“New Jersey officials were wrong to label a mother a child abuser for leaving her sleeping baby in an unattended locked car for 10 minutes while she went shopping in a nearby store, the state’s highest court ruled on Thursday.” Not only does she deserve a hearing before being put on the child abuse registry, said a unanimous New Jersey Supreme Court, but such a hearing should not find neglect unless her conduct is found to have placed the child in “imminent risk of harm.” [Jacob Gershman, WSJ Law Blog; earlier here and here]
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From the NJ thugocracy:
“A spokesman for the state Department of Children and Families said the agency ‘looks forward to submitting additional information’ to support its finding of gross neglect, saying that ‘leaving a child alone in a vehicle – even for just a minute – is a dangerous and risky decision.'”
This statement would be hilarious, if it were not so sad. First of all, leaving a child alone in a car for a minute is not dangerous–at least in any ordinary sense of the word. And, how does the agency “look forward” to doing this over something that happened years ago? Is this in the interest of the child? Nope. And even if this were a criminal act (which is scary), “gross neglect”? Really?
Every single person involved in the persecution of this family needs to be fired. But it’s more than that–really, if there were any justice in this world, the people responsible for this would spend a decade in prison.
Of course a “dangerous and risky situation” is not necessarily “gross neglect.” Gross neglect is something more than a mere failure to take reasonable care. It borders on recklessness. That begs the question, just how “risky” is the decision the Department of Children wants to second guess in this case? It seems to me that the government wants to define gross negligence to mean running any risk at all.
“It seems to me that the government wants to define gross negligence to mean running any risk at all.”
I agree. The big problem with this standard is that zero risk is impossible.
“Court: Leaving Baby in Car for 10 Minutes May Not Be Abuse”
Duh.
But of course, how many lawyers got how rich to determine this? Took me about 2 seconds.
NJ Gov and Presidential candidate Christie should be required to declare himself on this case. Does he support what his bureaucrats are doing here? Or will he call them off? If he lacks authority to call them off, will he call for such authority from his legislature?
In the atmosphere of today’s world I guess it is difficult to call leaving a sleeping child unattended in a car ‘abuse’ (regardless of how many babies die this way) when it is completely legal and also federally funded for mothers to kill their babies and sell their body parts. It is apparently all about perspective. A child who made it safely into this world is only in imminent risk of harm if their parent leaves them without fresh air, without heat or cooling as needed, without help, without protection from kidnapping, and without parental concern for a time somewhat more than 10 minutes.
“In the atmosphere of today’s world I guess it is difficult to call leaving a sleeping child unattended in a car ‘abuse’ (regardless of how many babies die this way)”
Nearly all of the children who die this way are left unattended in a car for hours. It certainly is all about perspective, but abortion has nothing to do with it.
“A child who made it safely into this world is only in imminent risk of harm if their parent leaves them without fresh air, without heat or cooling as needed, without help, without protection from kidnapping”
The odds of any of any child being harmed in ten minutes under these conditions is barely distinguishable from zero.