Dad found not guilty of deliberately burning 6-week-old daughter (Lancaster County, Nebraska)

Astonishing how excuses can be made for the most outrageous behavior--when you're a father.

We're supposed to believe that this buffoon "innocently" scalded a  6-week-old baby causing burns over 65 percent over her body, and that the reason was because he was "inexperienced."

How experienced do you have to be to know that you don't put babies in boiling hot water? How experienced to you have to be to know that you call 911 when someone is injured?

Over and over I find that abusers do NOT call emergency medical help, but engage in stalling tactics like calling other people. That's why I tend not to believe this guy.

Yet another reason why we need paid maternity leave in this country. Young males are absolutely incompetent infant caregivers--and that's when there not out and out dangerous.  Statistics show that infants are at the highest risk of abuse and neglect with this group. They have no nurturing skills and are easily "frustrated"--a volatile combination.

Dad is identified as REID ALDEN.

http://journalstar.com/news/local/911/jury-finds-young-dad-not-guilty-of-abuse-for-baby/article_5fdb12e7-eaf8-5e98-b49d-1beb8726a111.html

Jury finds young dad not guilty of abuse for baby's burns from bath

August 06, 2015 7:00 pm • By Lori Pilger | Lincoln Journal Star

A jury Thursday found a young Lincoln father not guilty of negligent child abuse for scalding his 6-week-old daughter in bath water that was too hot.

"You have to remain focused not on how bad these injuries were. They were terrible," Reid Alden's attorney Sean Brennan said. "But every time something happens it doesn’t make it a crime."

This was an accident, he said.

Alden's daughter ended up with burns over nearly 65 percent of her tiny body, from her cheeks, chin and ears to her whole back and bottom to the middle of her thighs.

Dr. David Voight said when she got to the hospital she probably had a 20 percent chance of survival.

She spent five weeks in the hospital. Doctors had to remove her loose skin and cover the burned spots with pig skin grafts and put her on a ventilator to help her breathe.

And they saved her.

But she was forever scarred at her father's hands, Deputy Lancaster County Attorney Jeff Mathers said Wednesday afternoon in closing arguments.

"He didn't beat her. He didn't shake her. But she is scarred for life. It was his hands that put her in that tub that was too hot," he said.

On April 16, 2014, the day Alden's wife returned to work after giving birth to their daughter, Alden called her frantic. So hysteric, she said, she didn't even recognize his voice right away.

Something was wrong with Raelynn. He'd filled up the baby tub, like usual, and gave her a bath, for the first time without his wife. This time, the tiny girl's skin turned bright pink and her skin started sloughing off when he took her out.

Alden called his wife, not sure what to do.

She sent her brother-in-law, a dad of five who lived nearby, to check on Raelynn. One look at Raelynn, and he told Alden to call 911. He could tell she was burned.

At the counsel table Tuesday, Alden, now 21, cried as a recording of the 911 call played, his daughter's pained cries caught in the background.

While rescue workers whisked her from the family's apartment at 1517 Superior St. to the burn unit at St. Elizabeth, Lincoln police started questioning Alden.

Alden ended up charged with a felony, but not because he had intentionally abused his daughter. At trial this week, he wasn't accused of that. Prosecutors charged him with negligent child abuse, alleging he recklessly placed his daughter in danger by putting her in water that was too hot without checking it first.

"It wasn't his intent or on purpose, but he did it, and it resulted in serious bodily injury," Mathers said.

But Brennan said the question was whether Alden knew how hot the water was, realized it could hurt her and put her in it anyway.

Voigt testified that it was possible Alden could have put his hands in the water and not been scalded by it. Adults have thicker skin than babies. And people don't all have the same sense of touch.

Brennan said Alden was a new, inexperienced parent who made a mistake.

"There isn't anybody more sorry about what happened to Raelynn than Reid Alden is. It's his daughter, he loves her," the attorney said.

The jury got the case around 4:30 p.m. Wednesday and returned to the courtroom Thursday at 2:45 p.m. with a verdict finding Alden not guilty.