NJ Supreme Court to Decide if Leaving Kid in Car for a Few Minutes Equals Child Abuse

The case involved a mother who left her sleeping child in a car for a few minutes while she dashed into the store. It was a cool, overcast day. The car was locked, with the windows cracked, and with the engine running, presumably to keep the car’s climate-control system engaged.

The mother could see the car from the store, and when she saw police cars arrive, she dashed out, only to be arrested for child endangerment. A thorough investigation showed that in all other respects she was a good mother, and not a threat to the health and safety of any of her four children, so the investigation was closed and all criminal charges dropped. But because the incident was confirmed, she was labeled a child abuser and included on New Jersey’s child abuse central registry.

She challenged the finding that she was a child abuser, and requested a hearing in which she could demonstrate that her child was not, in fact, “unreasonably” exposed to “substantial risk,” posing “imminent danger” to the child’s condition (all factors required by the statute). The court denied her request for a hearing, saying she had no right to defend herself against the charges, because her action was so obviously “grossly negligent.” The court said the imagined dangers spoke for themselves: “We need not describe at any length the parade of horribles that could have attended (this) neglect.” The court relied on earlier cases where a child had actually come to harm, without distinguishing that this case involved merely a perceived risk of harm.

The mother appealed to the New Jersey Supreme Court, with us… filing an amicus brief on behalf of the mother, and the Court granted review. This case was argued just this week in Trenton. We remain hopeful that the Court will uphold the mother’s right to defend herself, and that it will allow the lower court to consider the reasonableness of the mother’s action, the likelihood of harm, the imminence of the danger, before labeling her as a child abuser, stigmatizing her for life and making it virtually impossible to ever to get a job working with children, to adopt a child, etc.

If the N.J. Supreme Court upholds the lower court, child-left-in-car cases in New Jersey will be very straightforward. Even if the investigation shows that no criminal child endangerment occurred (so charges are dropped), absent extenuating circumstances, it will be virtually automatic that the parent will be branded as a “child abuser” for the rest of his or her life. Not only is the parent presumed guilty, the parent is not even entitled to a hearing to prove his or her innocence.

We think that parents are entitled to some discretion in making risk-assessments for their kids. And that even if parents occasionally misjudge a situation (not to say that this mother’s parenting judgment that day was necessarily erroneous, but even if it were), they should be entitled to an opportunity to defend their parenting choices, in a hearing, before being labeled as a child abuser on the state registry.

The reasoning is spelled out in a little more detail in the op-ed I wrote last year after the Court of Appeals rendered its decision.

Prof. David Pimentel, Ohio Northern University College of Law