Where I Stand — Brian Greenspun: Educate, don’t jail

Friday, June 20, 2003 | 6:04 a.m.

IT IS a question of intent.

Not lost on any parent is the tragic story of a 7-month-old baby who was left in the back of his father's van for more than eight hours in the Las Vegas heat. The worst happened. He died.

Also not lost are two other stories that could have ended just as tragically but didn't. In one case, a mother left her 16-month-old son alone in her car, which she left running, while she quickly checked to see if a store was open. Presumably, had it been open she would have retrieved her sleeping son from the car and gone into the store. She never got that chance because while she was out of her car, it was stolen. Hours later, the car and her son were found unharmed.

In the other incident, a father left his 2-year-old son in the car while he ran into a store to get coffee. He did it in front of the watchful eyes of a policeman who intervened, presumably with a few choice words for the errant father, and no harm was done.

In two cases, the children left in the cars were not harmed. In the other, tragically, a little boy died. In two cases, District Attorney David Roger has decided to pursue gross misdemeanor charges -- which carry penalties of jail time -- and in the third he decided to do nothing. Roger explained the difference as one of intent.

Most of the people I talk to are having trouble understanding his reasoning. So am I.

I can't possibly imagine the guilt-ridden pain that wracks every waking moment of that young father's life as he tries to understand how he could have allowed his baby to die in the back of that van. Nor can I come close to understanding the loss. If he is to be believed, he didn't leave the boy unattended on purpose. He just forgot!

There is not a parent among us who hasn't made the mistake of turning his or her back for just a second only to have a 3-year-old disappear in search of a cat or dog or some other attraction. Sometimes, we even forget. It is a miracle of sorts that more tragedies do not occur every day.

Roger did not charge that father because he believed that he lacked the intent necessary to leave the boy alone in the car. You don't intend to forget.

As for the other two, Roger believed that they intended to leave the children in the car. Without any other qualifier, he says that is enough reason to charge them with a crime.

The inconsistency here is that no child should be left alone in a car -- no matter what the reason. In each of these cases, no one can believe that the parents intended to put their children in harm's way. Where one forgot, the others made a decision to leave them there under watchful parental eyes, presumably believing that no harm would come because they were close enough to react.

The difficulty, I suspect, is in the criminal nature of the charges. While everyone I know says something should be done to those parents -- all three of them -- criminal charges should not be one of the options, unless all three are similarly charged.

The real issue is one of education. It baffles me how we even have to consider telling people, over and over and over again, that they should not leave children, pets or anything living in a car in 100-plus degree heat, but I accept the fact that we live in a world that requires such remedial attention to common sense.

Rather than disrupt already traumatized families by the possibility of breaking them up by sending a parent to jail, the district attorney should charge each of them and, then, dismiss the cases on the following condition: that all three of them participate in public service announcements or other forms of public awareness that talk about their mistakes.

Can you imagine a more compelling story about the danger of leaving a child unattended than one from a parent who has lost a child because he left him alone in the car? Or a real life lesson about what can happen when you turn your back for a moment and a thief steals your car with your child in it? Or a message of relief from a father who jeopardized his child for a cup of coffee?

These cases call for creativity, not differentiation. They call for education, not jail. They call for uniformity of action, not selective enforcement based on degrees of intent when none of them intended any harm.

Most importantly, these cases demand of the rest of us a vigilance based on an understanding that some parents just don't have a clue.

Educate them. Don't jail 'em.