New Florida Law Re: Kids Left In Cars

[southcitymom]

I can't say that won't happen SCM.
I can say that DA's are suppose to look at the intent factor when applying the law and prosecuting.

It is criminal to forget your child in a car.. Although not as criminal as the example you gave on page one .... doing it to go to the bar..

Let me give you this example, If I forget because I had a brainfart and run a red light or a stop sign ....
Its still a violation. Being a stressed out mom most of the time would not get someone out of the ticket.. If someone was harmed due to that action on my part? I would be charged with a more serious offense and should be.
On the same token if I forgot because I was drinking and driving I think the charges should be more severe.


My concern about this law is not really about those parents that will be made "criminals" mainly because as adults they really have the choice to made decisions to elliminate their stress. As parents it is their total obligation to protect their children and make choices to ensure that.
My concern is that more children will be harmed from this law then saved by it.
Parents who may not have left their children in their car may now justify themselves running into a convenience store or whatever because now the law says they can.
This law opens the door for child predators and tons of other scenarios.

Yes, you make some good points. I guess I just want to know that LE looks at intent - and of course, they are supposed to and do.

Quite frankly, if I mistakenly left my child in the car and he dies and I was then charge with a crime - the being charged with a crime would be the least of my concerns - I doubt it would even register through the pain.

Several years ago here in Atlanta a very young mother moved here with her 3 year old. She was trying to make a better life for herself and secured a temp job with a good company. She was hoping the job would go perm.

One day, her daughters daycare fell through due to the provider's illness and she called the recruiter and said, "I can't come in today because of this, but I will be in tomorrow. " The recruiter said "If you don't come to work todaym don't come back at all."

So this woman, who worked in an office space where I used to have offices, drove to work and left her daughter in the car in the parking garage. When she went to check on her at lunch, the young girl was dead.

Now - this young women knew her daughter was in the car and she was indeed charged, but her case still broke my heart and she did receive some leniency in her sentence.

Back to the law at issue here - you are right that the 15-minute thing weakens it tremendously and may actually cause more harm than anything.

 

[Amraann]

About Parents calling the schools to check...
That would be chaos ..

Our schools here actually have a system in place that if your child IS NOT in school a recording calls you.

 

[southcitymom]

And you know I do :blowkiss:

His stupidness was punishment enough, I agree

Leaving your kid in the car whichever way you look at it till it cooks is forseeable!

But apparently people do, another sign of the times- people are too busy to think about their kids anymore, life is so pre occupying..

It is sad - and I do get the feeling of thinking "Okay - my kids are at school (or daycare or whatever) and safe now, so I can put thinking about them on the back burner for the next X amount of time and handle the 85 billion other things I need to do"

But what if my mind went to that place and my kid was still in the car. Terrifying!

 

[southcitymom]

I'm going to jump in for SCM (If she'll forgive me) and say that I think the difference is intent. I'll go out on a limb and say that in the vast majority of the accidental cases, the person is doing something that is out of their normal routine; i.e., mom is sick or traveling for work, so dad is taking baby to daycare that day, which he doesn't normally do. His brain is on autopilot (have you really never done that?) and he completely forgets to take baby to daycare. Baby is asleep in the back of the car, often in a rearward facing carseat, and very quiet. Dad (or grandma or whomever) goes on about their day thinking all is well.

Now, we can all second guess that person or the other parent. We can say that there should be a system of calls and checks and whatever. But I don't call my children's school every morning to make sure they are really there. I cannot imagine the chaos if the school had to deal with that! I assume that the plans I have in place went smoothly. Heaven help me if they did not and the general public skewered me for not calling to check!

I think the example above is HUGELY different (as far as criminal charges go) than the countless examples we have of parents who choose to shop, drink, gamble, or sleep and deliberately leave a child or pet in a locked car, sometime for hours on end, because they can't be bothered. Yes, the outcome is the same.

But if you only based charges on the outcome, then the person who killed a family of four when their car skidded on an icy patch of road is just as guilty as the drunk driver who drove into oncoming traffic. And the parent whose child accidentally got into a visiting relatives medication should be charged the same as the one who deliberately poisoned her kids b/c her new boyfriend wasn't interested in being a parent. It just doesn't track. Intent matters.

I agree it is an infuriating thing to imagine someone forgetting their child. I think the ones who do it on purpose should be charged with much more than a misdemeanor, and DFCS should at least take a look in all of the cases to make sure everything is okay in the home. But intent does matter.

I'm going to mind my own business now! Sorry for interfering.

Jump in anytime, angelmom, I always love your perspective. And you are correct - what I am getting at is INTENT!

For me, it IS worse to leave your child in the car because there is a two-for-one special going on at the crack house on the corner than to forget your child is in the car because you're sleep deprived from raising three kids and working fulltime and singing in the choir at church and your wife usually takes the infant to the nanny's in the a.m.....

 

[Amraann]

About the story of the young mom..

I don't know how much sympathy I have for that.
I do understad that she was trying to improve her life and that of her childs but there is simply NOWAY I would have left my child in the car.

No job is worth that. It was still her job to ensure her childs safety above and beyond anything else.

 

[southcitymom]

About the story of the young mom..

I don't know how much sympathy I have for that.
I do understad that she was trying to improve her life and that of her childs but there is simply NOWAY I would have left my child in the car.

No job is worth that. It was still her job to ensure her childs safety above and beyond anything else.

I agree that no job is worth that and I would never in a million years do that, but I did have sympathy - she was very young and truly had no one. She felt like she would lose her apt if she lost the job.

I've never had to make such a choice, but who knows what it felt like in her skin. By all accounts she was devoted to the child.

I am surprised that FL is just now getting a law like this on the books. Don't most states have statutes concerning this issue in place? Do you have any idea what they were thinking by putting the 15 minute thing in there?

 

[angelmom]

About Parents calling the schools to check...
That would be chaos ..

Our schools here actually have a system in place that if your child IS NOT in school a recording calls you.

Our school has a system too. If you don't call and report your child absent, the nurse calls you to make sure you are aware of it.

One day when we all had the flu, this system was tested at our house. It was 10:30 by the time I got the call. It seems the nurse calls after she gets all of the attendance reports, waits for the tardy kids to show up, and in between attending to actual sick children in her office, of which there were many that day (we weren't the only ones with flu, apparently). 3 hours after drop off is much too late for a child who was accidentally left in a vehicle. Not even great news for a child who has been abducted or ditched school.

Even a computerized system would wait until the kids were late. That would be a good half hour after my kids normally arrive at school.