undergoing a vasectomy in exchange for a five-year reduction in his prison term.
Her motive in offering the deal, she explained, was to prevent him from fathering any more children. “He needs to be able to support the children he already has when he gets out,” she said, according to the Associated Press.
Not surprisingly, the deal evoked hand-wringing from civil libertarians. The deal calls to mind the involuntary sterilizations carried out in Virginia in the early 20th century under the banner of eugenics, said Brandon Garrett, a University of Virginia law professor. “This takes on the appearance of social engineering,” said Steve Benjamin, past president of the Virginia Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. “Sentencing conditions are designed to prevent future criminal behavior,” he added. “Fathering children is not criminal behavior.”
I am not moved in the slightest by those concerns. Garrett’s statement is ridiculous. Benjamin may make a valid point from a narrow legal perspective — fathering children may not be criminal behavior. The problem is… it’s a narrow legal perspective. It misses the larger issue at hand.
I will fully admit my boundless contempt for Herald, a man who has for years engaged in animalistic, indeed sociopathic, behavior with no serious consequence. Fathering seven children by six women — at the age of 27, no less! — is vile and reprehensible. He cannot possibly be a good father if he wanted to, and it is dubious that anyone so consumed with his own desires even cares. Herald cannot support that many children financially, and he cannot possibly find the time to undertake the non-pecuniary duties of fatherhood. By his own admission, his nephew — a man who has worked as a roofer and in a poultry plant — has financially supported “at least some” of his children. I don’t know how many children of his own the nephew has, but he is more of a man than Herald will ever be.
Among his other derelictions, Herald was convicted of child endangerment, hit and run, and driving on a suspended license in a crash in which his three-year-old son suffered minor injuries.
Society has no good solutions for reprobates like Herald. Mothers of the children can sue for child support, but if he has seven children, it’s highly unlikely that he is willing or able to live up to his obligations for all of them. So, what’s to be done? If you throw him in jail, he can’t earn any money or pay any child support at all. But if you let him out of jail, he’s likely to continue his reckless, irresponsible behavior.
That’s why Ilona White’s offer makes so much sense. The dirtbag gets out of jail early, giving him an opportunity to find gainful employment, earn money and meet at least some of his financial obligations to his children. But the vasectomy ensures that he won’t be spawning any more offspring. If anything, the deal wasn’t strict enough — it gives him a year to scrape up the money to pay for the procedure, during which time he can easily father another child or two… or three.
Amazingly, Herald had to wrestle with the decision. “It was not a no-brainer for him,” his attorney said. Apparently, he saw a big downside to denying himself the ability to impregnate more women and foisting the responsibility for raising his offspring onto single mothers, relatives or taxpayers. What a contemptibly selfish man!
The comparison with involuntary sterilization is, of course, totally absurd. First, Herald would undergo voluntary sterilization — just like millions of other American men do when they don’t want to father any more children. Secondly, he does not belong to one of the groups stigmatized by the eugenics movement on the basis of “undesirable” genetic characteristics. He is stigmatized for his reckless, anti-social behavior.
I think White’s solution is an excellent one. We should reject the superficial comparison with involuntary sterilization and eugenics, which were truly atrocious, and deal with the real social problems created by derelicts like Herald. There are dozens more, if not hundreds, of predatory males in Virginia who should be given the same alternative.
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