Well, geez. When I was a kid (which wasn’t all that bloody long ago, thank you very much), my father picked up a couple of large old inner-tubes, took me to the area he grew up in, and we “tubed” down the local river.
I don’t remember any lifejackets being involved. I also doubt old truck-tire inner tubes are approved by the Consumer Products Safety Commission for the purpose of floating down waterways, either.
What’s next? A father gave his kid aspirin while it had the flu, so we’re gonna give him the death penalty for not reading the warning label about Reye’s Syndrome?
The poor guy has already had more than enough punishment.
These persecutions by local government sleazeballs to “raise awareness in the community” are at the very least immoral. I would strongly support preemptive euthanasia of politicians who engage in such verminous behavior.
I would tend to agree that the parent has suffered enough and any punishment the state would inflict on him would merely be transferred to his other children. However, I understand the feeling of wanting revenge. It is a powerful urge and the fact that we do not act upon it (in most cases) is a testament to our development.
and a minor hijack:
…You wouldn’t even wait an hour?
I read Jingo last night!
Wring, you make an excellent point which does make me think however I would say that there is no particular social value in prosecuting were it the friend who died. There may be particullarly egrarious circumstances that would change my mind but in general I think the full weight of criminal law is a poor instrument to encourage appropriate parental judgement.
I do agree in part on the car accident, if my driving is grossly negligent and would be considered criminal if an adult died I see no particular reason why the victim being my child would change the dynamic. On the other hand if its just an accident and a child dies due to not wearing a seatbelt I have considerably more difficulty raising that negligence to a criminal level. The fact that I should have done something that would have prevented the death had I thought about it does not automatically raise my conduct to the level of negligence required to support a manslaughter charge.
Depending on the condition of his sensory neurons and the dexterity with which he brings them into play, he may or may not also feel badly, but without further information we can’t make and support the statement that you made.
If Mom, through negligence causes the death of her child, she shouldn’t be prosecuted for ‘she’s been punished enough’, but if the neighbor, by the same act caused the same death should be prosecuted 'cause he hasn’t been? Same act. Same lack of intentional wrong. Only difference is in the case of the one you don’t want to prosecute, there is an arguably higher assumption of responsability (I am in all ways more responsable for the safety of my child than my neighbor). why then even have a charge of negligent homicide?
While other factors such as remorse, and prior relationship may get you points in the punishment phase, I don’t know of any rationale that would allow for the closeness of the relationship to avoid criminal responsability.
(aside to AHunter3 would you buy that I was speaking in the colloquial? yep, that’s the ticket)
Wring, keep in mind that these sorts of cases are not inevitably criminal. This kind of liability is a recent expansion of the use of criminal law to deal with what would previously have been seen as tragedies.
A mother making a decent, though not great income, goes out to buy a car. In order to save some money (she could have afforded it, but decided to use the money to buy the kid the saxaphone he really wants), she buys a car without a passenger-side air bag. Later she gets hit by another car. Her child, in the passenger seat, dies. Child abuse? Involuntary manslaughter? If not, why not?
Father has an older car, and is driving his daughter home on a rainy day. The car starts to skid and, instead of pumping the brakes (as everyone knows or should know to do), the father slams them down. The car slides into a ditch and the daughter dies. Child abuse? Involuntary manslaughter? If not, why not?
Every year, hundreds of kids die or suffer paralysis playing high school football. Despite this fact, mom and dad let their son play. The kid suffers a broken neck and dies. Child abuse? Manslaughter? If not, why not?
Every year, thousands of kids die in drunk driving accidents. A teenage daughter drinks, but has been successful in hiding that fact from her parents. One Friday night, she drives drunk and dies. Are her parents criminally liable for giving her the keys when they know that she could drink and drive? If not, why not?
Almost every accident in the world could have been prevented at some point. Somewhere along the line, a parent could have, and probably should have, stepped in and stopped the sequence of events that led to the death. That does not mean that the parent has committed a crime.
Perhaps. Ned I do recognize that these days we do seem to wish to officially place blame when in the past we’d have written it off as a terrible accident. But, as I point out later here, there’s limits.
Ok, previewed and saw Sua’s post. Yes, many accidents can be prevented, and all life has risks. But I’d rather ask where you’d draw the line for “well, shit happens”- would it be where the parent keeps a loaded handgun in her purse and her 11 year old nephew shoots and kills his cousin (just happened by the way). why or why not?
But, to be fair, let me attempt to answer yours:
A mother opting for no air bag car. Her child, in the passenger seat, dies. No on both. One is required to use a certain level of care in all things, right? (can’t remember the legal term). There is no negligence to not having an airbag. Not using the seat belt would be different IMHO since A. there’s laws about it, and B. studies IIRC show that in most circumstances a seat belt will save your life. With airbags, frankly, theres’ concern that it may actually cause harm to short people like children (and me).
Father skidding. Depends on other circumstances AFAIK, a police officer, for instance, is allowed to opt out of writing a ticket if they feel that the weather was the precipating factor vs. drivers error (I got that idea when a cop told the kid who totaled my car in an ice storm that he chose to write the ticket 'cause of the amount of damage). If dad was impaired yes. Otherwise, no, since the proximate cause of the accident is the weather conditions, since even if you pump, you can still skid, right?
Football? nope-EXCEPT in certain cases. issue is general risk vs. certain risk. generally, the injuries kids get from football are not life threatening. If your child has hemopheilia, tho’ I would suggest that yes, criminal charges would be warrented if they were allowed to play.
Again, no -unless parents had knowledge of specific risk.
Ok, glad you did this, cause I’m seeing why/where the issue is to me. Yes, accidents happen. Yes, you can prevent most of them if you wrap yourself in cotton and don’t leave the house (except for those damned earthquakes)
But, I believe that when you embark on a course of action (especially when your child is concerned) you have an obligation to make certain that reasonable care is taken to insure safety. So, reasonable care in the case of the river rafting episode would include taking a boat that is suitable for the purpose (an innertube, for example shouldn’t be used), that if the child involved is not a strong swimmer, that child should be in life jackets before you enter the boat, even on a quiet lake. If the water itself is an issue (such as for river rafting), lifejackets should be on before you get into the boat.
Examples of unreasonable care would include : having a loaded gun near children, having your child drive before they’re legally allowed, not having the epi pen with you and your child tho’ you know they are acutely allergic to say bee stings, and you’re heading to the park. See the trend? reasonable steps to provide for safety.
Probably it is a criminal act, as this gets into the point you make later, general risk v. certain risk
OK, the issue for you is general risk v. certain risk. Fair enough; it’s a good and reasonable dividing line. So, is getting into a boat a “certain risk”? I don’t see how that could be so. Just like in high school football, hundreds of people die each year in boating accidents, but they are a tiny percentage of the amount of people who get on boats. Further, of the millions who survive their near-boat experiences, I would assume (nope, no cite ;)) that the overwhelming majority did not survive because they were wearing their lifejackets.
Take my life - my family has always been heavily into watersports. Most every vacation I went on between the ages of 5 and 17 involved canoeing at some point, and usually fishing, waterskiing, etc. We almost always rented these from somebody, and I don’t think my father ever asked about the boat’s seaworthiness, rating, etc. When we were young, we always wore life jackets, but by our teens, we were all strong swimmers and we usually didn’t.
Canoes and small sailboats, in particular, are pretty easy to tip over, and we often deliberately swamped them (not when my dad was in the boat, of course, though he was usually around.)
Is my dad a felon?
Right now, my parents own a place on the Jersey Shore with a dock and some boats. My brother has 10-y.o. and 6-y.o. sons. Whenever they get in a boat, they must wear lifejackets. However, if they are just standing or sitting on the dock, they don’t have to. There is a real, if small, risk that they will fall into the bay, and there is a pretty strong current there at the tides. Is my brother a felon?
Getting back to this incident.
The article doesn’t mention who owned the boat. If the father rented it, is it reasonable for him to know the boat’s rating?
Even if it was reasonable to know the boat’s rating for whitewater rafting, is it reasonable for the father to insist on a whitewater-worthy raft when he was going fishing, not whitewater rafting?
On the lifejacket issue - the article doesn’t say whether there were life jackets present that hadn’t been put on yet. Assuming there were, is it reasonable to assume that the raft will float away while the father was still loading it up?
If, as I believe likely, 99.999% of the time a life jacket does not come into play when people are first getting into a boat, does that .001% of the time constitute a “certain risk”, or is it a “general risk”? To my mind, it is a general risk.
I agree that there may be limits but I suggest that such limits would not be much different from our general obligations to others in society. When increasing the scope of criminal law in this area it is entirely appropriate to ask what we are trying to accomplish. I don’t think charging this man with manslaughter would save one single life. Sure, apply a criminal sanction to not using life jackets or seat belts, that will save lives. To decide that a failure to do what is mandated by law suddenly rises to the level of manslaughter is another issue altogether.
In my own family my 11 year old Aunt shot and killed her younger brother. It was a tragedy but they all got passed it. In this day and age it would have destroyed the whole family. I don’t see this as progress.
When I was thirteen, my best friend drowned while swimming in a creek with his father and brothers. The place where this happened was a locally well known “swimming hole” and had been used as such for generations. It was considered to be a safe place to swim, yet my friend stepped into a hole that no one knew existed and became entangled in a sunken
tree that no one knew was there.
I doubt that anyone, anywhere, in that day and age would have even considered charging the boy’s father with a crime.
In the present case, the situation is tragic, but I cannot see where it was anything more than an accident. No criminal charges should be brought against anyone.
Compare and contrast these two incidents.
A month ago, in Colorado, a woman tossed her newborn baby under a dumpster. When the kid was found, they tracked down the mother. The vast majority of people I knew (limited sample set, admitted) and the water-cooler discussion I heard were calling for this mother’s head. Jail time, attempted murder, etc (except some fringies who called talk-radio and were discussing the “poor woman’s brave choice” :rolleyes: ) Anyway, Colorado, in it’s infinite wisdom is working to reunite the attempted murderess with her victim. Any charges the woman faces will be relatively minor. She served zero jail time.
Compare this to a man who does something STUPI*D. It’s clearly negligence to put the kids in a boat without lifejackets, even if it was “only for a second”. (Note that the kids were in the boat which was allegedly docked. The dad went to the car to get the last load of supplies and the boat drifted off with the kids.) No argument that it’s negligence. But what’s weird is that most people I know (again, limited sample set) think that his punishment should be mitigated or dismissed due to the fact that it was an accident and the father further mitigated some of the negligence by saving one boy and breaking a leg trying to save the other. He’s currently in jail.
Knowing only what I wrote above, I’d be reversing it. The mother premeditiatedly put her newborn in great physical danger, for the sole purpose of getting rid of it. I’d fry the bitch if I could (the fact that the baby was lucky and lived is a factor, but since it was through no auspices of the mother, not much of one). The Dad, on the other hand, made one instance of bad judgement which he immedeatly tried to correct. There certainly needs to be some reprecussion from the State (when stupid acts kill people, I want the State involved), but it wouldn’t necessarily be jail time.
The three aspects of punishment from the state are:
Rehabilitation
Socity Protecting itself from you
Justice/Punishment/Vengance (pick whichever term you’re comfortable with)
There’s nothing to rehabilitate with the Dad. After the “life lesson” :rolleyes: he’s had, an adult education class on the use of safety gear would be irrelevant.
Protecting society? From what? He’s certainly no threat to society.
Justice/Punishment/Vengance: I don’t see a need a strong use of it. Someone died because the Dad something stupid. Ok. Some punishment must be extracted for the reasons wring cited (to make other parents think about the consequences of doing the same stupid thing) but I still say that punishment is mitigated by the dad saving one kid and breaking a leg in the attempt to save the other and that the level of stupidity wasn’t that high.
<sigh>
The Throw-the-Baby-in-the-Trash Woman, this, the Rebirthing Killing. Honest, folks. Colorado isn’t normally this weird.
Well since I started all this I should weigh in with my opinion. My humble opinion as a person who has very limited legal knowledge, I feel that he should be charged with involuntary manslaughter but plea bargained down to a lesser charge with no time served and lots of community service. That to me would be justice served.
One thing to consider, a friend mentioned to me the similarities between this situation and when a parent leaves a baby in a hot car while they run an errand. There is no harm intended by the parent, the action is exceedingly stupid, and the action results in the death of the child. The parent is usually charged with child abuse in that situation, right?
As an active member of the Colorado whitewater paddling community I have some insight about the incident I would like to share that might clarify what happened. The stretch of river that the accident took place on, Waterton Canyon, is rated Class 3. The definition of Class 3 whitewater from americanwhitewater.org:
So here are some observations on situation that may clarify it a bit, I have kayaked that reach several times. 1. If the child had been wearing a lifejacket it’s almost guaranteed that he would not have drowned. 2. I did remember reading in a previous newspaper article that they purchased the raft at K-mart, Kmart has never and will never sell a raft suitable for whitewater. 3. Given the complexity of the rapids downstream it is almost guaranteed that the raft would have flipped even if the father was in control. 4. The water was at a very low level with lots of rocks exposed, so the rapids were very technical with lots of precise maneuvering required. 5. Given the air tempurature , and the very cold water. If they were there to raft, at the very least they should have been wearing wetsuits to avoid hypothermia. 6. There is no sign warning of dangerous rapids downstream. The river is flat and mellow for the first few turns below where they were parked, out of sight the river changes dramatically.
thanks kuwatto for the specifics about the rafting etc. That’s what I was thinking - if it was a case of a rowboat and a lake, that’s be different to me. This sounded to me like a guy hearing about ‘white water rafting’ thinks gee, this’d be cool, does zero checking on what is needed, and hops to it.( I mean hell, didn’t he see that Meryl Streep movie * River Wild*?? ) So, Sua while a boat outing might be a generalized risk, a river rafting episode in white water would bring it (to me) into specific risk category. Canoe on a slow moving river? not a problem, general risk, Canoe across the Atlantic? specific risk. Canoe with a parapeligic child? specific risk.
Sua all of the examples from your childhood come under the guise (to me) of ‘general risk’. White water rafting isn’t, at all.
I saw it the same as if some one decided to go rock climbing and used their clothesline, and bungee cords from the basement.
(aside to Fenris - as I recall, I was in favor of prosecuting the dumpster baby mom - again, a specific risk, and, well, Colorado??? ya thinking of moving yet?).
