Teach them that money and status don’t make you better than anyone else.
Because if you don’t teach them these lessons, if you let them grow up thinking they are above it all, you are failing them.
You are setting them up for a very hard fall.
And when that fall comes, when they are standing in a courtroom like this one facing a judge like me, it is going to be too late to undo years of bad lessons.
I don’t know what kind of parenting led to Madison’s behavior.
And I am not here to judge Robert and Patricia Thornton’s parenting.
But I will say this, if my child had behaved the way this defendant did, if they had spoken to officer Martinez that way,
I would be ashamed.
I would be heartbroken.
And I would absolutely support any consequence that might help them become a better person.
