An editorial from The Charleston Gazette
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Kanawha Prosecutor Mark Plants is charged with domestic battery of his 11-year-old son. Plants does not refute that he struck the child with a leather belt hard enough to leave a long, purple, U-shaped bruise on the boy’s thigh. But on Monday, Plants asked a Kanawha County magistrate to dismiss the charge, saying he has a constitutional right to inflict corporal punishment on his child, “so long as the punishment is reasonable.”
State troopers did not find Plants’ actions “reasonable.” They allege that the 280-pound man hit his son with a belt 10 times, then asked another child, his stepson, “Do you think I whipped him enough?”
One does not even have to be opposed to spanking to see that Plants went beyond what could be considered reasonable fatherly discipline. While the prosecutor says he did not intend to bruise his child, he cannot tell the difference between discipline and battery. Plants should decently resign from the prosecutor’s office. If he won’t, he should be removed.
This is not the first time Plants has raised questions about his suitability for office…
