New Jersey Man Avoids Prison After Causing Death of Sons in Hot SUV

CAMDEN, N.J. (AP) - A postal worker was sentenced Wednesday to a year of probation for causing the deaths of his two young sons by leaving them in the back of his sport-utility vehicle in midday heat.

Derrick Strothers, 39, could have received up to six years in prison on each of two charges of involuntary manslaughter. Federal prosecutors had sought five years of probation.

Authorities said Strothers dropped off his wife at her job on Aug. 15, 2003, then headed to the East Orange post office where he worked.

His sons - Derrick Jr., 2, and Dylan, 1 - were left strapped in their car seats in the SUV with the windows closed for about 2 1/2 hours.

Strothers drove to a medical building for help after witnesses told him the boys were in the back of the vehicle.

The U.S. Attorney's Office took over the case because the children died on federal property.

If you want to off your children, leaving them in a hot car to die is the way to go, if these slap-on-the-wrist sentences are any indication. It's yet another story that proves that if Susan Smith had simply left her kids in a dry, hot car instead of drowning them in the car, she'd be a free woman today.

We had an interesting instance of this in Atlanta - a woman left her profoundly disabled child in a car on the top deck of a parking ramp in a hot day - for perhaps 8 hours. I don't think she's been sentenced yet - but in the time it took to come to trial and a pre-sentencing hearing she has had another out of wedlock child. I think the case was pretty obvious that she murdered the child in the car - probably because the child was disabled. Just turns your stomach.

I'd love to see the statistics on how many parents do this kind of stupidity each year. There is a lot of publicity associated with it and that makes you feel it is somewhat more common that it really is. I do not have children - but among everyone I know who has children they are everything and there is not a moment of this kind of unconsciousness on the part of the parents.

My wife saw some professor from UC Berkeley on morning television a few weeks ago trying to explain away the fact of his having left his child in the car to die in similar fashion. He was arguing for safety features (sonar based) that would not allow you to walk away from an occupied vehicle without getting an audible reminder. If cheap enough - maybe this is a good idea. If the instance of mindless parent assisted homicide by use of a hot vehicle is as rare as I think and the technological fix is as much as I think - it will not be an efficient use of resources. Nailing these parents to the wall would be far more effective.

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