I am not from your country, could I have a link to the statutes specifically making it ilegal to leave a baby alone in a car?
I don’t know (I know it’s true here in Minnesota), but in the ones where it is, then the crime has been established by the per se act of leaving the baby in the car. I wonder if that’s where this discussion is possibly breaking down. People think I’m arguing for an interpretation of the act as criminal negligence, but I’m saying no interpretation is necessary if there are statutes which explicitly make it illegal.
Yup.
Except what you actually said was “ITS ILLEGAL ITS ILLEGAL ITS ILLEGAL AND THATS THAT”.
Link to statutes please. Its not enough to say “if there are statutes”, lets see them please.
So, you experienced the same type of forgetfulness these parents did, albeit to a lesser extreme, and realized that you *are *fallible and adjusted your behavior accordingly. Just like the parents in the article you refuse to read. Let’s say, the distraction that made you temporarily forget your child was in your car occurred a little differently. Imagine if the distraction was more significant and occurred at the precise point in time that you were supposed to turn off the highway towards the daycare to drop off your child. Imagine that you got all the way to work on auto-pilot, without realizing you’d neglected to make the stop. Your brain tells you that at this point in your routine, you’ve already been to the daycare (you may even remember being there…some other day) and it’s time to go to work and deal with the myriad things on your mind.
Imagine that NOTHING feels out of the ordinary. Until you realize something is. You should be able to, considering you’ve been there. You are so fortunate that your realization came quickly. It doesn’t always.
Now, guess what the fact that you can recognize that you were highly distracted enough to forget your child was in the car, it should be obvious to you that your brain works in exactly the same way as everyone else.
Congratulations, Dio, you finally figured it out.
Are you really unaware that it’s illegal in CA-- I assume from your username that you live here? Here’s a link to an auto club that states:
The question is, how many states do not have such a law? Maybe Alaska?
As of 2007, 12 US states have made the act of leaving your kid in a car unattended a strict-liability offence (in some states you get a traffic ticket, in others, it is a misdemeanor), according to this article:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,291415,00.html
Of course, if a kid dies, that isn’t a strict-liability crime: you need to prove some sort of negligent intent, as far as I’m aware.
This is from 2007, so some more states may have made it illegal:
I think we must assume that it depends on the state.
And here comes more back pedaling and/or goal post moving, right after the “I could NEVER forget, oh yeah, here is where I forgot but thats DIFFERENT and these other parents are still idiots” routine.
Bricker, one thing I’m forgetting from law school–is negligence per se applicable in criminal contexts? Dio mentioned that some states have laws against leaving kids alone in a car–so could negligence per se apply in a manslaughter case?
I found this map of states which have enacted those statutes (click on the state and you’ll get get a link to the statute). I think the map is out of date, though, because it has my state listed as having legislation “pending,” but the law has already been passed here. A woman was arrested in the Twin Cities just a couple of months ago for leaving her kids in the car at the pump while she went inside to pay for gas.
In states that don’t have such statutes, then I guess the ability to prosecute becomes more problematic, but in the states that already specifically, unambiguously make it a crime to leave a baby unattended in a car, then state of mind is irrelevant.
California Vehicle Code Section 15620 - Prohibition Against Unattended Child in Vehicle
Now we’re getting somewhere. We need to know what those laws say, the mental states required, and what crimes can be based upon those laws.
I don’t know criminal law. I know in civil law, violation of a safety statue can be used to support a claim of negligence per se.
A little help, Bricker?
ETA: Thanks for the cite!
How so, dipshit? I’ve been saying all along that leaving a baby in a car is illegal all by itself, regardless of state of mind, and made reference to the statutes all along. I haven’t changed a fucking word. My mistake was in assumimng these statutes were common knowledge. That’s why I kept asking for cites that the statutes made “I forgot” exceptions. I thought we were all on the same page about what statutes we were talking about. It never occurred to me that people didn’t know these laws existed.
The Minnesota law has some wiggle-room language about the conditions being unsafe for a child to be unattended in the car, with now specific guidelines for when that is.
There are, in some states. Or at least, in Florida.
Here is the Florida law:
Here is a link to various state laws (scroll down to the part with links to existing state laws under the heading “legislation”)
From my brief review, the Florida law appears to be the only one currently on the books that creates a “strict liability” felony for death reasulting from leaving a kid in the car - but I’m not an Americal Criminal lawyer.
Texas is one of those states with the unattended child laws, by the way, so the woman in the story that spawned these threads is on the hook for it.
On what planet is *murder *punishable by a $100 fine? Dio says they are murderers, because it’s AGAINST THE LAW to leave children unattended in a motor vehicle. Where’s the rest of the statute that says punishment may include life imprisonment?
I said “killers,” and I didn’t say the punishment was life in prison.
On the hook for what? A $100 fine?