Sentences for allowing UMs to die in hot cars

Sentences for allowing UMs to die in hot cars (Full Version)

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Level -> Sentences for allowing UMs to die in hot cars (7/28/2007 12:05:48 PM)
Sentences vary when kids die in hot cars By ALLEN G. BREED, AP National Writer1 hour, 12 minutes ago Kevin Kelly is a law-abiding citizen who, much distracted, left his beloved 21-month-old daughter in a sweltering van for seven hours. Frances Kelly had probably been dead for more than four hours by the time a neighbor noticed her strapped in her car seat; when rescue personnel removed the girl from the vehicle, her skin was red and blistered, her fine, carrot-colored hair matted with sweat. Two hours later, her body temperature was still nearly 106 degrees. What is the appropriate punishment for a doting parent responsible for his child's death? A judge eventually spared Kelly a lengthy term in prison. Still, it is a question that is asked dozens of times each year. Since the mid-1990s, the number of children who died of heat exhaustion while trapped inside vehicles has risen dramatically, totaling around 340 in the past 10 years. Ironically, one reason was a change parent-drivers made to protect their kids after juvenile air-bag deaths peaked in 1995 — they put them in the back seat, where they are more easily forgotten. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070728/ap_on_re_us/left_to_die

FullCircle -> RE: Sentences for allowing UMs to die in hot cars (7/28/2007 12:25:14 PM)
I would think it irresponsible to leave a child alone in a car no matter what the weather was like outside. I don’t know what the punishment should be but reports of such neglect usually result in the child being taken into care.

Level -> RE: Sentences for allowing UMs to die in hot cars (7/28/2007 12:56:53 PM)
FC, it's a terrible and sad story. Some do deserve to lose the kids, some, I just don't know.

windchymes -> RE: Sentences for allowing UMs to die in hot cars (7/28/2007 12:59:57 PM)
What a horrible, horrible story. I'm as "throw the book at them" as the next person, but when I read all the way to the end, where they described his responsibilities and life circumstances that particular day.....I honestly feel terrible for the guy. I feel terrible for the whole situation. But, I think there's no punishment they could give this guy other than the punishment he'll live every day for the rest of his life. I think the judge acted appropriately.

philosophy -> RE: Sentences for allowing UMs to die in hot cars (7/28/2007 1:01:24 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Level Kevin Kelly is a law-abiding citizen who, much distracted, left his beloved 21-month-old daughter in a sweltering van for seven hours........... What is the appropriate punishment for a doting parent responsible for his child's death? (my italics) ...the above behaviour is not the way a doting parent acts. Terrible story, but absolutely appalling journalism.

feastie -> RE: Sentences for allowing UMs to die in hot cars (7/28/2007 1:04:41 PM)
How can any parent forget an UM is in the back seat? The so-called parent should suffer the same fate as did his UM. I have no tolerance.

Shanghaid -> RE: Sentences for allowing UMs to die in hot cars (7/28/2007 3:41:47 PM)
quote: Some do deserve to lose the kids... Level, I hope I'm misinterpreting your meaning here... Perhaps you meant 'lose' as in 'lose custody'?

Owner59 -> RE: Sentences for allowing UMs to die in hot cars (7/28/2007 3:47:34 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Shanghaid quote: Some do deserve to lose the kids... Level, I hope I'm misinterpreting your meaning here... Perhaps you meant 'lose' as in 'lose custody'? I`m sure he did.

Level -> RE: Sentences for allowing UMs to die in hot cars (7/28/2007 3:47:46 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Shanghaid quote: Some do deserve to lose the kids... Level, I hope I'm misinterpreting your meaning here... Perhaps you meant 'lose' as in 'lose custody'? Hi Shanghaid, yes, that's what I meant, as in custody, not their life.

CuriousLord -> RE: Sentences for allowing UMs to die in hot cars (7/28/2007 4:08:51 PM)
If he's an otherwise good parent, and psychologically normal? I'm pretty sure the guilt of killing his own toddler will be a hell enough in and of itself. -- What should be done with such parents? People do forget things- sometimes, even vital things, despite the best of intentions. We are all, afterall, human. Nonetheless, letting off such a parent freely (if you can call it that, considering their likely guilt) might be sending out the wrong sign. You can make an example of them, but that feels too much like killing someone over a small (though costly) mistake. In the end, the only fair solution seems to be to prevent these things from happening. To design systems in which children might be more carefully monitered. Or to accept that children will, once in a while, be forgotten and die as a result.

marieToo -> RE: Sentences for allowing UMs to die in hot cars (7/28/2007 4:17:09 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Level Sentences vary when kids die in hot cars By ALLEN G. BREED, AP National Writer1 hour, 12 minutes ago Kevin Kelly is a law-abiding citizen who, much distracted, left his beloved 21-month-old daughter in a sweltering van for seven hours. Frances Kelly had probably been dead for more than four hours by the time a neighbor noticed her strapped in her car seat; when rescue personnel removed the girl from the vehicle, her skin was red and blistered, her fine, carrot-colored hair matted with sweat. Two hours later, her body temperature was still nearly 106 degrees. What is the appropriate punishment for a doting parent responsible for his child's death? A judge eventually spared Kelly a lengthy term in prison. Still, it is a question that is asked dozens of times each year. Since the mid-1990s, the number of children who died of heat exhaustion while trapped inside vehicles has risen dramatically, totaling around 340 in the past 10 years. Ironically, one reason was a change parent-drivers made to protect their kids after juvenile air-bag deaths peaked in 1995 — they put them in the back seat, where they are more easily forgotten. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070728/ap_on_re_us/left_to_die I can't wrap my head around the idea that someone could forget their baby because it's in the back seat, but maybe there are people that absent-minded or with other mental issues. If I ever did something like that, the judge wouldn't have to spare me shit, cuz I'd shoot myself to death first.

Aswad -> RE: Sentences for allowing UMs to die in hot cars (7/28/2007 6:25:34 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: CuriousLord In the end, the only fair solution seems to be to prevent these things from happening. To design systems in which children might be more carefully monitered. Or to accept that children will, once in a while, be forgotten and die as a result. Obviously. But that would be the reasonable approach, which doesn't make for a flammable topic.

popeye1250 -> RE: Sentences for allowing UMs to die in hot cars (7/28/2007 7:10:31 PM)
Strap them down to a table in a windowless room. The door opens and in Walks Hillary Clinton and she sits on their face and smothers them to death. What a horrid way to die!

sublimelysensual -> RE: Sentences for allowing UMs to die in hot cars (7/28/2007 7:22:25 PM)
I'm of mixed emotions on this one. A part of me feels sympathy for what someone who does this is going to carry with them for the rest of their lives. The other part of me says, okay, so it was unintentional...you know what they say the road to hell is paved with. I would be hard pressed to come up any reasonable explanation for forgetting about a child in your care for 15 minutes, much less hours. I've worked with large groups of kids before (think 20-30, not 12), and it only takes about 15 seconds to do a head count. I don't even leave my daughter alone in the car when I go into a store to pay for gas. Even with the guilt he's going to have to live with, I think he should have gotten more jail time than what he did. Not saying years, but maybe two weeks a year instead of a day, in addition to the other things. Bleh, very conflicted on this one, I just don't know... -a

popeye1250 -> RE: Sentences for allowing UMs to die in hot cars (7/28/2007 7:39:35 PM)
Sublimely, I thought of that too. I mean it must be awful to have to carry something like that with you for the rest of your life. That alone would be punishment enough. I can't understand how someone could "forget" a child either.

dawntreader -> RE: Sentences for allowing UMs to die in hot cars (7/28/2007 8:05:21 PM)
This is a horrific thing for sure but it can happen with a loving parent. We had such a thing happen in my town of Mooresville to a young veternarian and his wife. The wife always took the infant to daycare and picked the child up. But one morning, the husband had to take the child and because it was not routine, he drove to work and forgot the baby in the car. Around 2-3 the wife went to daycare to pick the infant up, only to find the baby never arrived. She called her husband at work. Needless to say, by the time he got to his car...the baby was dead. The wife was there moments later along with ambulances and police. It is said by the papers that the father grabbed one of the police officers guns from his belt and tried to kill himself right there. He was unsuccessful and was taken immediately to the hospital under suicide watch. Such a tragedy :-( No charges were filed~

nyrisa -> RE: Sentences for allowing UMs to die in hot cars (7/28/2007 8:08:47 PM)
Living in Florida, where it routinely gets hot enough to cause a case of canned cokes to explode in your car on a summer day, the cases of kids dying in hot cars is not very rare. Some cases are clearly due to bad parents (child left in car while parent is in bar or strip club, not forgotten, just left in lieu of babysitting); some are due to possibly good parents just having brain farts (child left in car during a "quick run" into the grocery store, because parent does not want to either awaken a sleeping child, or try to juggle a toddler with the groceries); some are due to probably good parents facing unusual circumstances. In the latter case, it is usually the father, having to take the child to daycare when normally mom does..........he gets on the familiar road to work, child goes to sleep in the carseat in back, dad's mind is on the workday ahead, he drives to work on mental autopilot as per his usual day, parks the car, goes into work, and does not realize he has forgotten anything until mom calls to ask how the baby did at daycare, or until he gets back to his car at the end of the day. I am not sure I have heard of a case of a mother forgetting the child in this instance, it is by vast majority the dads, while the "bad parent" category seems to be equally divided between mothers and fathers. I cannot begin to imagine the horror and guilt that both parents face. In a situation like this, both parents blame themselves. Logically, it is a "slip of the mind", not intended at all, just the brain on autopilot, but the magnitude of the consequences elevate this to a level beyond what I can even comprehend. I think a close examination of the parent's past track record, and the circumstances surrounding the death would have to be done to see if criminal charges and jail time are the best way of handling the matter. Other children in the home have to be considered; the remaining kids are not well served by being taken away from home and put into the foster care system. I think major, major therapy would be needed by the parents. I am not sure I could go on living, if I had done something like this. Although it is natural that we, as the general public, should be horrified when we read about these events, and that we should want to see punishment served for the child's death, we also need to look at this in relation to other parenting accidents/carelessness. For instance, when was the last time anyone served a jail term when their two year old was found floating dead in their pool? How often does anyone go to jail for not having children buckled in car seats or seat belts when a car accident happens? How often does a mother go to jail because she takes "the man of the month" into the house with her kids? All the circumstances need to be looked at which led to the harm, before we cry for vengeance.

SusanofO -> RE: Sentences for allowing UMs to die in hot cars (7/28/2007 9:37:14 PM)
Every time I read one of these stories about a parent forgetting their child in a hot car where the child dies (or even where a pet dies) - I almost get sick to my stomach. I realize there is such a thing as an honest mistake, but it is just such a terrible thing to have happen. I can only imagine what that child went through before dying - it's almost too horrible to contemplate. - Susan

Lordandmaster -> RE: Sentences for allowing UMs to die in hot cars (7/28/2007 11:04:15 PM)
That's exactly how I feel too. I literally get queasy. quote: ORIGINAL: SusanofO Every time I read one of these stories about a parent forgetting their child in a hot car where the child dies (or even where a pet dies) - I almost get sick to my stomach. I realize there is such a thing as an honest mistake, but it is just such a terrible thing to have happen. I can only imagine what that child went through before dying - it's almost too horrible to contemplate.

velvetears -> RE: Sentences for allowing UMs to die in hot cars (7/29/2007 6:20:08 AM)
We all make mistakes, most of which don't lead to such drastic consequences. i can't even fathom the guilt and grief these parents already feel. Will life ever be the same for them? i doubt it. They don't need jail, there is no justice in that, what they need is forgiveness (for themselves) and compassion.

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