Circumcising dad gets 150 days in prison (Caldwell County, North Carolina)

For the record, dad JOHNNY MARLOWE used a box cutter with no anesthesia.

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/422/story/981487.html

Circumcising dad gets 150 days in prison
NewChannel 36
Posted: Friday, Oct. 02, 2009

Johnny Marlowe

CALDWELL COUNTY, N.C. A father found guilty of misdemeanor child abuse for circumcising his sons says he plans to appeal after a judge handed down a 150 day sentence Friday.

Johnny Marlowe was found guilty Thursday on one count of misdemeanor child abuse. Prosecutors tried him on two felony counts.

A judge sentenced Marlow to 150 days in prison at the expiration of his current sentence for a prior conviction.

Prosecutors called Marlowe's wife to the stand during trial. She testified that one of the young boys bled for nearly 11 hours after Marlowe used box cutters to perform the circumcision.

Marlowe admitted he had no formal training and gained most of his knowledge about the procedure from watching videos on the Internet.

Without a lawyer, he took the stand Wednesday and told the jury that "God, the Holy Spirit pressed me to do that. ... When God presses you to do something, you do it."

After hearing closing arguments, the jury started deliberating Wednesday afternoon. According to the prosecutors, the jury reached a verdict on one of the two charges that same day, but could not come to a unanimous decision on the second.

Deliberations continued into Thursday with the jury coming back into court several times, asking questions of the judge and saying they were deadlocked on one of the charges. The judge asked them to continue deliberating in hopes of reaching a verdict.

Meanwhile, Marlowe was grinning, winking and posing for the camera as he was escorted in and out of the courtroom Thursday. He had a quiet air of confidence about him through much of the day. And it turns out he had good reason.

Around 3 p.m. Thursday the jury returned a verdict of guilty of misdemeanor child abuse on one of the charges, but announced they would never be able to reach a unanimous verdict on the second charge. The judge declared that charge a mistrial.

Now, instead of serving four to eight years in prison for those two felony charges as prosecutors had hoped, Marlowe will spend 150 days in prison for the misdemeanor conviction.

When asked if he still thought that circumcising the boys himself without anesthesia was the right thing to do Marlowe replied, "Definitely."

Meanwhile, the district attorney will have to decide if it's worth pursuing another trial against Marlowe for the second felony child abuse charge.