A mother in New Jersey left her sleeping daughter in the car for 5-10 minutes while she dashed inside a store in a suburban mall. Someone noticed, and the mother was charged with child endangerment. But the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled in the mother’s favor, making an interesting legal distinction.
In a unanimous decision, the court said that the law must consider only actual harm, as opposed to possible harm. That is to say, we worry about what might happen to the child left in the car (a bad guy could run away with her; she could wake up, start the car, and run it into a building, etc.). But the law can only deal with what does happen.
Thus, as Lenore Skenazy explains the case, parents do not have to be perfect, lest their children be taken away from them.
From Lenore Skenazy: Parents don’t need to be perfect, court rules – Tulsa World: Lenore Skenazy:
All hail a huge victory for common sense, decent parents and a country otherwise gripped by “worst-first thinking” — thinking up the worst-case scenario and proceeding as if it’s likely to happen.
The New Jersey Supreme Court just ruled that a mom found guilty of child endangerment for letting her sleeping daughter wait in the car for five to 10 minutes in a suburban mall parking lot on a cool day deserves another hearing.
You may recall this case because I wrote about it last year, when the mom lost her appeal. The three appellate judges ruled that they didn’t have to list the “parade of horribles” that could have happened to the child. But just because the judges could imagine a kidnapping or a carjacking or a big bad wolf doesn’t mean that these dangers were at all likely — or that the mom was wrong for not worrying about them.
I’m happy to say that the New Jersey Supreme Court agrees. It ruled that simply leaving a child in a vehicle for a few minutes is not enough to automatically constitute criminal behavior. Judge Mary Catherine Cuff wrote, “Any allegation of child neglect in which the conduct of the parent or caretaker does not cause actual harm is fact-sensitive and must be resolved on a case-by-case basis.”
In other words, instead of treating all parents who opt for a bit of convenience like craven child abusers, we can actually consider reality instead of just outrage. Imagine that! On second thought — don’t. Imagination is what got us into the trouble in the first place.
You see, it is very easy to imagine a child dying in a car, because that’s what we’ve been told to do by endless public service announcements and articles about this “danger” to kids.
And though it’s true that some kids do die in parked cars, it’s also true that more kids die while on foot in parking lots and driveways. And even more kids die in cars that are moving. You know — as passengers. So if we really want to save kids, we might arrest any parent evil enough to drive kids anywhere.
[Keep reading. . .]
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