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David iankznzksa
Pimentel is law professor at University of Idaho and the father of six Free-Range kids. He writes and speaks about why it’s wrong to legally mandate helicopter parenting. You can find his articles here. And here’s his post on an important verdict (subheads and boldface, mine):
Pimentel is law professor at University of Idaho and the father of six Free-Range kids. He writes and speaks about why it’s wrong to legally mandate helicopter parenting. You can find his articles here. And here’s his post on an important verdict (subheads and boldface, mine):
.In a critical decision in favor of Free-Range Parents, the Maryland Court of Appeals just reversed the conviction of Beverly Annetta Hall for child neglect..Ms. Hall had left her 3-year-old child in the care of his 14-year-old sister. In the middle of the night, after everyone in the house was asleep, the 3-year-old apparently woke up, let himself out of the house dressed only in sweatpants and a t-shirt (in February in Maryland), and wandered into the middle of a six-lane roadway several hundred yards from home..He was picked by a passing motorist at 2 a.m., and shortly after the 14-year-old called the police in the middle of the night to report the missing child, he was in safe hands..MOM SENTENCED TO JAIL.The mother, however, was charged with child neglect and sentenced to 20 days of incarceration..Although her conviction was initially upheld, the Maryland Court of Appeals has overturned the conviction. The mother’s decision to leave a 3-year-old in the care of a 14-year-old, the court held, had to be judged without the benefit of hindsight. Despite the jury’s hindsight-aided view of the case, the fact that the child ended up in serious danger did not make the otherwise reasonable decision to leave the child in the care of his 14-year-old sister a criminal act..The critical issue here, of course, is that freak accidents happen (sometimes involving gorillas and alligators, if you’re following recent news events), but that the awful outcome is not itself evidence of a failure of the parents, notwithstanding the blamers’ and shamers’ denunciations..APPEALS COURT: CAN’T BLAME PARENTS FOR SOMETHING UNPREDICTABLE.Borrowing heavily from my 2012 law review article, “Criminal Child Neglect and the Free Range Kid,” the court concluded that criminal liability must be based on objective assessment of the parents’ action — whether they posed “substantial risk of harm”—based on what the parent knew at the time, i.e. what a reasonable parent would have done, without the benefit of hindsight..I would go further and suggest that the parent deserves the benefit of the doubt—and even has a constitutional right to it—because, among other things, the parent knows better than anyone what her 3-year-old is capable of, and what her 14-year-old is capable of, and because disrupting the family like this is certainly not in the best interest of the children..THE PROBLEM WITH JUDGING WORKING CLASS MOMS BY UPPER MIDDLE CLASS STANDARDS.There’s also a concern that race and class can be issues in cases like this. One of the public defenders who represented Ms. Hall over the course of this case, made the observation: “She is black and indigent and was tried in a very wealthy county in Maryland. It is interesting how folks with money can judge how folks without it raise their children.” Indeed, it is scary how often the parents targeted in these cases are from the underprivileged sectors of our society, single working parents who can’t afford to hover over their children at all times, or to hire nannies to do it for them..It is refreshing to see fairness and common sense prevail in our courts of law. Judges can be real heroes in these situations. While no one can shrug off the danger this child faced, it served little purpose to single her out the mother for blame and for punishment, when she entrusted the child to a responsible 14-year-old. Ms. Hall’s nightmare appears to be over, and her attorney assures me that she has now regained custody of her children*, but the toll this must have taken on her and her family over the last 3+ years is difficult to fathom..SHAME ON THE PROSECUTORS.The real travesty may be that the blamers and shamers prevailed in the prosecutor’s office and in the trial court. Thank heavens for right of appeal, and for cooler heads on the appellate court. Hopefully this will be good precedent for other courts and other cases. — David Pimentel.*We’ve been unable to confirm just how long Ms. Hall was deprived of her children; her attorneys have declined to comment out of their duty of confidentiality (and presumably their respect for Ms. Hall’s privacy).
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Lenore here: Let’s hear it for the judge, and also for Prof. Pimentel, who has really taken the reins when it comes to making the legal case for Free-Range Kids. – L.
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60 Comments
Awesome news. Hopefully the sanity spreads.
Good to hear.
These things happen to good parents all the time. Always did. Always will.
Shame on the prosecutors
I am glad you added that, Lenore. Prosecutors do have the discretion that could stop cases like this before they even start, if they would just use it.
In 1932 James T Farrell published “Young Lonigan”, the 1st of a trilogy following the life of one William “Studs” Lonigan. The novel begins on Studs graduation day in 1916 with a dilemma faced by many young people both then and now – continue school or join the workforce.
Studs is 14.
I am not advocating we bring back that choice to our young teens, but I am amazed that over the course of 100 years how much ability has been lost by today’s youth. Or so it would seem the way young people are looked upon today.
And in other news, you no longer have to be Nostradamus to raise children.
Great news, Lenore! I so appreciated Prof. Pimentel’s earlier article in 2012 and am glad to see he is still in the fight!
So the jury’s original theory is that mothers, unlike older sisters, have internal motion detectors that sound alarms when their kids move beyond a certain radius from them?
I’m just trying to parse their theory of the case here. Had the mom been at home sleeping when it happened, what exactly do they think would have happened differently?
Great news!
It is amazing about how people are.
-Why wasn’t the child’s bedroom secured?
What was the mother doing-out late at night?
In he 1950’s mothers stayed home.
One of the big problems is that when men go on conventions-the companies insist that the men bring their wives-in order to prevent “Hankey-pankey.
That leaves wife flustered.
-Who is going to mind the children.
Also, since many wives work, they could not take time off work.
Did the appellate judges cite Professor Pimental’s article in their decision, since they “borrowed heavily” from it? I believe that a fair amount of law is predicated on the conclusions and actions of this hypothetical “reasonable person”, and that is hardly a unique concept, even with regards to raising kids.
At any rate, it’s not surprising that a poor person finds themselves on the receiving end of what is probably thinly-veiled malicious prosecution.
“Did the appellate judges cite Professor Pimental’s article in their decision”
The rules of citation in legal writing are substantially different from the rules for academic writing. In academic writing, it is crucial to give credit to the originators of ideas when they are referred to, in order to separate the writer’s own ideas.
In legal writing, citations are primarily to law, not to ideas. If a legal writers says “it is the law that…”, they are expected to provide a citation to the exact source of that law… whether it be a rule, a statute, or a court decision. A legal writer may also cite to things which are not law, but are relevant. For example, a lawyer might be arguing for a particular interpretation of a statute which has not yet come up in an actual case in the jurisdiction… but has come up, and been decided, in another one. What the court decided in that other jurisdiction is not law for the writer, but it might be persuasive to the arbiter. Yes, you can cite to the opinion of someone who has a reputation as a legal scholar… this is what law review publications are all about… but a citation to an idea that isn’t presented in a scholarly journal just doesn’t happen very often, and when it does, it’s usually to a news account of something that has just happened.
When my brother was 3, he was a Houdini. My parents put an extra latch at the very top of the front door, aside from the deadbolt. They also hung a large brass bell on the door.
My brother could sloooowly and quietly drag a chair over to the door, undo all of the latches, and open the door slowly enough to not make the bell ring.
My bedroom was right next to the front door, and I wouldn’t hear him sneak out! We’d usually find him stripped down naked, playing on the swing set. Silly monkey!
I’m glad the legal side of things were sorted out because this clearly isn’t neglect. I would say though that it is important to teach young kids about street and traffic safety, even when they are as young as 3
We had a child of that age and an ongoing remodel at the same time. There was no way to close the kid, who had demonstrated the ability to climb out of any crib or playpen and over any baby gate, into a room for the night. So we put away a lot of tippy and breakable things, installed a lot of child safety latches on drawers, and got used to hearing the pitter-patter of tiny feet in the darkness. We did attach a long string of clanky brass bells to the front door in case Kiddo figured out how to undo the deadbolt. One morning we found a towel below the string of bells. As if somebody had been trying to figure out how to get them off the knob without making noise…
Hooray! There are still some judges with that unusual faculty: common sense.
She did do one thing wrong. It amazing how hard it was her to pick up her phone despite everyone trying to get ahold of her. If give your number to a babysitter then you should be able to get a call from them!
@Marie: The problem with prosecutors using discretion is that the vast majority, if not all are elected officials and would most likely be committing political suicide if they used in such cases.
Hasn’t current research shown that prosecutors are mostly all about politics and winning elections for their parties?
Justice and fairness and the best interest of families are of no importance when an easy win is possible.
How can we get a legal system that respects the consideration that a defendant acted as a prudent person would?
If the legal system is only “evidence based” and the evidence is based on hindsight, then every mistake, every accident will lead to guilt and jail time.
This would be great for the corporations running prisons and corrections systems which are a major industry in this country and , of course, are expanding, not shrinking.
Lenore,
You need to add that “Success Stories” tag on the right to this topic.
That page is looking mighty lonesome and it shouldn’t.
“Hasn’t current research shown that prosecutors are mostly all about politics and winning elections for their parties?”
Huh? Most prosecutors are career bureaucrats (civil service, not elected) and the ones that are elected are non-partisan races. There is politics at the top level, of course, but the other 98-99% don’t have partisan politics to any higher degree than any other job.
@James – Thanks, but my question was facetious, as I hoped the rest of that paragraph would suggest.
With this case it would not have made any difference If the mother had have been at home (and asleep) at the time,
The 14yo did the right thing by calling the police as soon as she relised her brother was missing. Not much more the mum would have been able to do anyway given the toddler was already in the care of a passing motorist or the police by that time
James, everywhere I’ve lived the district attorney (who supervises all the prosecutors in his office) is an elected position on a party ballot. YMMV, but I think you’re overstating how common it is for them to be non-partisan bureaucrats.
“She did do one thing wrong. It amazing how hard it was her to pick up her phone despite everyone trying to get ahold of her. If give your number to a babysitter then you should be able to get a call from them!”
The perfectly-on-top-of-everything person would never let their phone discharge, never forget to turn it back on after the movie, never leave it in the car accidentally while being elsewhere — however such a person might deliberately turn off the phone during a movie or other appropriate setting.
And being less than 100% on top of everything in that way, while “wrong” in the strictest sense, should not to any degree edge her toward criminal responsibility.
Thanks heavens my kids were grown and out on their own before helicpter parenting became the “new normal” or I’d probably be sending this from behind bars!
My son was a sleepwalker, so I – like most mothers – slept “with one eye open” to keep him from harming himself. Still, one chilly night in October when he was 12, my first clue he wasn’t in the house was him pounding to be let in from the back porch in nothing but his underwear, as mystified as I was as to how he got out there. All the doors were still dead bolted from the inside, all the windows upstairs and down were closed and (I thought) locked. The mystery was solved a few hours later when I saw a blanket from his bed at the edge of the kitchen roof and found the window next to his bed UNlocked. He then remembered having a nightmare in which he needed to escape a burning house, and somehow managed to *silently* raise both the inside sash and storm window, climb outside to the roof over the kitchen, then close the inside sash *and* the storm window before attempting – still sound asleep, mind you – to use the blanket as a rope to get down to the ground. When that didn’t work, he went over the peak of the rather steep roof and slid down a downspout from the guttering to the side porch of the kitchen. I tried not to think at how many points between his bed and the back door he could’ve fallen and seriously injured himself – or worse. (Oddly, this was his last-ever episode of sleepwalking…)
As for small children sneaking out when Mom and Dad are home and asleep, the parents of a very adventurous 3-yr-old boy on the next street over were grateful that a visiting (adult) relative of mine happened to wake up before dawn one morning and decided to take his coffee out to the front porch. Pretty soon he heard a “squeak, squeak” that he couldn’t identify, which turned out to be that 3-yr-old furiously pedaling his tricycle past our house! The street he lived on had no direct access to a main thoroughfare, but ours did, and we shudddered to think what would’ve happened to the little boy had Cousin not been out there! He at least knew where his house was – just around the corner and down a little hill – so Cousin didn’t bother calling the cops, just walked the boy and the trike back home. (The fact that the child had **no** problem going with a total stranger is troubling, to say the least!) Turns out this wasn’t the first time the boy had done this; the parents had already installed several deadbolts high up on the front door, and were pretty much at their wits end as to how to keep him inside while they slept.
What idiot could believe putting a parent behind bars for having an adventurous child is a “good” thing? Isn’t having such a child “punishment” enough?
If she was poor and a minority, and the jury rich and white, how was it a “jury of her peers?
Theresa
No you’re not negative at all. Sheeesh
You know Warren you don’t like anyone having a different opinion then you. Every time you disagree with me on anything you call me negative . maybe you should let me have my opinions and get over the fact that I feel differently about some things than you do without insulting me.
Theresa
Not insulting you. Just calling a spade a spade.
“James, everywhere I’ve lived the district attorney (who supervises all the prosecutors in his office) is an elected position on a party ballot. YMMV, but I think you’re overstating how common it is for them to be non-partisan bureaucrats.”
The DA is elected. All the ADAs are not. They’re civil service. They keep their jobs if the DA retires or loses an election. The new DA can shuffle their assignments, but can’t fire them without cause, because civil service.
Similarly, each state has one or more United States Attorneys, who are appointed by the President and serve at his (or her) pleasure, while all of the AUSAs are career civil service.
In between, the state attorney general is elected, all the other lawyers (including the prosecutors) who work for the Department of Justice are career civil service.
So, um… yeah. Most prosecutors are civil service, not elected partisans. Which is what I said in the first place.
As to the other half, can you provide some examples of where you’ve been that had partisan district attorney races?
“You know Warren you don’t like anyone having a different opinion then you. Every time you disagree with me on anything you call me negative . maybe you should let me have my opinions and get over the fact that I feel differently about some things than you do without insulting me.”
You’ll have to be the one to let it go. He’s not actually capable of avoiding insulting people who disagree with him.
Maybe I don’t like getting called negative every time he doesn’t like my opinions.! Most people here can express themselves without any hint of name calling!
“Most people here can express themselves without any hint of name calling!”
He can’t.
Just don’t read any of his postings. I don’t. I can see it when he picks fights with other people because they start quoting him (which is how I know he was still trying to troll me MONTHS after I stopped reading him.)
Thank you James, I knew all that.
Now to the *relevant* point — who has authority to ultimately decide how cases are pursued — bureaucrats or elected officials?
For the purposes of this discussion, prosecutors are in fact politically influenced, because their bosses, who tell them what to do, are political figures. Pretending that the premise is false because people didn’t distinguish between “prosecutors” and “prosecutors’ bosses who tell them what to do” is specious.
Yes, only the DA is elected, however, the DA controls the ADAs under him. You want to keep your job, you march to the DA’s tune, not your own. If the DA wants a case prosecuted, you can prosecute it or you can clean out your desk, but you can’t just ignore him/her and do what you want.
It is not remotely uncommon for DA offices to completely change personnel after a new DA is elected via both terminations and quitting due to displeasure with changes in the office. When I was a public defender, within 6 months of the DA changing (via the old DA becoming a judge so not even election), only one ADA remained and he was miserable but too close to retirement to leave.
I imagine that the impact is less in large cities, but I recall a notable change in ADAs when I was in San Diego and a new DA was elected. Considering she ran in opposition to the former DA on a platform that the current DA’s office sucked, this is not surprising.
As for examples, I’ve lived in Pennsylvania and New York. DA is an elected office with party primaries and affiliations on the ballots (no cross-filing) in both states.
At any rate, as long as it is an elected official, it is irrelevant whether it is a “partisan” role. It is still political in the sense that a DA is at least, in part, motivated by political considerations connecting to keeping his job, regardless of whether or not there’s a strong partisan component.
“Thank you James, I knew all that.”
Then… why did you question it?
“As for examples, I’ve lived in Pennsylvania and New York. DA is an elected office with party primaries and affiliations on the ballots (no cross-filing) in both states.”
Really? The actual District Attorneys of New York appear to have a different understanding.
“7. In order to demonstrate public support for the nonpartisan nature of the District Attorney’s office, a District Attorney should consider accepting the endorsement of more than one political party when running for office.”
Page A2, http://www.daasny.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/2015-Ethics-Handbook.pdf
What would I find if I looked up Pennsylvania, I wonder?
“Yes, only the DA is elected, however, the DA controls the ADAs under him. You want to keep your job, you march to the DA’s tune, not your own.”
Well, duh… this is true of just about every job… you have to do what the boss tells you to do rather than what you might prefer to do. What’s different is that attorneys in general (giggle) and prosecutors in specific, have specific ethical rules which the boss may not override. If the boss says “prosecute”, but the ethical rules say “don’t prosecute”, the result is supposed to be “don’t prosecute”.
I “I was just following orders” defense was tried at Nuremberg, without much success for the defendants. I’m more than a little bit surprised to see you advancing a version of it here.
Yes, “accepting an endorsement” is *exactly the same thing* as not running on a particular party line.
I just have to remember that James is always right, regardless of what abuses of language and logic are necessary to make it so.
I had a situation where my kids recently came back from a trip to Russia. Being that there was a 12 hour time difference, they were getting up in the middle of the night. We would have them play in the living room while the misses and I would sleep. It got really quiet in the living room and I got up to investigate. when kids are all of a sudden quiet, something is fishy. i went to check on them but they were nowhere in sight. I check their bedroom and closets before I decided that they were no longer in the apartment. In a panic I ran outside to look for them. This is about 4 in the morning. I went running around for a little bit freaking out when I saw them off in the distance. My daughter was carrying a battery powered lantern, and my son was carrying a pop gun that Peter from Peter and the Wolf carried. They were on their way to the park that was down the street. When I asked them what they were doing, they said they were going ghost hunting. Luckily I went to investigate and prevented something worse from happening. Kids can do crazy things sometimes.
I’m so glad to hear reason and common sense prevailed. That the judge who overturned this stupid ruling should be commended for seeing the bigger picture. Chit happens. That’s just part of life. There was no wrong doing on the part of the mother. Not even a little bit. I keep saying, children are smarter than most parents give them credit for. As early as 2 years old, kids are comprehending, and learning. That is the time when we start teaching them do’s and don’ts. Not sheltering or coddling them. Giving into their cuteness (as hard as it may be not to), only hinders them as they get older. We can still enjoy our children at that age, while still teaching them to become self sufficient. It’s called balance. The younger the better. FOR THEM. Not for us.
“Yes, “accepting an endorsement” is *exactly the same thing* as not running on a particular party line.”
Um, these are opposites. Is that what you were going for?
“I just have to remember that James is always right”
It would save time.
What the heck. Let’s compare what YOU say about the District Attorneys of New York, and what the New York Association of District Attorneys says about the District Attorneys of NY.
You: “DA is an elected office”
This much is true. It’s the rest that goes off the rails.
You: “…with party primaries…”
DAs: “…the nonpartisan nature of the District Attorney’s office…”
You: “…affiliations on the ballots (no cross-filing)…”
DAs “… a District Attorney should consider accepting the endorsement of more than one political party when running for office.”
You: “…regardless of what abuses of language and logic are necessary…”
I guess if you’re confused about what “nonpartisan” means, my using the word correctly might seem like an abuse of language.
@pentamom: You have my permission to kick him.
“prosecutors are in fact politically influenced, because their bosses, who tell them what to do, are political figures.”
Isn’t that against the trias politica? Or is that not a thing in the USA?
And another question: I don’t know about your front doors, but mine locks with a key that I could hide somewhere out of sight & reach for a 3-year-old. So how do all these 3-year-olds manage to unlock their front door??
“I don’t know about your front doors, but mine locks with a key that I could hide somewhere out of sight & reach for a 3-year-old. So how do all these 3-year-olds manage to unlock their front door??”
Every American door I’ve seen both sides of locks with a key from the outside and a knob from the inside.
I just want to correct a few errors.
1. Legal writings most certainly do include citations to things besides laws and cases. Obviously, they are not binding, but there are instances where the writer will reference a study, scholarly article, a newspaper, magazine, or any other source of information.
2. Any lawyer that practices anywhere in the US (especially at the state level) will tell you that politics plays a factor in what kinds of cases are taken and what gets prosecuted. If you are asserting otherwise, you are either a liar or just plain don’t know what you are talking about. The APA’s in my state are at will employees, so they can be fired without cause. I know for a fact that while the PA doesn’t micromanage their cases, they certainly control what kinds of cases they take and don’t take.
How do I know this? I have friends that work as APA’s and they tell me this stuff. How else? I practice law in more than one county and have seen things prosecuted in one that don’t get prosecuted in others.
“I just want to correct a few errors.
1. Legal writings most certainly do include citations to things besides laws and cases.”
Thank you for correcting this “error”. I don’t know what I could have been thinking when I said ” A legal writer may also cite to things which are not law, but are relevant.”
” there are instances where the writer will reference a study, scholarly article, a newspaper, magazine, or any other source of information.”
Yes. That’s what I said.
“a citation to an idea that isn’t presented in a scholarly journal just doesn’t happen very often, and when it does, it’s usually to a news account of something that has just happened.”
“2. Any lawyer that practices anywhere in the US (especially at the state level) will tell you that politics plays a factor in what kinds of cases are taken and what gets prosecuted.”
Duh.
The house I lived in growing up had a deadbolt that had a keyhole on the inside and the outside. Mom never lost her keys, because they were always in the door. The back door of our current house is like this.
My son was a wanderer, but he was old enough to understand rules before he figured out the last lock. We had to put a latch on the door to the basement stairs, though.
And…..another thread derailed.
“And…..another thread derailed.”
Stay on topic, please.
Goodness gracious, 14-year-old kids have been babysitting for ages. In fact, my friend who was a 13-year-old boy at the time, went thru a babysitting course. This was back in 2001. So what was criminal about leaving the 3-year-old with his 14-year-old big sister? Those people on the jury were brainwashed with this “bubble wrapping children” mentality.
@The Other Mandy: Yes, when I imagine a lock on a front door, I see this:
https://images.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fcdn.toolstation.com%2Fimages%2F130215-NL%2Fimages%2Flibrary%2Fstock%2Fwebbig%2F26794.jpg&f=1
(this is the view from the inside)
re: Deadbolt Question: not all deadbolt locks are double-keyed. Some are keyed on the exterior surface of the door and have knobs on the interior of the door. I suspect this is how all the adventuresome 3-year olds are getting out of the house. My dad was a locksmith, and would never, for safety’s sake, put a single key deadbolt on an exterior door, especially if there was a window in it or near it, because mischief (I’m being polite here) makers could smash the window and gain access by turning the knob. You also shouldn’t keep your key in the lock on the interior face of the door, for the same reason.
re: lock-proof 3-year old escape artists… I’m probably showing my age, but this brings to mind “Please Don’t Eat the Daisies” where the toddler was kept in basically a cage. A prospective babysitter asked Doris Day if the little one was a “backwards”. Doris Day’s reply: “Mrs. X, when you were two, could you pick a lock, any lock? No? Hmmm… he can.”
James, except that is not what you said. Typical to your trolling, you don’t have a substantive response, but you just say that isn’t what I said/meant. Have you considered going back on your meds?
Hmmm…door locks keyed on the interior sounds like a fire hazard to me. If the door doesn’t have a large window, as most modern exterior doors don’t, I can’t imagine why it would be considered safer to do it this way. It’s barely, if at all, safer from burglars/intruders, and much riskier in case of fire. If a locksmith insisted on keying it from the inside, I’d find a different locksmith.
“James, except that is not what you said.”
WTF are you whining about now?
“Have you considered going back on your meds?”
Have you considered not using weak-ass ad hominem attacks?
@pentamom: A deadbolt which is keyed from the inside was against building code in the previous town in which we lived for exactly that reason–it’s an escape hazard in the case of fire.