# Should hot car deaths be criminally prosecuted? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 19, 2016, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hot-car-deaths-be-criminally-prosecuted/763348 "2016-08-19T21:55:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2016, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hot-car-deaths-be-criminally-prosecuted/763348/101 "2016-08-20T23:36:12Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > This is still the same bare assertion all over again. Unless you can come up with something more than simply insisting that something is true, it’s not worth taking seriously. This is an opinion forum, in case it hadn’t penetrated. Also…you, yourself, have made a number of bare assertions, so you aren’t even following your own rules. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2016, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hot-car-deaths-be-criminally-prosecuted/763348/102 "2016-08-20T23:58:57Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > This is an opinion forum, in case it hadn’t penetrated. This: > [@](#): > > But when a parent leaves a child in a hot car…that is negligence. There is no other possible explanation. It is a negligent act. Is not a statement of opinion. The first and third sentences are legal conclusions, which you haven’t supported. The second sentence is a claim of fact, similarly unsupported. You’re the one making claims of fact and legal conclusions. It’s your burden to back them up, not mine to disprove them. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2016, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hot-car-deaths-be-criminally-prosecuted/763348/103 "2016-08-21T00:16:07Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > This: > > Is not a statement of opinion. The first and third sentences are legal conclusions, which you haven’t supported. The second sentence is a claim of fact, similarly unsupported. > > You’re the one making claims of fact and legal conclusions. It’s your burden to back them up, not mine to disprove them. Sounds like opinion to me, which the OP solicited. Just because it’s firmly stated doesn’t make it not an opinion. (“The 1994 49ers were the best football team in history, period, end of discussion.”) ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2016, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hot-car-deaths-be-criminally-prosecuted/763348/104 "2016-08-21T00:41:01Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > Sounds like opinion to me, which the OP solicited. Just because it’s firmly stated doesn’t make it not an opinion. (“The 1994 49ers were the best football team in history, period, end of discussion.”) X is negligence is not an opinion. It’s a legal conclusion. “The 1994 49ers were the best football team in history” is an opinion and is equivalent to “People who leave children in their cars should be punished.” “The 1994 49ers lost the Super Bowl” is a claim of fact and is equivalent to “There is no other possible explanation.” (Both clearly false statements of fact) “Losing the Super Bowl is murder” is a legal conclusion and is equivalent to “Leaving a child in a car is a negligent act.” Whoever is making this claim bears the burden of citing to some authority for a legal definition (murder, negligence), showing how the evidence supports each element of the definition, and making a logical, defensible argument for each step and for the conclusion. Now, it is possible to use “negligent” and “negligence” in a casual manner that isn’t directly related to the law, but that’s clearly not the usage relevant to this thread, because this entire thread is about legal prosecutions, crimes, and legal punishments. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2016, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hot-car-deaths-be-criminally-prosecuted/763348/105 "2016-08-21T00:42:37Z")
“Legal conclusion?” What the hell does that even mean? ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2016, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hot-car-deaths-be-criminally-prosecuted/763348/106 "2016-08-21T00:44:16Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > . . . Is not a statement of opinion. The first and third sentences are legal conclusions . . . They’re opinions regarding legal conclusions. That’s pretty obvious. Do I look like a judge? Come to think of it, maybe I am. “Objection overruled.” That was easy. **Pantastic** : Good points re swimming pools and guns. Also, of course, there are degrees of negligence. If someone locked their guns in a gun-safe, but their kid managed to bend a hair-pin into a lockpick and opened the safe…and then a tragedy happened…nobody’s going to push for a negligence charge. The owner did his due-diligence. But with leaving a kid in the back of a car…there isn’t any such diligence to be seen. They made a stupid, careless mistake, without making even the minimum effort to assure safety. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2016, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hot-car-deaths-be-criminally-prosecuted/763348/107 "2016-08-21T01:07:05Z")
With most (but not all) parents, what lesson would jail time teach them that their child’s death didn’t? ---
**Author:** ![SpoilerVirgin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@SpoilerVirgin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpoilerVirgin)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2016, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hot-car-deaths-be-criminally-prosecuted/763348/108 "2016-08-21T01:23:41Z")
> [@Pantastic](#): > > Just looking at this thread, maybe the people who say ‘oh, well, life is hectic, maybe I leave my kid strapped in the car and he dies, why does it bother you?’ would pay more attention if they had criminal charges to worry about in addition. No, they wouldn’t (although you’ve certainly mischaracterized their arguments). In the types of cases we are discussing here, and the ones discussed in _Fatal Distraction_, criminal charges would make absolutely no difference whatsoever in their behavior. We are talking here about people who truly did not know that the child was in their car – many of them truly believed that the child was at daycare, and even went to daycare at the end of the day to pick their child up, _while the child was already dead in the car_. This is a consequence of the way the human brain works, and would not change if a punishment such as criminal charges, which is far, far less terrible than the loss of a beloved child, were imposed. Are you truly suggesting that the death of your child is a consequence of less importance than criminal punishment? ---
**Author:** ![GusNSpot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gusnspot/32/436_2.png) [@GusNSpot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GusNSpot)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2016, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hot-car-deaths-be-criminally-prosecuted/763348/109 "2016-08-21T01:32:17Z")
I am known for being very hard to follow and not much good in this kind of thread but when I can understand what **Acsenray** is saying it is my opinion that claiming to not understand is deliberately trying to not have to back up opinions with facts. It is an opinion thread but if I start claiming facts, no matter the thread, I need to be able to back it up. I am not seeing anyone claim that all/some/most/none of the hot car situations should be/not be prosecuted. Some are looking at their own opinion on what is enough punishment etc… If a person wants legal punishment in all cases of hot car, just say so and then go to a place where you can get the law enacted. Talk to your congress critters at the state level or the state attorney general. SDMB ain’t gonna help you. IMO ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2016, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hot-car-deaths-be-criminally-prosecuted/763348/110 "2016-08-21T01:49:54Z")
> [@GusNSpot](#): > > . . . It is an opinion thread but if I start claiming facts, no matter the thread, I need to be able to back it up. . . . Yes…and no. This would allow anyone to silence others’ opinions by demanding a full legal cite, with case numbers, etc. It’s a variation on the “Cite?” game. At times it is legitimate…but at other times, it’s just a rude attempt to stifle expression. > [@](#): > > . . . If a person wants legal punishment in all cases of hot car, just say so and then go to a place where you can get the law enacted. Talk to your congress critters at the state level or the state attorney general. SDMB ain’t gonna help you. IMO FWIW, that isn’t my opinion. In my first post in this thread I recognized how judges can balance strict punishment against leniency. I’m certainly willing to let judges and juries make the decisions. I just have a strong opinion that leaving a child alone in a car is very different from other kinds of accidents. It requires forgetting you have a child in your car, which is quite different from leaving a child unattended by the swimming pool for ten seconds (and ten seconds is sometimes all it takes.) Forgetting the child’s very existence is negligence. Accidentally closing his foot in the car door is an accident, and doesn’t need to be prosecuted. (Investigated, yes!) > [@Velocity](#): > > With most (but not all) parents, what lesson would jail time teach them that their child’s death didn’t? It teaches everyone else the lesson: don’t make the stupid mistake this loser just made. You’d think we didn’t need to be taught the lesson…but since this happens, over and over, every damned year, maybe jail time will pound the lesson home, when public service announcements and billboards aren’t cutting the mustard. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2016, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hot-car-deaths-be-criminally-prosecuted/763348/111 "2016-08-21T01:52:52Z")
I hate it when people forget on purpose. Negligent bastards. Very existence? Is this a Dr Who scenario? ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2016, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hot-car-deaths-be-criminally-prosecuted/763348/112 "2016-08-21T01:54:07Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > They’re opinions regarding legal conclusions. That’s pretty obvious. Do I look like a judge? Come to think of it, maybe I am. “Objection overruled.” That was easy. > > **Pantastic** : Good points re swimming pools and guns. Also, of course, there are degrees of negligence. If someone locked their guns in a gun-safe, but their kid managed to bend a hair-pin into a lockpick and opened the safe…and then a tragedy happened…nobody’s going to push for a negligence charge. The owner did his due-diligence. > > But with leaving a kid in the back of a car…there isn’t any such diligence to be seen. They made a stupid, careless mistake, without making even the minimum effort to assure safety. If you have guns and kids in the home, and every single time you take out your gun you lock it up, then one time you have your gun in the car cause you took it out to the range and instead of driving straight home and locking up your gun, like you always do - you got in a fender bender when someone rear ended you on the way home. You have to wait for the police and all that other nonsense, and then when you get home you absentmindedly leave your gun in the back seat where your kid finds it and shoots his friend - that’s a tragic accident. If you are a gun owner who regularly leaves your loaded guns laying around the house when you have small kids - that’s negligence. If you are a parent who always picks up from daycare, but your spouse is out of town so this day you do dropoff, and the baby falls asleep in the back and you put yourself on autopilot and drive to work and forget - that’s a tragic accident. If you leave your kids in the car for forty five minutes in the heat because you “just ran into the store for a minute” - that’s negligence. ---
**Author:** ![brickbacon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@brickbacon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brickbacon)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2016, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hot-car-deaths-be-criminally-prosecuted/763348/113 "2016-08-21T03:07:24Z")
> [@Dangerosa](#): > > If you have guns and kids in the home, and every single time you take out your gun you lock it up, then one time you have your gun in the car cause you took it out to the range and instead of driving straight home and locking up your gun, like you always do - you got in a fender bender when someone rear ended you on the way home. You have to wait for the police and all that other nonsense, and then when you get home you absentmindedly leave your gun in the back seat where your kid finds it and shoots his friend - that’s a tragic accident. > > If you are a gun owner who regularly leaves your loaded guns laying around the house when you have small kids - that’s negligence. > > If you are a parent who always picks up from daycare, but your spouse is out of town so this day you do dropoff, and the baby falls asleep in the back and you put yourself on autopilot and drive to work and forget - that’s a tragic accident. > > If you leave your kids in the car for forty five minutes in the heat because you “just ran into the store for a minute” - that’s negligence. Even if we accept your delineation between criminal negligence and tragic accidents, those determinations are typically made by a prosecutor in real life. This is why we have prosecutorial discretion. This is why not every case like this is prosecuted. For the record, I don’t actually accept your legal analysis because it doesn’t seem to be based at all on a reading of the law. Further, you fail to recognize that being on “autopilot” does not excuse your potentially criminal actions. Again, would you think a bus driver who left a bunch of kids to die by accident should be excused? What if that same parent on autopilot ran over a kid crossing the street? Why does being preoccupied with your own less important shot mean you aren’t negligent? To me this is also aggravated by the fact that these people took several steps to agree to drop the child off, secure the children in the car, etc. that such a deviation from a normal routine that it makes forgetting all the more inexcusable. Regardless, please tell me which crimes should we avoid prosecuting because the the perpetrator was distracted? ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2016, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hot-car-deaths-be-criminally-prosecuted/763348/114 "2016-08-21T03:45:41Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > But with leaving a kid in the back of a car…there isn’t any such diligence to be seen. They made a stupid, careless mistake, without making even the minimum effort to assure safety. Well… not exactly. Kids are put in the back seat _to assure safety_ due to the prevalence of airbags and their hazards to young children. So putting the kid in the back is, in fact, exercising some diligence in regards to safety. BUT - putting kids in the back seat makes it more likely for them to be forgotten. So, just as a safety feature that overall improves safety - the airbag - results in a certain circumstances being more of hazard - kids in the front seat- the solution to that particular new hazard - put kids in the back seat - can lead to a different hazard, or increase its likelihood - forgetting a kid in the car. So if a parent, in fear of forgetting the kid, puts the kid in the front passenger seat that parent will be deemed negligent. If they put the kid in the back seat and forget the kid that parent will be seen as negligent. Basically, we’re asking parents to be perfect 24/7/365 for 18 or more years. Should an incident where a kid is left in a hot car be investigated? Certainly. However, not every dead kid means somebody should be criminally punished. I do have concerns that certain demographics would be either be disproportionately punished, or on the flip side other demographics will not be punished in an equitable manner because we leave in an enormously judgemental and biased society. As for the pool and gun examples: Pool: if the pool owner has exercised required diligence - locked fencing and so forth - and the child (or even adult) in question has defeated those safety features then I don’t think that the pool owner should be prosecuted. Gun: likewise, if a gun owner has properly secured the weapons (let’s say locked up separately from ammunition) and the person using the gun for mayhem has, again, defeated those measures deliberately then, again, the gun owner should not be punished because 1) they did want they should have done and 2) they should not be punished because someone else was determined to create mayhem. ---
**Author:** ![pohjonen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pohjonen/32/423_2.png) [@pohjonen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pohjonen)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2016, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hot-car-deaths-be-criminally-prosecuted/763348/115 "2016-08-21T04:51:51Z")
If a skydiver could forget to put on his parachute and plummet to his death, then anyone can forget anything under the right circumstances. ---
**Author:** ![DorkVader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/73ab20/32.png) [@DorkVader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DorkVader)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2016, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hot-car-deaths-be-criminally-prosecuted/763348/116 "2016-08-21T15:19:30Z")
> [@Pantastic](#): > > I find it interesting that people jumped on my calling out the ‘non-parents can’t understand’ argument . That means that there are something in life that cannot be truly understood without direct experience. Marriage, divorce, military service, parenthood are just a few. Those who have had direct experience (done those things) “just get it”. These are things that deeply and fundamentally change a person. Non-parents _don’t_ understand, they can’t! Hell some “parents” don’t understand and can’t but we generally characterize those people as also being deeply flawed and sometimes even unfit to be parents. That being said, my participation in this thread is starting to veer off somewhere other than center-field so I think I will withdraw for now to watch from the stands. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2016, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hot-car-deaths-be-criminally-prosecuted/763348/117 "2016-08-21T15:54:09Z")
I don’t believe parents would hold a mostly unified opinion on this question. I think some think that the father has suffered enough, and others would be outraged by his negligence. ---
**Author:** ![Fiveyearlurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/da6949/32.png) [@Fiveyearlurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiveyearlurker)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2016, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hot-car-deaths-be-criminally-prosecuted/763348/118 "2016-08-21T16:06:31Z")
> [@guestchaz](#): > > That means that there are something in life that cannot be truly understood without direct experience. Marriage, divorce, military service, parenthood are just a few. Those who have had direct experience (done those things) “just get it”. These are things that deeply and fundamentally change a person. Non-parents _don’t_ understand, they can’t! Hell some “parents” don’t understand and can’t but we generally characterize those people as also being deeply flawed and sometimes even unfit to be parents. Before I had kids, I would have said that if you leave your kid in the car you are a negligent psychopath who deserves the death penalty. Now that I’ve had kids, I’m shocked that I haven’t done it myself. ---
**Author:** ![velomont](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/8491ac/32.png) [@velomont](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/velomont)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2016, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hot-car-deaths-be-criminally-prosecuted/763348/119 "2016-08-21T16:07:48Z")
> [@SpoilerVirgin](#): > > Since it hasn’t yet been posted in this thread, I’ll just link to Gene Weingarten’s Pulitzer Prize-winning article [Fatal Distraction](https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/fatal-distraction-forgetting-a-child-in-thebackseat-of-a-car-is-a-horrifying-mistake-is-it-a-crime/2014/06/16/8ae0fe3a-f580-11e3-a3a5-42be35962a52_story.html), which expresses everything that I have to say on this subject. > > The bottom line is that in cases of memory lapse like those described in the article, no amount of punishment or media coverage is going to prevent it from happening. Only actual memory aids in the car are going to make a difference, and even then there are always going to be accidents. Thanks for linking to that. We just had a similar tragedy in Montreal and my co-workers were discussing it. With the exception of one of them, they were all very judgemental. And I found that same article. The section by the David Diamond is particularly salient. If I was a parent I think that I would actually disable the passenger-side airbag and have the child seat in the front. ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2016, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hot-car-deaths-be-criminally-prosecuted/763348/120 "2016-08-21T16:19:39Z")
> [@guestchaz](#): > > That means that there are something in life that cannot be truly understood without direct experience. Marriage, divorce, military service, parenthood are just a few. Those who have had direct experience (done those things) “just get it”. These are things that deeply and fundamentally change a person. Non-parents _don’t_ understand, they can’t! Hell some “parents” don’t understand and can’t but we generally characterize those people as also being deeply flawed and sometimes even unfit to be parents. Cite, please. And a reputable scientific study, not someone using this as an excuse to avoid making a real argument. People like to say this, but it isn’t actually backed by anything other than “I want to be right, so I’m going to declare that other people can’t possibly understand anything about it.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hot-car-deaths-be-criminally-prosecuted/763348.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hot-car-deaths-be-criminally-prosecuted/763348.md?page=7)