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Thursday, October 20, 2011 By msnbc staff/news service reports and Luis Hernandez
 Baby drinking an alcoholic beverage. -
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On October 20, a Connecticut mother pleaded guilty to charges that she forced her 4-year-old son to drink beer and gave her 10-month-old daughter beer and cocaine. The Connecticut Post reports that Juliette Dunn, of Bridgeport, pleaded guilty Wednesday to risk of injury to a child under the Alford Doctrine, where the defendant doesn't agree to the facts but agrees the state has enough evidence to win a conviction.
A companion, 33-year-old Lisa Jefferson, pleaded guilty to the same charges. Police say officers were waved down in June by a neighbor who complained that a woman was feeding children beer at a playground. The Post reported that at the time of the incident, police had spotted the pair sitting in folding chairs as the children played. Police noted an empty beer bottle near the 4-year-old. Additionally, the Post report said, police said a baby bottle near the child was filled with a beverage believed to contain alcohol. Citing a warrant in the case, Connecticut NBC station WVIT-TV reported that authorities took both children to a hospital to be tested for drugs and alcohol. The son tested positive for alcohol and the daughter for alcohol and cocaine, WVIT said.
The warrant also stated that Dunn admitted to giving her son a bottle of beer every day, the TV station reported, and that when questioned by a social worker, the child was able to list off brands he liked and ones he didn't. The children were turned over to the Department of Children and Families after 29-year-old Dunn's arrest. Custody hasn't been decided. The Post reported that the women could face up to two years each in prison when the judge sentences them in December.
I'd say two years for intoxicating her children daily is not a big punishment. She should be given at least 10 years in prison, if not death penalty. This is because her children could have died of intoxication, cocaine over dose or other health issues.
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