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American Morning
In Florida, Elementary School Teacher Faces Criminal Child Abuse Charges
Aired August 05, 2002 - 09:06 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: In Florida right now, an elementary school teacher faces criminal child abuse charges for spanking one of his pupils. Prosecutors say that James Walworth took the 12-year-old to the bathroom and spanked him 50 times. Walworth has resigned and now faces a five-year sentence if convicted.
Joining us from Fort Meyers, Florida is a man who brought those charges against James Walworth, prosecutor Steven Schwarz.
Steven, good morning. Thanks for joining us.
STEVEN SCHWARZ, FLORIDA PROSECUTOR: Good morning to you.
KAGAN: First of all, I think there's probably a pretty clear line, corporal punishment not allowed at all in the public schools?
SCHWARZ: No, the law as it stands in Florida is that corporal punishment is allowed, but it has to be determined by each individual school district. Here in Lee County, from what I know, there is no corporal punishment policy, so in essence, in Lee County, no corporal punishment.
KAGAN: Not allowed. Even if it were allowed to allegedly take a 12-year-old and spank him 50 times seems way over the line.
SCHWARZ: Well, the statutes never spell out exactly how many time is too many times.
KAGAN: But come on, 50, that is clearly too many in anybody's book?
SCHWARZ: I agree with you. That's why I charged him with child abuse. It's the amount of times he was hit and the natures of the injures he received as a result of being hit. But corporal punishment is allowed in the Florida schools, if the principal agrees, and if it's in the presence of another adult, and it's written explanation is given to the parent. Here, none of that was done.
KAGAN: You did mention you charged him and you've chosen to charge him with child abuse. How do you determine the charges that are appropriate here?
SCHWARZ: Well, you take a look first at what action did he do and the result of the action. In Florida, we have, in terms of if you're going to hit children, we have two statutes. We have child abuse and we have aggravated child abuse.
KAGAN: Which one applies here?
SCHWARZ: Just regular child abuse applies here. If you touch, hit, strike, do anything that causes an injury, or if you do any action that can or is reasonably expected to cause an injury to a child or neglect a child, you've committed child abuse. If you do things like cage a child or willfully torture or commit an aggravated battery on a child, then you've commit aggravated child abuse.
KAGAN: Even people who might be appalled at what allegedly happened here with this 12-year-old and this teacher might -- some argue that even the child abuse charges are going too far. This is a third-degree felony, this teacher can face five years in prison and a $5,000 fine. I ask you that under the premise of, what are we trying to achieve here? To put a teacher in prison for five years, is that really going to help anything?
SCHWARZ: Well, in Mr. Walworth's case, I don't know that he will receive a prison sentence. The maximum punishment is five years in prison, but he could receive probation, or a fine.
KAGAN: What would you like to achieve? What would you like to see ultimately if you were driving this case? Would you like to see him never teach again? Would go through some kind of counseling?
SCHWARZ: I think Mr. Walworth would be best served by having some counseling, perhaps taking a break from the teaching profession for a few years. By all accounts, he's an excellent teacher. He does a very difficult job with some very difficult students. I think, in this case, he just went over the line, and we just can't allow that. We have to protect the students from the teachers, and we have to protect the teachers from the students. It's a fine line we have to balance on.
KAGAN: And what's the next step in this case? What happens next?
SCHWARZ: The next step is, I believe today he's going to be going to his arraignment, which -- where he enters formal plea, most likely a not guilty plea, which is not unusual. And after that, it will be set for trial, and then we start the pretrial negotiations, and perhaps even some plea negotiations, to see if we can resolve this without having to go to trial.
KAGAN: And do you think that would be ideal?
SCHWARZ: In every case, that's ideal. In some cases, it's unavoidable that you have to go to trial. But in most cases -- especially this one -- Mr. Walworth has -- his downside is five years in prison. His upside, through negotiation, may be as little as some probation and counseling, and to stay away from teaching and stay away from a job involving children for a couple of years. So it's in his best interest to negotiate with us and try and do something that will allow him not only to resolve the charges, but so we don't have to put the child on the stand and have him testify, because certainly, it's embarrassing for him.
KAGAN: Absolutely. We do want to say that we put an invitation to Mr. Walworth and his representative to appear, and they were not available.
Steven Schwarz from Florida, prosecutor, thank you so much for joining us.
SCHWARZ: Thank you.
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