Score one for common sense in New Jersey.

Yesterday, a state parole board denied releasing Robert Matthey, who, together with his wife Brenda, has been serving time for manslaughter and child abuse in the death of a child that they adopted from Russia.

That child was a little boy named Viktor, who was adopted from the Siberian town of Svobodniy with his younger twin brothers in December 1999. Less than a year later, Viktor was dead, having been starved, beaten and locked in an unheated basement room. His death and the senselessly light sentences handed down to Robert and Brenda Matthey sparked outrage in Russia. The Viktor Matthey case is a big reason why Russia's inter-country adoption procedures are what they are today.

For reasons that have never been fully clear to me, the best New Jersey's legal system could do was prosecute the Mattheys for child abuse and manslaughter. The jury that heard the case in 2004 convicted them of the former but deadlocked on the more serious charge. In April of this year, the Mattheys were allowed to plead guilty to second-degree reckless manslaughter to avoid a retrial. Perhaps the deal was proffered to spare taxpayers the expense of another trial. I for one, and I suspect most adoptive parents in New Jersey, would have been happy to fork over the money if it would have put the Mattheys away for a good long time.

The Mattheys had been sentenced to 10 years in prison for the child abuse conviction. The manslaughter plea deal reduced that sentence to seven years and made them eligible for a parole hearing this fall. According to the New Jersey newspaper The Star Ledger, Brenda Matthey was denied parole in October because she showed no remorse for her part in Viktor's death.

Both she and her husband will have to wait 18 months before being eligible for parole again. I'm going to hope now that the state parole board will once again say No and keep them locked up for their full sentence. It's not nearly long enough and, unfortunately, never will be.

The Star Ledger has put together a special section on its Web site about Viktor and his abuse at the hands of the Mattheys, which you can view here. Phyllis Matthey-Johnson, Robert Matthey's mother, has adopted Viktor's two younger brothers and set up a fund to help orphans in Svobodniy. You can get more details on her project here.

Image credit: Xenia at Morguefile.com