Softer 'anti-spanking' bill introduced
Timm Herdt, Ventura County Star
February 23, 2007

SACRAMENTO — The proposed "anti-spanking" bill that's been the subject of much talk and ridicule over the past few weeks was officially introduced Thursday in the Legislature with a significant twist: It doesn't ban spanking.

Although Assemblywoman Sally Lieber, D-Mountain View, said she continues to believe that spanking — a legal punishment defined as striking a child on the buttocks with an open hand, even to the point of inflicting injury — should be illegal, she removed that provision after determining it would not get enough support to pass.

Instead, she proposes changing California's child-abuse laws to outlaw striking a child with a closed fist or hitting a child with a belt, stick, paddle, shoe or other instrument.

The changes in the bill, however, did not satisfy its most vocal critic.

Randy Thomasson, president of the Campaign for Children and Families, said the bill would make it impossible for women who are not physically strong to effectively discipline their children.

"It especially targets mothers," Thomasson said, explaining that often a mother's hand "doesn't cause the sting that they need to reform their child's behavior."

Thomas Nazario, a University of San Francisco law professor who specializes in child-abuse law, said the final revision of the bill "really strikes a balance between the prerogatives parents have in disciplining children and protecting vulnerable children."

Current law allows parents to physically punish children as long as the punishment is not "unjustifiable." The vagueness of that definition, Nazario said, makes it difficult for prosecutors to prove a case of what they believe is child abuse.

"Prosecutors have been trying to figure out where abuse begins and where appropriate corporal punishment ends," he said.

Under the bill, such acts as hitting a child with a belt, kicking a child or striking a child with a closed fist would be classified as "unjustifiable" under the law — and the burden of proving otherwise would be on the accused parent or caretaker.

"Abusers will no longer be able to hide behind the defense of ‘reasonable parental discipline,'" Lieber said.

Lieber was joined at a Capitol news conference by Scott Juceam, the father of a 16-month-old daughter who died of brain damage last May after being shaken violently by her caretaker.

Juceam said his mission in life is now to protect children against abuse, and he promised to lobby energetically on behalf of Lieber's bill.

"I'm not a child-abuse expert," he said. "I'm a parent who lost a child. Can you believe we need a law to tell a parent not to use a rod or a shoe to beat a child?"

Thomasson said he believes existing child-abuse laws are sufficient to protect against acts that ought to be legitimately treated as crimes. But the proposed law, he said, goes too far.

"A switch is not abuse. A stick is not abuse," he said.

Thomasson said his organization would support a bill that dealt exclusively with baby-shaking, but called Lieber's proposal "a great deception. These issues need to be separated. As it is, this bill bans a parent from spanking effectively."

Under legislative rules, the bill must now be in print and available for public inspection for 30 days before a committee hearing can be held. If it is passed by the committee, the full Assembly will have until June 8 to act.