<p>Mythmom, I’m guessing that you’re not a lawyer, since virtually everything you said about the legal system is wrong to a greater or lesser extent. While specific laws vary from state to state, negligence generally is not a crime. Isolated parental neglect short of chronic neglect is generally not a crime. Where punishing someone would serve no purpose generally they are not prosecuted. If the law were as you posit I imagine we’d all be in jail.</p>
<p>And to those who automatically criticize the mother because she drove a “Mercedes-Benz”: It was a 10 year old, 2nd hand car that they bought because it seemed “safe.” Probably cost less than your SUV or minivan.</p>
<p>I am not a lawyer, but I went to court as an administrator for Social Services numerous times, and neglect cases with dire outcomes were definitely prosecuted in NY. I fully take my “punishment” as being way off for Ohio.</p>
<p>I have testified many times, both in Criminal and Family Court. In fact, these cases sent me to graduate school to the ivory tower because being in the real world of physically and sexually abused children and neglected children became too upsetting. As I stated previously, I was asked to word Federal Legislation. </p>
<p>So, although I was clearly mistaken in this case, I have ample professional experience to understand the system. In another state, i.e. NY, the outcome in this case may have been quite different.</p>
<p>the other 15% is kids who lock themselves in the car…that is how it adds up</p>
<p>this whole “stressed” and overwhelmved excuses are getting really really old</p>
<p>absentmindedness, did someone really say that about the death of a baby?</p>
<p>wowowowooww</p>
<p>what can I say, go forth and forget your babies, and if they die, eh, you were just realllllly busy</p>
<p>about the cell phones, maybe if the baby sitter called, or dad called to see how his wife or baby was, maybe the baby would have a pulse, but soooo busy we can’t check on our children, maybe if these people spoke to each other and communicated, and I am not jsut talking about the ny family, or the </p>
<p>and if keymom is emotional, it is better that then no emotions at all, or the emotions all directed to the mom who got distracted because of some donuts</p>
<p>amazing, jsut amazing</p>
<p>I will say that one time, my son and his best friend wandered off in our woods and got lost. They were playing in our back yard, about 5 years old, and I thought I could go inside for a few minutes. I realized it was too quiet and ran around frantically looking for them. I was about to call the police for a search and rescue when I heard their voices. My son had decided to follow a little creek because he knew they were lost and thought it might take them somewhere he would recognize. OH MY GOD! I am the most over-involved Mom imaginable. It was devastating to think that my son and his best friend might be lost in the woods. I will never forget it and thank God or my lucky stars that things turned out well.</p>
<p>citygirlsmom, ou’re acting as though more parents will want to use this as an excuse to kill their children. Don’t you think they have already been through hell, more than anything the legal system could do to them? How dare you say this woman isn’t feeling any emotions - everything she’s said has pointed to the fact that she is absolutely devastated.</p>
<p>My brother is the most accident prone person ever. He once (50 years ago) rolled the car over himself when mom was pumping gas. Quite a scar.</p>
<p>There are differences between accidents and neglect. Of course not all cases of accidental injury involve neglect. There have been a slew of toddlers run over because they were in the blind spots of SUV’s. Sad, but not negligent unless the person has a history of not considering the whereabouts of the toddler when s(he) backs out the car. “Forgetting” for an entire day is not the same thing as momentarily allowing a little one to wander off. </p>
<p>Malpractice is not the same thing as a doctor making an understandable error.</p>
<p>I think citygirlsmom and I think that an entire day of a two year-old-sitting in the car is “malparenting” to such a degree that it enters a different category than mistake. And yes, because we are legal custodians of our children, I do think it should be prosecuted. </p>
<p>However, that does not mean that I don’t feel for this woman or understand the pain she will suffer. I don’t wish it on her; I wish she could be spared it. However, I do hold her accountable for her actions. Obviously the authorities in Ohio and many on this thread think differently.</p>
<p>After reading so many of these posts and hearing from a person who has been asked to word legislation describe rape and neglect (in this case an accident with no violent intent) as the same thing because the end result is a crime is downright scary. Add to that another poster who is amazed that people feel sorry for someone who made a huge mistake that just ruined her life and probably that of her whole family and I’m depressed at the state of our union. Wow, wow, wow.</p>
<p>I must clarify my position. I don’t think these are the same; I was responding to the idea that the mother was so stressed that she “forgot” her child. It may surprise people to know that those who commit violent crimes are human as well, and often experience their actions as beyond their control. Many are sincere individuals who do try to control their “impulses”. This is particularly true of abusive spouses who are often sincerely contrite.</p>
<p>What I find “crazy”, though I would never use this word, although posters with less experience in the field have used this word to describe me without fully understanding my position, is that intent is so important in the minds of posters. It seems that to most a man who is “violent” and breaks his wife’s ribs is more reprehensible than a woman who “forgets”, and the result is her child’s death. Okay, call me crazy, but I think death is more serious than a cracked rib, and a child is more vulnerable than a wife, who presumably is a grown woman who in most cases has the option of getting away.</p>
<p>It’s not that I don’t have sympathy with the mother here; in fact, although it shocks people here, I have sympathy with rapists and abusers as well, having worked with many; it’s just that I think the child needs an advocate and that should be society.</p>
<p>I have seen children burned, incested, forgotten by alcoholic parents, given STD’s in their ears, you name it, by their parents. I have grown to hold parents to a higher standard because children are so helpless. </p>
<p>I can see how unpopular my ideas are, but I should say I have run training seminars for judges, district attorneys, police academies among many others. I have been commended by our county executive for a national incest conference I organized. I feel sympathy for perpetrators and victims. I just don’t find forgetfulness enough of an explanation to excuse parental responsibility. I don’t have a litmus test for who is more deserving of sympathy. Those you might consider violent criminals less deserving of empathy are usually sad and damaged people, too.</p>
<p>I don’t find my position crazy, nor did the countless professionals I worked with.</p>
<p>What I find “crazy” is the inability to distinguish between a person who beats, burns, starves, or rapes a child, and the (now all too many) sad parents who have, through habit and absent-mindedness, left their car without realizing their baby is still inside. You keep writing “forgets” in quotes - as if it’s just a lie - a convenient excuse for an action which is actually voluntary. I find that to be blind to the human condition.</p>
<p>Criminals who “can’t help themselves” still know what they are doing. These parents actually did not know that they were leaving their child in the car when they went into work. If you can’t see the difference between those situations, I guess your attitude is understandable.</p>
<p>kluge - thank you for your post. Exactly.</p>
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<p>Agreed. The dogs on the Vick thread got more sympathy than this poor toddler. The mother on tv whining…“I’m the most incompetent person…” --give me a break. “Incompetent?” How about a child killer? You can’t say this woman has and will “suffer enough.” You don’t know her well enough, I presume, to make that judgment. Unfortunately, people have differing degrees of empathy and conscience. If she is capable of leaving her child to burn to death in her car while she’s inside gabbing it up over donuts and coffee, she’s perfectly capable of forgetting about her child’s death a year or two hence. </p>
<p>What’s shocking is that some people seem to be more concerned over the mom’s ruined life rather than that of the child (i.e. being dead). I’m with mythmom and citygirlsmom all the way on this one.</p>
<p>mythmom–are you saying the mother left her child by “impulse”? Or that she subconsciously “forgot” her child on purpose?</p>
<p>INTENT is important, both legally and morally. I pity you if you ever accidentally harm someone and their sharp lawyer ties you in knots on the witness stand. </p>
<p>Your plea of innocence will get you nothing but a well-deserved (by your reasoning) prison sentence.</p>
<p>Sorry, but a momentarily lapse and and an all day lapse are very different things.</p>
<p>And by the way, some drivers are prosecuted for criminallly negligent homicide if they’re driving is below an acceptable standard and someone dies, and this is for a true accident.</p>
<p>Recently, a driver in my county received a life sentence for driving the wrong way up a one way divided highway. He killed a limo driver and a little girl who had just left a wedding. Her head was severed, which was the emotional factor that produced such a stiff sentence (which I don’t agree with), but nevertheless, there was no intent.</p>
<p>As I’ve said in my posts several times, though it seems no can be bothered to make these fine distinctions, there are several steps before someone who is indicted actually has to serve time. First conviction, then sentencing. If circumstances truly are extenuating even with a conviction sentences can be suspended or reduced to community service. I am not “bloodthirsty” or vengeful toward this woman; I merely think the victim is being forgotten.</p>
<p>I can’t believe the amount of acrimonious ill-will that is being directed toward me for expressing a different opinion than posters here. I certainly could indulge myself in the kind of ad hominen attacks that are coming my way.</p>
<p>“I feel sorry for you” when that clearly is not the case, is not reasoned debate. </p>
<p>The level of emotional argument being made precludes any intellectual debate, so I will conclude that my further voice here will only provoke more of same.</p>
<p>Therefore, before I sign off I will respond to gratuitous attacks and repeat what I have emphasized in all previous posts: I have tremendous sympathy for this mother, but I do think this level of negligence should be looked at, that society has an interest here as the voice of the child.</p>
<p>I really don’t see what is so incendiary about this position to produce so many attacks on me and my character.</p>
<p>However, I am used to it. I have also had husbands of women I have placed in safe houses discovering my home number and threatening to kill me if I didn’t divulge the whereabouts of their wives. And yes, I did feel sympathy for all involved because no matter how twisted the behavior of these husbands I did perceive that on some level it was motivated by love and human need. I was also scared, though I did protect the interests of the wives. They were the victims who needed my protection.</p>
<p>Because you can’T fully grasp where I’m coming from doesn’t make your assumptions or attacks acceptable.</p>
<p>mythmom–I am sorry you are leaving b/c you feel personally attacked. I think your position can be said to be reasonable; I just don’t happen to agree with it.</p>
<p>As opposed to cgm’s position, which seems to be: keep repeating the word “forgot, forgot, forgot?” hysterically.</p>
<p>Both sides can be argued. I just don’t see the good in prison time for someone who is already dead inside because she killed her own child.</p>
<p>I would tend to think that assuming this woman is “dead inside” based on what one’s own feeling would be in the matter is rather the more “hysterical” position–that is, based on emotion, not fact.</p>
<p>We have no way of knowing what this woman is or will be feeling, truly–we are just projecting. No way to run a justice system, in my opinion.</p>
<p>mythmom, I found your comments quite reasonable and interesting, although I don’t agree with your position. Your contributions are valued by at least some of us. As an aside, on the topic of sympathy for violent criminals, I saw a presentation on a study comparing murderers who killed on impulse to murderers who planned their crimes using brain imaging. The results made me question the concept of free will.</p>
<p>There are a couple of implicit assumptions running through this thread that I find objectionable. The first is that those of us who feel compassion for the mother, and who do not believe that she should be prosecuted, are somehow less horrified by the child’s death than those who believe she should be charged with a crime. The other is that working (outside the home) mothers who are not constantly thinking of their children are shortchanging them. Although my children are my top priority, I regularly focus on my work to the point where I am not thinking of them. This happens only when they are being cared for by someone I trust (school, husband, babysitter) and I am always reachable. And I am a great mother.</p>
<p>The case under discussion is quite different from other cases where the child is forgotten by a parent who #1. does not usually drive the child to daycare or #2. thinks the other parent brought the child to daycare.</p>
<p>Yes, she fits both #1 and #2, but the big difference here is that leaving her child alone in the car unattended for periods of time was a NORMAL, REGULAR, and possibly DAILY behavior of this mother. It would not be her automatic reaction to retrieve the baby from the carseat upon exiting the vehicle. If she did not practice the dangerous behavior of leaving the baby, chances are pretty good that she would not have forgotten her. </p>
<p>Twice we have returned home from a game or other outing and parked our SUV in the garage or in the driveway, unknowingly leaving our dog in the back, unseen. He is a quiet dog and would have been awake upon returning home, but would have just waited to be let out. In both instances it took no more than 15 minutes for one of us to say, “where is the dog?”.</p>
<p>We NEVER leave our car anywhere with the dog in it, so it was unusual for us NOT to release him from the car upon parking the car. Lots of people leave their dogs in the car and the dog’s survival depends on the weather.</p>
<p>This woman played russian roulette with her child and she lost.</p>