Posted on 09/06/2007 7:18:13 AM PDT by Froufrou
No charges will be filed against a middle school administrator whose toddler daughter died last month when she was left in the back seat of her mother's SUV during a heat wave, a prosecutor said Tuesday.
Leaving the child in the car for the work day was "a substantial lapse of due care" but did not meet the definition of reckless conduct necessary for prosecution, said Clermont County Prosecutor Don White.
Brenda Nesselroad-Slaby, 40, is assistant principal at Glen Este Middle School, about 20 miles east of Cincinnati. Authorities said she left her 2-year-old daughter, Cecilia, strapped into a car seat for about eight hours on Aug. 23 while she was at work at the school.
Temperatures outside reached about 100 degrees.
No. It smells like pork when it’s burned.
The Q is considering you.
Texas - Codes 22.10
Leaving a Child in a Vehicle
(a) A person commits an offense if he intentionally or knowingly leaves a child in a motor vehicle for longer than five minutes, knowing that the child is:
(1) younger than seven years of age; and
(2) not attended by and individual in the vehicle who is 14 years of age or older.
(b) An offense under this section is a Class C misdemeanor.
** If the child is injured the charge is then child endangerment which is a felony. The penalties are six months to two years in jail and a fine up to $10,000.
kidsandcars.org
There are only 11 other states with legislation like Texas’ in place at this time. Although many other states have action pending, Ohio is not one of them!!!
Another post-birth abortion.
Washington state has something similar. Your example is a specific law for a specific act. In the absence of such a specific law, there are always other laws that could apply.
Basically, prosecutors look at the act as either being “ordinary negligence” like running a stop sign with no other violation and killing someone while doing so or “gross(criminal)negligence” such as running a stop sign at high speed or while intoxicated and killing someone.
If they determine that the act was ordinary negligence there will be no criminal charges. Gross negligence usuall brings criminal charges. One way an ordinary negligent act gets elevated to a gross negligent act is by repeated acts of ordinary negligence such as going out to the car multiple times and moving it without noticing the child in the car.
The community is outraged over this.
You’ve got that right! I live in Clermont County, and I am thoroughly disgusted with the prosecutor. This woman should be charged with something! My observations: (1) She backed her car up to the door of the school and made several trips from her car to the school for the donuts; (2) She had to move her car from the entrance to the school to the parking lot (didn’t she look in her rear-view mirror and see her child??); (3) If she was a typical teacher, didn’t she have a briefcase or some other tote that she had to retrieve from the car, causing her to look around and possibly see her child? (4) Why didn’t the babysitter call (either the mother or the father) and ask where the child was? (5) She had left the child in the car on several other occasions. On one of these, she left the child in the car for 10-15 minutes while watching her other child in a play at her preschool. I’m sorry — I just can’t work up any sympathy for this woman.
Prosecute her and/or sterilize her.
My big question is - if she was parked in the employee lot, why didn’t another administrator or teacher see this baby in the car and DO SOMETHING about it? Was the child hidden in the trunk or did they just not care? You know that someone else had to have noticed at some point during the day.
Three times in my lifetime I have busted the car window of a clueless parent to retrieve their baby out of their car. I wish I had pictures of their faces when they came back out to their car to see me holding their kid standing next to a police officer and the newly modified automobile. You see a kid abandoned in a car - GET INVOLVED!
All I can say is that it appears this was a pattern for this woman.
The person who ‘told’ of the child being left in the car during a play is probably outraged, too. I hope that Tara doesn’t feel guilty for not speaking up at the time, but I imagine that she does.
If only someone else had noticed and done something.
It appears she has at least one other child. All children should be removed from her care, especially if they are under the age of whatever applies to carseat laws in Ohio.
absolutely!
I know you can’t be idiotic enough to be suggesting that there are anywhere near the same amount of cases of a stay-at-home mom or dad leaving their child in a car for hours & it not occurring to them to think “now where is that child I play with and care for all day at?”.
And I think it is also possible to have a good enough child care situation, even if it’s not the mom or dad, where the child won’t be forgotten for 8 hours. Is it too high a standard to expect that someone, after little Johnnie has been missing for several hours, might say “Gee, where’s Johnnie— he’s usually sitting here playing with blocks, but I haven’t seen him for about 2 hours, maybe I ought to find out exactly where he is.” Seriously, is that too high a standard?
If parents cannot provide for a level of care for the child where SOMEONE knows where their toddler is over the course of an entire day, the really ought not reproduce. You don’t HAVE to have kids.
But I understand lots of people feel the need to justify their choices— but don’t even bother attempting to convince me that daycare is as effective a child raising institution as the home. And very, very few people truly have a financial need to do so.
Okay, lets. She definitely deserves punishment.
By the way, Mr. Hyperbole, I never said I was perfect. But I can't fathom ever forgetting my 2 year old was strapped into the car seat and leaving her there the whole day AFTER I put her in the seat and AFTER I stopped to get donuts along the way. If I ever did such a thing, I deserve punishment just as this woman does. It's criminal negligence not just 'an accident'.
You are confused.
Negligence is a cause of accidents. That’s why we call them “car accidents”, for instance, even though somebody might be at fault.
WTH?????? No charges?? This is beyond the pale.
That this woman is not being prosecuted is CRIMINAL. It is criminal neglect if a mother or father leaves a child at one point and returns later and the child is dead. Here we have video proof that she not only returned five times to the car but that she actually MOVED THE CAR on one of those occasions. What did she get when she went back to the car? Did she go out to smoke? Did she get into the car and actually sit the other four times? This was 100 degree heat FOR GOD'S SAKE! I have no sympathy for this woman except to say that so many mothers have been "pardoned" that this lack of prosecution will guarantee more deaths just as it guaranteed this one.
you can’t legislate stupidity or common sense. unfortunately, i agree with this decision. the woman has to live the rest of her life with what she did. that’s worse than any jail time. say what you will, but it was an honest mistake. a horrible one, but an honest one.
I can see that you have never been punished for being stupid. That’s okay because I’ll give you a break, this time.
If she went to jail, the other inmates would probably cause her demise.
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