Days after his office resolved felony cases against teens accused of bullying Phoebe Prince, the local DA became a marked man.

A group in Georgia called Children Without A Voice USA started an email campaign to call for Northwestern District Attorney David Sullivan to be voted out of office "before another child dies."

(David Sullivan, second from left in photo, speaks after the Prince cases were resolved; Kevin Gutting photo.)

The Gazette has so received received six form letters with passages like the following:

"American's should care more about the well being of our children, civil rights laws and human life, sadly it doesn't seem like it is. Is it because children have little political value, or just less value compared to an adult female or male?"

All contain the same mistake in using an apostrophe to attempt to make "Americans" plural. In responses to the senders, I explained that the Gazette does not publish form letters.

None of the senders responded, suggesting that the letters were generated automatically by the 4-year-old nonprofit group, which is based in Alpharetta, Ga., and claims to be "dedicated and determined in fighting crimes against children in the United States."

On its website, people can sign up to participate in "action alerts" by supplying their email addresses.

The outfit lists email addresses for letters to the editor of the Gazette and the Republican of Springfield and also calls for volunteers to send messages to Sullivan himself.

I have a message in to Lin Seahorn, the group's founder and executive
director, and if she responds I will share her explanation of what the group hopes to
accomplish here. 

The group's take on the Prince case boils down to the apparent belief that the resolution of the Prince case prosecutions two weeks ago encourages bullies across the country.

Other passages from the form letter:

In Massachusetts, several students were so relentless and cruel to the point that a beautiful young child took her life. A precious innocent life, all because of what she looked like on the outside. What's worse is that District Attorney David Sullivan failed Phoebe Prince, the community, Massachusetts and the rest of this nation with dropping all charges but for one, a misdemeanor ... like a traffic ticket. Would he have done the same, had it been his little girl?

Instead of extra sanctions, Phoebe's killer-bullies got triple-level discounts, as if the very things that made their actions especially offensive, were perversely calculated, instead, as mitigating factors.

Young people everywhere who heard about the felony charges when DA Scheibel first announced them might have refrained from bullying out of fear that major criminal sanctions would follow. They will no doubt laugh now in the face of warnings from school officials and cops that bullying carries 'serious consequences.'

With the whole world watching, there's a good chance this embarrassing result will void many of the good things that followed Phoebe Prince's death, as when communities rallied to support Phoebe's family and people demanded better laws to protect other victims from a similar fate. ... Here's hoping the public's angry reaction and continued fight for justice for Phoebe will now spawn a movement to vote District Attorney David Sullivan out of office before another child dies.

The group does not show up on the main online rating services for charities and philanthropies.

In a message on its site to potential donors, Children Without A Voice USA offers this promise on how money will be used:

"$ 50 allows us to teach 1 dozen children on how to keep their bodies safe

$ 75 allows us to distribute 200 educational materials on Bullying, teen suicide, or drugs

$ 100 allows us to teach 1 dozen parents, on parenting.

$ 500 allows us to teach 50 parents, on parenting.

$ 1,000 allows us to teach nearly 500 children, on how to keep their bodies safe.

$ 3,000 allows us to teach Bullying to an elementary school (approx. 750 students)"

Part of the group's mission statement reads: "Children Without a Voice USA seeks to become an organization of national scope. We will establish a presence in every state through a network of dedicated volunteers. Together, we will strive to reduce the number of children affected by violence, abuse and neglect through our focus on prevention, education and advocacy."