# Goddammit, we got another dead kid cooked to death in a car **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 4, 2002, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/goddammit-we-got-another-dead-kid-cooked-to-death-in-a-car/130822 "2002-10-04T12:47:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d26b3c/32.png) [@Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Blue_Sky)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2002, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/goddammit-we-got-another-dead-kid-cooked-to-death-in-a-car/130822/21 "2002-10-06T00:07:19Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Martiju \* > \*\* > > And that makes you a better person does it??!! _sigh_ > > :rolleyes: \*\* No, but it would serve as a warning to others who would put children in danger. I have zero sympathy for these “people”. Just because you CAN have children, doesn’t mean you should. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2002, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/goddammit-we-got-another-dead-kid-cooked-to-death-in-a-car/130822/22 "2002-10-06T01:54:16Z")
> [@](#): > > No, but it would serve as a warning to others who would put children in danger. I have zero sympathy for these “people”. > > Just because you CAN have children, doesn’t mean you should. Well, duh. But until we establish a federal Permission to Have Children Board, we’re stuck in the real world where ditzbrains have children. And occasionally something like this happens. I don’t see that the problem is that they’re insufficiently warned, so much as that for some people there seems to be no ‘sufficient’ warning. I doubt that barbaric punishments would change that, especially since if we demanded them for one crime, we’d demand them for a whole range of crimes. (Thank goodness for the Eighth Amendment.) And in terms of warning value, we’d be back to square one, only we’d come a long way to resembling Afghanistan under Taliban rule. This deserves significantly more than a token prison sentence, but it’s not the same thing as pointing a gun at someone and pulling the trigger. IMHO, 10-20 years would do, depending on circumstances, as the appropriate penalty for ‘stupidity/carelessness with lethal consequences’. ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2002, 7:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/goddammit-we-got-another-dead-kid-cooked-to-death-in-a-car/130822/23 "2002-10-06T07:55:15Z")
I’m scratching my head on this one. Why the hell did she leave a good paying job to go to a strange city? Why the fuck didn’t she leave the kid with her parents while she got herself situated in said new city??? ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2002, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/goddammit-we-got-another-dead-kid-cooked-to-death-in-a-car/130822/24 "2002-10-06T11:06:03Z")
Cause she’s a dumbass. $15.00 an hour is more than I make and I’m sure not poor. Then again, I don’t have a disabled kid to feed, but still. ---
**Author:** ![Neidhart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Neidhart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neidhart)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2002, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/goddammit-we-got-another-dead-kid-cooked-to-death-in-a-car/130822/25 "2002-10-06T13:28:17Z")
originally posted by **Macro Man** > [@](#): > > the carrier is turned backwards where you can’t see the infant, Put the car-seat in facing forwards so you can see if the baby’s in it? ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2002, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/goddammit-we-got-another-dead-kid-cooked-to-death-in-a-car/130822/26 "2002-10-06T13:43:38Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by RTFirefly \* > \*\*This deserves significantly more than a token prison sentence, but it’s not the same thing as pointing a gun at someone and pulling the trigger. IMHO, 10-20 years would do, depending on circumstances, as the appropriate penalty for ‘stupidity/carelessness with lethal consequences’. \*\* Christ, RT! What do you consider a ‘serious’ sentence? The crime of ‘stupidity/carelessness with lethal consequences’ could be anyone who misses a stop sign and kills another driver, Bob Barr’s aide with a gun at a reception, or what-have-you. I agree that this woman made a horrible mistake, but do you actually think giving her 10-20 years is going to do one damn thing to affect it happening again somewhere else? And I _never_ leave Baby Kate in the car. If I have to go in she goes in with me. I’m the paranoid sort. ---
**Author:** ![TeaElle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8491ac/32.png) [@TeaElle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TeaElle)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2002, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/goddammit-we-got-another-dead-kid-cooked-to-death-in-a-car/130822/27 "2002-10-06T13:56:09Z")
This was not a horrible “mistake.” Mistake implies doing something wrong accidentally. She did something wrong _intentionally_. She didn’t intend for the child to die, but she did intend for her to spend a full day alone in a car, which is dangerous regardless of the temperature. The child was small. She was mentally retarded. She had a bad heart. She could have gotten terribly scared. She could’ve gotten sick from the heat even without dying. She could’ve been taken out of the car. She could’ve gotten herself into the driver’s seat and put the car into gear allowing it to end up in way of traffic. She could’ve figured out a way to get herself out of the car, wandered off and then what? The mother didn’t intend for any of that to happen; she didn’t intend for the child to die. But she didn’t do anything to stop any of that from happening, either. She could’ve made any of a dozen other choices. She chose the option which put her child directly in harm’s way. For this, she deserves to pay the strongest of penalties. I don’t care how sorry she feels, how much she claims to have loved her child, how heartbroken she says she is. She wholly failed in her responsibility to that little girl, and there ought to be grave repercussions for that, because it absolutely did not have to happen. She valued a meaningless temp job over her child’s life. It’s disgusting and unspeakable. ---
**Author:** ![Macro\_Man](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f19dbf/32.png) [@Macro\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Macro_Man)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2002, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/goddammit-we-got-another-dead-kid-cooked-to-death-in-a-car/130822/28 "2002-10-06T14:11:31Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Neidhart \*\*\* > Put the car-seat in facing forwards so you can see if the baby’s in it? \*\* They need to be facing backwards until 8-12 months. ---
**Author:** ![beagledave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6de8d8/32.png) [@beagledave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beagledave)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2002, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/goddammit-we-got-another-dead-kid-cooked-to-death-in-a-car/130822/29 "2002-10-06T14:57:48Z")
Local story about another [charming](http://www.qctimes.com/internal.php?t=Search&doc=/2002/10/06/stories/local/1001994.txt) mother. 15 month old boy fell out of a dowtown tenement building while mom was chatting with neighbors in the hallway. > [@](#): > > A custody hearing for Dakota (another son) is scheduled Wednesday in the Scott County Courthouse, across the street from where his brother fell, she said, and will include DHS workers, her estranged husband, David Lawrence, and herself. > **Dakota is the last of her six children still in her possession** , she said. > She said she voluntarily gave up custody of her 15-year-old daughter, and the state previously took custody of her two daughters, ages 9 and 8, and a son, 7. And the reason we don’t norplant this piece of scum is?.. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2002, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/goddammit-we-got-another-dead-kid-cooked-to-death-in-a-car/130822/30 "2002-10-06T23:01:31Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Jonathan Chance \* > I agree that this woman made a horrible mistake, but do you actually think giving her 10-20 years is going to do one damn thing to affect it happening again somewhere else? I’d say that to some extent that’s beside the point, **JC**. If people go around inflicting harm on other people, then they should be punished in a manner proportionate to the seriousness of the crime, whether or not it discourages anyone. I think 10 years is perfectly reasonable for this woman who _felt_ boxed into leaving her kid in the car in order to hold down a job, despite her having other alternatives. The lady who left her kid in the car so she could go to the hairdresser, I have no problem locking up for 20. > [@](#): > > The crime of ‘stupidity/carelessness with lethal consequences’ could be anyone who misses a stop sign and kills another driver, Bob Barr’s aide with a gun at a reception, or what-have-you. In America, we’ve decided to take the fact that each of us, in any given year, has a 1-in-7000 chance of getting killed in a traffic accident, and cost it out in a manner that attaches little of that cost to the person responsible for a given death. Call it a subsidy of lethality, but IMHO it helps makes driving artificially cheap compared to mass transit. As far as Bob Barr’s aide is concerned, the NRA types are very big on saying that gun control is about the gun user’s ability to handle his weapon properly. Hopefully they mean it. ---
**Author:** ![Cubsfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Cubsfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cubsfan)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2002, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/goddammit-we-got-another-dead-kid-cooked-to-death-in-a-car/130822/31 "2002-10-07T11:05:04Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by MsRobyn \* > \*\*I keep a spare key in my purse so my car can be locked with the engine running. (Learned that one in Minnesota, so the heat can be kept on during short errands.) Besides, if anyone tries to get in, the fact that they’re slowed down by a locked door calls attention to themselves. > > I know it’s not always the smartest thing to do, and I only do it if necessary, but given the choice between a cramped, overcrowded minimarket and a nice nap in the air conditioned car, I’d prefer to leave the baby in the car. > > Robin \*\* I wouldn’t let a cop see you do this. I really don’t know anyone that does this nowadays. I am hesitant to leave my 3 year old in the car by herself in the driveway if I need to run in the house to grab something. ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2002, 9:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/goddammit-we-got-another-dead-kid-cooked-to-death-in-a-car/130822/32 "2002-10-08T09:10:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by MsRobyn \* > \*\*I keep a spare key in my purse so my car can be locked with the engine running. ( \*\* My mom did this when I was a small tyke. Not too small to climb up and pull on the funny lookin’ lever, which threw the car into reverse and propelled me backwards down the driveway and into a neihbor’s car. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/goddammit-we-got-another-dead-kid-cooked-to-death-in-a-car/130822.md?page=1)