Adults Face Charges For Child Deaths

Margette and William Staten decided to go to Walmart on Aug. 3. Their great-grandson, 2-year-old Joniah Chronister, begged to go with them, so they buckled him in his car seat in the back of their Ford Focus.

Joniah had fallen asleep by the time they arrived. The Statens, who told police they forgot Joniah was with them, left him in the car with the doors closed and locked, the windows rolled up and no air conditioning, according to a court affidavit. The outside temperature was around 100 degrees.

The Statens told police it wasn’t until they were checking out about two hours later, that they remembered Joniah.

The Arkansas State Crime Laboratory said Joniah died from environmental hyperthermia, or a fatal heat stroke. Detectives said the temperature inside the car could have reached 133 degrees in less than 10 minutes.

The Statens have been charged with misdemeanor negligent homicide in connection with his death. They are scheduled to go on trial Dec. 6 in Springdale and face up to a year in jail if convicted.

Jeff Harper, Springdale city attorney, said the case met the definition of negligent homicide under Arkansas code. He declined to comment further. Joel Huggins, the Statens’ attorney, didn’t return two phone calls seeking comment.

Every year, dozens of young children across the country — mostly in Sun Belt states such as Arkansas — die after becoming trapped in hot cars. Often it’s because the adults responsible for the children merely forget they were with them.

The legal repercussions can be quite different even in strikingly similar cases. Often, prosecutors decide not to charge the adults.

Legal Fallout

Consider two more recent cases from Arkansas.

Derrick Reaves forgot to drop off his daughter, 14-month-old Carsyn Reaves, at daycare the morning of Aug. 13, 2010, before he headed to his job in Bentonville. Reaves discovered Carsyn several hours later still in the backseat. The outside temperature at the time was near 100 degrees. Carsyn was later pronounced dead at Northwest Medical Center-Bentonville.

Both Bentonville staff attorney Camille Thompson and Benton County Prosecutor Van Stone declined to file charges. Stone said the investigation showed there was no prior history of neglect, no substance abuse involved, and Reaves didn’t knowingly leave the child in a car. Considering the circumstances, there was no need to bring the judicial system into play, he said.

“Trying to brand someone a criminal for fundamentally what is just a terrible, terrible tragedy, just did not seem right,” Stone said.

Fast-forward to Aug. 3.

At 4:36 p.m. — virtually the exact time emergency workers were responding to Joniah — a similar incident was unfolding on the other side of Arkansas.

Matthew E. Tickle of Newport had just arrived home from his job at a local hospital. He opened the back door of his Ford Explorer and realized he had left his 16-month-old daughter, Landyn Elizabeth, in his car for about nine hours, Newport police Lt. Patrick Weatherford said in an affidavit filed in the case.

Tickle now faces a pending charge of misdemeanor negligent homicide. Like Reaves, Tickle was supposed to drop his daughter off at daycare before he went to work that morning. It wasn’t a part of Tickle’s typical routine; he agreed to take her because his fiancee was tired from having college final exams that week.

Like Reaves, Tickle forgot about his daughter between the time he left home and the time he arrived at work, according to the affidavit. Tickle drove the vehicle home at midday for lunch. He took the same vehicle back to the hospital, where he remained until about 4:30 p.m., according to the affidavit.

“Landyn had been secured in the child safety seat, which was located on the driver’s side of the back seat for this entire time,” the affidavit states.

Landyn had been dead several hours by the time Tickle discovered her, according to the affidavit. Her body temperature was 108 degrees when emergency personnel examined her. An autopsy confirmed Landyn died of environmental hyperthermia.

Asked to explain his decision to charge Tickle with negligent homicide, Newport Prosecutor Henry Boyce said Tickle broke the law. The same charge would apply, for example, to a driver who fell asleep at the wheel and killed someone, he said.

“It’s a horror any parent can identify with,” Boyce said about Landyn’s death. “That doesn’t do away with my obligation to apply the letter of the law to the facts as I understand them.”

Explaining the inexplicable

Joniah’s death wasn’t the only hot-car related fatality in Northwest Arkansas this summer.

Lincoln Andrew Brunner, who lived in a part of Benton County east of Bella Vista, died from hyperthermia Aug. 4. He apparently climbed into a hot car parked outside his home, according to a Benton County Sheriff’s Office investigation. No charges were filed in relation to the death.

At least 29 children, most of them younger than 3, have died in hot cars this year in the United States, according to information compiled by Jan Null, a lecturer and meteorologist at San Francisco State University who has studied the subject and continues to track such deaths nationwide.

Joniah, Lincoln and Landyn were three of eight kids who died in hot cars during the first seven days of August, which is believed to be a record for a single week, Null said.

Null’s numbers show 555 children have died in hot cars in America since 1998, an average of about 38 per year. During the eight years before that, Null said, the average was 11 per year.

Air bags have something to do with the rise in hot car deaths, Null said.

“We started putting air bags in vehicles in the 1980s,” he said. “Then we started seeing kids injured or killed in the front seat, so we started moving kids to the back seats. Now the children are out of sight and out of mind.”

Adults are encouraged to keep children in rear-facing car seats until they’re 2 years old. Though this arrangement keeps kids safer in a crash, caregivers are more likely to forget a child is in the car simply because they don’t see them. This scenario explains roughly half the incidents in which children die in hot cars, Null said, adding he doesn’t advocate moving kids to the front seat or disabling air bags.

Another 30 percent of hot-car deaths are attributed to a child playing in an unattended vehicle.

Most of the remaining incidents, about 17 percent, are attributed to a child intentionally left in a vehicle by an adult, Null said. In these cases, the caregiver isn’t necessarily trying to harm the child, but instead might just be ignorant about the danger hot cars pose to children.

Further Criminalization

Joniah’s death saddened Tim Randall.

“I got a grandson who’s 3, and I don’t ever want to imagine him or any other kids going through something of that nature,” said Randall, an auto mechanic from Springdale.

He went on Facebook and started a page called “Backseat Babies” shortly after Joniah’s death. The page is dedicated to raising awareness of the danger of children left in hot cars.

Randall also is pushing Springdale City Council to adopt an ordinance making it a crime to leave a child unattended in a car for more than five minutes. Bentonville attorney Bryan Powell is working with Randall on the matter and intends to meet with Harper to discuss it. The ordinance, if passed by the council, would only apply in Springdale.

Randall’s and Powell’s goal is to see Arkansas adopt a similar law. Eighteen states have such a law, according to Null, including five of the six bordering Arkansas. Though leaving a child in a hot car could fall under the law against child endangerment, a more specific law is needed, Randall and Powell said.

“Basically, people don’t think their conduct is problematic, so that’s why we’re wanting to propose the ordinance, is to be educational,” Powell said.

State Rep. Jon Woods, R-Springdale, who will become a state senator in January representing District 7, said he was interested in seeing Randall’s proposal.

“I think with what that gentleman is proposing, his intentions are very good,” Woods said. “I like the way (the proposed ordinance) sounds. It’s really unfortunate we have to legislate responsibility and common sense. But we’re lawmakers and that’s our job.”

State Rep. Les Carnine, R-Rogers, said he’d gladly examine Randall’s proposal.

“I’d want to see the information that other states have collected,” Carnine said. “Usually there are some hearings that are held and that kind of information is provided to us. Given that scenario, I certainly would like to take a look at it.”

Uvalde Lindsey, D-Fayetteville, an outgoing state representative and state senator-elect, said legislation isn’t necessarily the answer.

“When someone says we need to pass a law to do this, we need to be very careful,” Lindsey said. “You’ve got to be careful to look at the specific legislation.”

He posed a scenario where an adult leaves his child in a vehicle merely to go inside a gasoline station to pay for gasoline. Depending on how strictly the legislation is written, that adult could be violating the law.

“How do we take care of those who are least able to take care of themselves?” Lindsey said. “We have to decide what really works, what’s in the best interest of children and families, and what’s in the best interest of society as a whole.”

Awareness

At least one local business responded to the August deaths of Joniah and Lincoln with one small step. The Allstate Insurance office in Lowell posted a sign on its front door stating, “Stop: Have you left your child or pet in the car?” in both English and Spanish. The sign remains on the door. Amanda Weeter, a licensed sales producer at the office, said community officials asked all business owners to place such a sign on their doors.

Null said spreading awareness about the danger of hot cars is the most important thing people can do to combat the problem.

Washington County Coroner Roger Morris suggests when you get out of your own car, always look into the car next to you to see if a child or animal has been left there.

If you have a baby, put a stuffed animal in the front seat to remind you the baby is in the back, he said.

Morris is part of a state initiative aimed at creating prevention and intervention models for government and community groups to reduce the number of child deaths. The Arkansas Infant and Death Review Panel has been meeting quarterly this year, reviewing three to seven unexpected deaths each time. All of the deaths are from 2010.

The group intends to study hot-car deaths, Morris said.

Mary Aitken, a pediatrician at Arkansas Children’s Hospital, said children are more susceptible than adults to extreme temperatures because they are less able to regulate their body temperature.

If people see a child alone in a car they should call 911, she said. If the situation seems dire, they should consider breaking into the car any way necessary.

“Broken glass, you can replace that.”