Trumpet better played in UI Marching Band; not prison outfit

Lindsay Johnson may go from playing trumpet in the U of I Marching Band to tooting in an Illinois women's slammer. That's because Johnson faces incarceration for the little committed and lesser known crime of neonaticide, young mothers who kill their unwanted offspring within the first 24 hours after birth.

Johnson hid her pregnancy from from her support network, sought no medical help before giving birth in her dorm bathroom. Then she suffocated the infant boy. Baby cries and afterbirth alerted the police who found Johnson wandering campus with the body in her backpack.

Johnson, charged with first degree murder, plead guilty in a deal that will likely get her just a couple of years instead of the 75 she faced. But she should get what some of the several hundred cases of neonaticde annually get with the means for a high priced mouthpiece..probation.

Young mothers in Johnson's situation suffer from a form of mental illness. They remain in denial throughout their pregnancy; then panic when the reality of birth shatters their delusions.

Johnson is a well liked, bright, agricultural communications major at Illinois' finest. She needs society's help; not the waste of precious state treasure to lock her in a cage. Let the women's prison band be reserved for truly dangerous, violent offenders. Lindsay Johnson deserves probation and counseling before being reinstated in the marching band as well as society in general.