Opinion: Responding to Record child death from hyperthermia

Children are dying all over the United States from hyperthermia as a result of being left in a hot car.  Interestingly, many of these parents are completely unaware that their child is even in the vehicle.  In some cases prosecutors are bringing charges against the parents in an attempt to make things right.  But is this the right response to an accident?  Should parents be criminally liable for mistakes they are grieving over?

WASHINGTON, DC (Catholic Online) - The United States is experiencing an unprecedented number of child deaths as a result of hyperthermia.  Nineteen children have died this year as a result of being locked in cars, according to the Associated Press.  With much of the country experiencing 90 degree and above weather, the heat within a locked car with the windows rolled up can exceed 140 degrees and poses extreme risks for children.

What is particularly interesting is that many of the deaths are not caused by parents who are aware that their child is in the vehicle.  In the past, stories surface of parents who run into a store expecting to only take a few minutes, only to come back and find their child on the brink of death--and sometimes already dead.  Recently, the specifics of some cases have been astounding.  Reports detail how parents leave their cars unlocked in the driveway where the children get in, lock themselves inside the vehicle and cannot get out.  Others put the child in a car seat behind the driver and forget to drop them off at the babysitter or daycare, but instead go about their errands with the child sweltering in the back seat.  The more cases I read, the more disturbed I became. 

My initial reaction to these deaths, before I realized that most of them were accidents, was outrage.  I thought that any parent who leaves their child in the car while they shop on a hot day should be put in prison (and I still feel that way).  But what do you do when a child dies on a parent's watch, without the parent engaging in willful or intentional negligence? 

In Portageville, MO a 41-year-old grandmother fell asleep inside her home while her twin granddaughters slipped into her car, which had a problem with the door locks.  The girls were locked inside the car and died.  The vehicle was 140 degrees when their bodies were found.  Sadly, this is not the first time the grandmother neglected to notice her granddaughters were missing.  Two weeks prior, the police called a locksmith to let the girls out of the same car after relatives noticed the girls were in danger.

According the Associated Press, police officers that arrived on the scene described the family as hysterical over the deaths of these two children.  "It was tough to see," Police Chief Ronnie Adams said. "We had a mess on our hands."  Adams expressed that it will be up to the prosecutor to press charges against the grandmother. 

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In a separate case, Arizona police claim the Maricopa County Attorney's Office is filing charges of negligence against a father who was unaware that his 21-month-old daughter was still in the family van after he, his wife, and his other 5 children came home from church.  A little over 2 hours passed before he went out to his van to run an errand.  He then found his daughter struggling for life.  She died in the hospital a couple hours later.

"At some point, as horrible as this is for that family, and certainly for our community, at some point someone has to speak for that child.  I have been told we are going to file charges.in this absolutely horrible tragedy," said Sergeant James Holmes of the Phoenix Police Department. 

If the Phoenix police continue with filing a charge against this man, they will do nothing but posture themselves as if they are capable of paying restitution for the child, when, in fact, there is nothing you can do to make this situation better.

One question at hand here is: should parents who unintentionally harm their child be held criminally liable after suffering so dearly?  Haven't they suffered enough?  Since criminal charges do not restore society, especially considering the father and grandmother of the aforementioned children pose no violent threat, this family should be left in tact--as best as they can.  What does society gain from filing charges against hysterically saddened family? 

These people had no mens rea (Latin for "guilty mind").  Mens rea is a standard in American criminal law that is being largely discarded in many criminal cases.  This father and grandmother had no intent in acting criminally and are going to be dragged through lengthy and stressful court battle in the midst of dealing with the loss of their child(ren)--an experience I'm not going to even pretend to understand.  Pressing charges makes perfect sense in situations where the parents are abusive or abandon a child, because intentional acts are what the criminal code is designed for-not accidents for which these parents and grandparents will pay for the rest of their lives.  Is making them criminally liable going to bring back their children or restore their families?  No.  Are they both guilty of negligence?  Yes.  So what do we do with them? 

Our society has the impulsive reaction of thinking that if you want to make a situation better, then you should send someone to jail or sue them into oblivion.  But the justice system should not be so one-dimensional and should see the difference between a criminal act and a mistake.  I say, that when parents neglect their children, you leave them to grieve or move to have their children taken away (at least temporarily). 

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The grandmother who lost her twin granddaughters clearly has a systemic problem with neglect, while the father whose daughter remained in the minivan had a temporary lapse in memory.  These are different cases, in which the mother of the twins should find a different caregiver if she is unable to care for the children herself, and the father should be left alone with his family and friends to grieve, unless evidence arises that he is incapable of caring for his children-which does not appear to be the case.

The next challenging question is, how do you prevent these types of accidents from happening in the first place?  After all negligence like this happens for one of three reasons: apathy, irresponsible action, or ignorance.  Given the high level of grief experienced by all involved in these two cases, apathy is not likely a factor.  Since neither responsible party "did" anything to hurt the children--rather it was inaction--irresponsible action is not the culprit either.  We are left with ignorance.  Because the parents and grandparents were unaware of where their children and grandchildren were, they died.  It's a sad reality, but its reality.  New technologies and habits have been developed and promoted to help curb this terrible trend.  Groups such as Kids and Cars and Safe Kids USA help parents not become victims alongside their children and inform the public so ignorance can be undercut as a lead factor in these types of cases. 

Just as important as knowing the safest way to deal with our children in vehicles and extreme heat, we need to rethink the way we deal with the parents who loose their children in these terrible accidents.  For the same reason we would not feel comfortable throwing the parents of a drowning victim in prison or the parents of a hit-and-run victim, we need to think about why we react the way we do to accidents and negligence.  When parents are forced to live without their child because of their own actions, we should be sympathetic to their grief and not add to their family's pain by imposing the threat of criminal persecution.  May God bless the families of children who died from hyperthermia this year.

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Billy Atwell contributes to Catholic Online and BreakPoint, and is a blogger for The Point. From the perspective of a two-time cancer survivor he encourages those afflicted with pain and struggling with faith. You can find all of his writings at For the Greater Glory

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