Mother's lawsuit heaps injustice upon injustice

Michelle Sue Tharp, the Pennsylvania woman on death row for the murder by starvation of her 7-year-old daughter, Tausha, is fighting to hold custody of two other daughters. It is beyond belief that this case could even come before the court. Tharp told the judge, "The only thing I can't do is be with them at this time." She's wrong. There are many things she can't do and must not be allowed to do. Further interference in the lives of two young girls who have been psychologically traumatized by knowing who and what their mother is would be cruel and unusual punishment indeed -- for the children.
Imagine what it must have been like for Tharp's other children -- all under 10 -- to be given food while their sister foraged for food in garbage cans and drank water from a toilet. Imagine a child starved by her mother so that at the age of seven she stands but 2 1/2 feet tall and weighs 111/4 pounds, -- barely more than a baby.
Imagine that mother wrapping the tiny corpse in garbage bags and dumping it on a West Virginia back road.
Now imagine that same "mother" -- a term usable only in the narrowest of definitions -- asking to be awarded custody of two of her other children. This is a woman who can make the best possible decisions for her children's future? This is a woman who so evinces the milk of human kindness that reasonable people would immediately agree that she be voted mother of the year?
Depraved indifference: This is a woman who had so little regard for human life that she consciously and maliciously denied her own child food, water and medical care, and watched her waste away to nothing. -- for weeks, months, years
And then, in refusing to admit her responsibility for the years her daughter suffered criminal neglect, claimed instead that her child suffered "failure-to-thrive" syndrome.
When Tharp's public defender appealed a jury's death penalty verdict last year, we argued that the brutality and depravity of the crime demanded the death penalty. We said then that any jail sentence would provide Tharp a far better life than the one she provided her daughter.
The two girls whose custody Tharp asks to regain have been together in a foster home for two years. In testifying against the custody request, their counselor, Karen McMahan, told the court that the children suffer from adjustment disorders and post-traumatic stress. "They also suffer from over-eating," McMahan said. "They're fearful because they knew their sister was starved to death."
We cannot imagine any judge determining that Tharp should have a role in her children's lives. We remain astounded that the case was heard at all. She deserves all the compassion she allowed Tausha.