County: Legislature needs to look at child-in-car laws

Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2003 | 8:53 a.m.

The Clark County Commission, which had been expected to consider an ordinance making it illegal to leave a child unsupervised in a car, heard a report Tuesday on state and local laws regarding penalties for the infraction.

The answer? The Legislature needs to do more to flesh out those laws, commission Chairwoman Mary Kincaid-Chauncey said.

Ben Graham, chief deputy district attorney and lobbyist for the district attorney's office during legislative sessions, told the commission that Nevada's child neglect law allows charges against anyone who "willfully causes a child to suffer unjustifiable physical pain or mental suffering as a result of abuse or neglect."

The statute allows felony or gross misdemeanor charges. The gross misdemeanor could come to a year in jail; a felony conviction could result in more than one year in prison.

That has resulted in some parents being charged after their children were left in cars and others, whose children have died, not being charged because they did not intentionally leave their children.

Graham said the Legislature considered, but did not pass, a bill from Sen. Valerie Wiener, a Las Vegas Democrat, that would have added one more tool to the law enforcement toolbox. The bill would have added a misdemeanor violation, similar to a traffic citation, for simply leaving a child in a car, regardless of intent.

Graham said the violation may be important when cases do not cause physical or mental pain, the standard under the existing law. But he also warned that there are times when even a ticket under the new law might be marginal -- for example, when a parent just leaves a child strapped in and runs into a convenience store and back out.