The child was adopted.
Posted on 12/07/2009 10:15:22 AM PST by sevinufnine
The child was adopted.
You do understand that the vast majority of these cases are not accidents, right?
People commit crimes, even when they know it’s a crime, when they think a) they won’t be caught or b) they won’t be punished.
Some women are, honestly, more deterred by prison than by the death of a child. We’ve seen this demonstrated in all sorts of manner, including the death of a child in a similar manner as this case.
Now, thanks to the prosecutor and a few “sympathetic” people, we’ve got a whole new defense: “I forgot.”
“I forgot” is not a defense against negligence, but we’re on the fast track to making it so.
So, a personal story, and TRUE (if you believe it):
I was walking back to my college house in 1993, when I passed by a house with a frantic lady and a bunch of kids. They were all screaming about a lost child, about 8 months old. We searched all over the neighborhood before one of her sons opened the mini-van door and found the baby strapped inside. The kid was sleeping and completely fine.
The mother had just come back from the grocery store and forgot that she left the kid in the car while she was unloading. I cannot imagine how she’d forgotten, or what would have happened during a longer and/or hotter period.
Do I give here a pass because it was an accident? No. Still negligence.
Do I think she learned here lesson? I would have. But then again, I’ve never forgotten either of my two kids anywhere. Who knows? Mothers certainly get the short end of the stick when it comes to maintaining an attention span.
A thought:
Some day (probably today), someone’s going to do something stupid, negligent or just plain retarded, and SOMEBODY ELSE’S child will die.
What then?
Will “I forgot!” be a sufficient defense?
Will “She’s suffered enough” be a sufficient excuse?
I disagree with the idea that there is evidence of neglect. Neglect requires willfulness or knowing intent.
Forgetting your child in the carseat may be careless and stupid but it doesn’t necessarily meet the legal definition of neglect. Forgetting a child due to drug and alcohol use is willful neglect because reasonable and rational people (and the eons of human experience) know that impairing yourself will make properly caring for and supervising your infant impossible.
You are confusing the general meaning of negligence with legal negligence. They aren’t the same.
Stupid, ignorant, forgetful, human error negligence is not the same as criminal willful negligence which is knowingly choosing to act or fail to act in a way that can reasonably be predicted to result in harm.
There is definitely a fine line in some cases. It’s a prosecutor’s job to determine that line before proceding with a prosecution and wasting resources on a trial with a strong possiblility of a not guilty verdict.
Now, there's no way that you can assert that she wouldn't be guilty of.. or at least should be brought to court on charges of .. simple neglect resulting in death or grievous bodily harm.
Simple negligence is the absence of due care; that is, an act or omission of a person who is under a duty to use due care which exhibits a lack of that degree of care of the safety of others which a reasonably careful person would have exercised under the same or similar circumstances. Simple negligence is a lesser degree of carelessness than culpable (willful) negligence."
We may have to imprison every mother who accidentally suffocates their baby while nursing. I can’t see the purpose in it...
I can see that we are talking past each other. It's not just a difference of opinion...I disagree with your premises, not just your conclusions.
Number one...she is not a victim in this incident. Let me repeat, she is NOT a victim in this incident...SHE IS NOT A VICTIM. The victim is a child who died a horrible death. Your assertion that she has "suffered enough," is not just beside the point, it's inane. Her mental state at this time is, to put it bluntly, irrelevant.
Number two...a crime has been committed...A CRIME AGAINST A CHILD. If the local prosecutor couldn't find a way to charge her with a crime, he should be impeached. If the local child welfare officials have done nothing to investigate, and REMOVE THE OTHER CHILDREN FROM THE HOME WHILE THEY ARE DOING SO, they should be fired. It puts the lie to the notion that everything we do is for the benefit of the child.
Those of us who have been at the business end of the child welfare apparatus understand that it's not about the best interests of the child...it's about preserving sacred cows. No more
Three...parenthood is not a license, it's an obligation, a trust. We set the bar high. Children are by definition helpless. By any objective standard, she fails.
Another poster noted she was doing appearances to try to educate others, to try to prevent it from happening again. To say that's a cynical approach is to come nowhere close to describing it. You've asserted that putting her in jail will deter no one. I say her "education" campaign will accomplish no objective benefit, other than being therapeutic for the "mother.".
There are consequences to putting her on trial, even if she is acquitted...even if she is convicted and paroled. THAT is an education program that will educate...and will help us to identify those among us who defend the child-killers, minimize the deed.
THAT is an education program that people, mothers especially, will talk about. It will make an impression.
So, I can't find anything in your posts to agree with, and I can understand why you see no purpose in it.
And this is why they dropped the case. They had no evidence that her forgetting exhibits a "lack of that degree of care of the safety of others". Reasonable people forget important things with tragic consequences all the damn time. They have to prove that it was "lack of care" rather than human error attributable to external factors like tiredness, distraction and habituated routines.
That's tough to prove when the parent is a concientious, hard working, involved parent with tons of character witnesses as opposed to the partying, gambling, shopping type of parent, where it's obvious the parent frequently placed their gratification ahead of the child's needs and you have a line around the block of people willing to comment on what a useless scut the parent was.
The fine line between human error and "lack of care of the safety of others" is properly decided by the prosecutor in determining whether to pursue the case, not by the judge or jury. The jury's job is to affirm (or deny) whether the state has proved it's case if the prosecutor determines there is sufficient evidence to prove negligence.
There is a growing body of literature on this phenom from both the legal and the sociological and medical povs.
“You do understand that the vast majority of these cases are not accidents, right?”
Proof please
The truth of the matter is that we don’t have the money to put her on trial and there would be no benefit to doing it. In theory, you might be right. In reality, we need to spend that money going after criminals who have committed purposeful crimes that need to put away. An exercise in mere retribution is a luxury we simply cannot afford.
To quote a freeper on a previous case like this
“How are you going to fix this? Tell people not to forget?”
Again, I don't just fault your conclusions, I fault your premises. The money is there...it's the will that is lacking. There would be great benefit in doing so.
I think it's almost a cliche that people who are pulled over for speeding want to know why the cops aren't out looking for "real" criminals. We need not choose between the two; it's a false choice.
Finally, only in your world view is such an act "mere" retribution. Straw men, anyone?
In the three-year period of 1990-1992, before airbags became popular, there were only 11 known deaths of children from hyperthermia.
In the most recent three-year period of 2006-2009, when almost all young children are now placed in back seats instead of front seats, there have been at least 108 known fatalities from hyperthermia...a ten-fold increase from the rate of the early 1990s. (graphic) [Important note: This in no way implies that it is advocated that children be placed in the front seat or that airbags be disabled.]
Circumstances An examination of media reports about the 443 child vehicular hyperthermia deaths for an eleven year period (1998 through November 1, 2009) shows the following circumstances:
51% - child "forgotten" by caregiver (228 Children)
30% - child playing in unattended vehicle (131)
18% - child intentionally left in vehicle by adult (80)
1% - circumstances unknown (4)
No, The money is not there. It’s not there to go after women who suffocate their babies during breastfeeding or get them killed in car accidents. They didn’t even prosecute the man who accidentally shot his child. If there was no intent, they don’t prosecute. It’s just not worth it.
Google for these deaths yourself.
I remember THREE in one summer alone, back around 2000.
In every case, the mother left the kid in the car to go shopping, get her hair done or go drinking.
People forgetting their kids in the car is, really, relatively rare.
I wonder how many of the “forgotten” deaths are really that?
Other data presented seems to contradict my statement.
I’m looking into it right now.
“People forgetting their kids in the car is, really, relatively rare.”
Please prove they are rare. Statistics would be nice.
Apparently you missed the statistical implication that the deaths are correlated with front passenger air bags.
Before front passenger airbags were common, this problem was relativily rare. but as the front air bag became common causing a spike in child deaths of children in the front, legislation required all children under 8 be seated in back and there is a strong correlative relationship with the increase in “forgotten” child deaths.
About half of these deaths result in a prosecution (meaning a prosecutor felt there was enough evidence of negligence to go to trial) and of those prosecutions about 80% result in a conviction. So about 60% of the time either a prosecutor or a jury felt that the death was accidental (truly fogotten) rather than negligent.
I expect a downward trend to develop as technology catches up and alarms or monitors become common to prevent further deaths.
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