Terrible Tape: Pot Puffing Little Kids

This is a partial transcript from "The O'Reilly Factor," March 5, 2007, that has been edited for clarity.

BILL O’REILLY, HOST: Now for the top story tonight. A terrible crime, this is just disgusting, against two toddlers in Texas. 17-year old Demetris McCoy, 18-year old Vanswan Polty are charged with giving a two-year old and a four-year-old marijuana. Look at this. McCoy is the uncle of the two children. Both men have been charged with felonies. They could get up to 10 years in prison.

According to authorities, the mother of the boys was sleeping at the time. And the children are now wards of the state of Texas. They've been removed from that home.

Joining us now from New Orleans, Judge Leslie Crocker Snyder, who's seen stuff like this throughout her long career on the bench.

That tape makes me angry. I mean, just physically angry. This is a two-year old and a four-year old. And these guys are doing this. And I'm sorry to say, but I believe this kind of stuff happens a lot. Am I wrong?

LESLIE CROCKER SNYDER, FORMER JUDGE: Well, you know, Bill, I really haven't ever seen anything quite as shocking as this. Not talking about horrible violent crimes like rape and murder, but I have not heard of or seen a two and four-year old given blunts, which are marijuana cigarettes. And basically, they look as if they may have done this before. The two-year old was coughing, inhaling, falling down. It's very shocking.

O'REILLY: Now if these two are found guilty, and they come before you for sentencing, what do you give them?

SNYDER: If the maximum is 10, they would get 10. If they're found guilty, and I can't believe they are any extenuating circumstances and I can say this as a former judge, because the videotape really tells the story.

O'REILLY: OK. And they both have prior.

SNYDER: I don't know what defense there could be.

O'REILLY: There isn't any.

SNYDER: While I understand.

O'REILLY: There isn't any defense. They both have prior records.

SNYDER: There clearly appears to be any.

O'REILLY: Right. They're both arrested February 5th for burglary. And they're awaiting trial.

SNYDER: Well, I don't know that they've been convicted. So they may not have prior records. They may have juvenile records. We may or may not find out about that.

The other thing I'm concerned about is the judge is that the mother should be charged with the equivalent of endangering the welfare of the child. Anyone who is involved here, seems to me that this is.

O'REILLY: Well, looking at the mother now, 21-years old, same old story. No father anywhere. Mother's 21, ill educated. I don't know if you're going to get a conviction if the mother's sleeping in the back of the house with a 17-year old and an 18-year old, who are old enough to baby-sit. I don't know if you get a conviction on that. Then there's a 16-year old.

SNYDER: Well, you might.

O'REILLY: ...who videotaped it. You might, you might.

I mean, certainly they should be taken away from this mother. I mean, she knows the caliber of individual who is in her living room. There's no question that she does.

Now let's get back to my original premise.

SNYDER: You know, Bill, there are plenty of good single mothers. So I think this is a horrible extreme that we're seeing here. And hopefully, it's not happening a lot.

O'REILLY: OK, but if you look at the stats, and I am a stat guy, the poverty level and the crime level in single mom homes with an uneducated mother are staggering.

Now I want to get back to the original premise. You have thousands of babies born in this country addicted to drugs. Cocaine, heroin. During the pregnancy, the mother takes it. Very few of those people are charged.

You have alcoholism rampant. 10 percent of the adult population in America is deemed to be alcoholic. They drink in front of their children. 75 percent of all child abuse cases are traced back to intoxicated parents. This is what I'm talking about here. It seems like it's an epidemic, where if they're not given the kids the booze and the drugs, they're at least displaying, the adults are, their use of it in front of the children. What say you?

SNYDER: I'd say that you're absolutely right. And I think what we're seeing a lot more of are parents abusing alcohol and drugs in front of their kids, so that the kids are getting an extremely negative message.

And they're learning early on the negative message that drugs and alcohol are OK. And therefore, it's very easy to take the next to jump to their becoming alcoholics or drug users. And that's what we're seeing a lot of.

O'REILLY: All right, last question. When these people come before you, and they're found guilty of child neglect, child abuse, whatever, and they are involved with drugs or alcohol, do you do anything differently in the sentencing to those people?

SNYDER: I still feel that in a case this serious, I would throw the book at them. I might direct that the mother receive, for example, the mother or some of the other defendants receive drug treatment if it's available, but I don't consider drug treatment without prison for something this serious without a long prison term to be adequate.

O'REILLY: All right, so 10 years for these two. And then you would charge the mother as well. We appreciate it, judge, very much. Thank you.

Watch "The O'Reilly Factor" weeknights at 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. ET and listen to the "Radio Factor!"

Copy: Content and Programming Copyright 2007 Fox News Network, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Transcription Copyright 2007 Voxant, Inc. (www.voxant.com), which takes sole responsibility for the accuracy of the transcription. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No license is granted to the user of this material except for the user's personal or internal use and, in such case, only one copy may be printed, nor shall user use any material for commercial purposes or in any fashion that may infringe upon Fox News Network, LLC'S and Voxant, Inc.'s copyrights or other proprietary rights or interests in the material. This is not a legal transcript for purposes of litigation.