A Season to Die?

Submitted by Jack Howard on Wed, 10/07/2009 - 16:45

Almost three decades ago, a book was widely condemned for supposedly undermining advances in child welfare and abuse prevention. The book (“The Child Abuse Industry”) was a scathing attack on the state of child protective services, variously known as “CPS” around the nation…until, that is, lawsuits such as in Florida—to use one example—have caused bureaucrats to run for cover from public wrath.
 
Amidst charges of running wild, CPS programs seem to be unable to do enough, or of trying to do too much.
 
The current trial of a man in Idaho raises thorny questions of when does parental stupidity deserve to be a crime. Robert Aragon’s truck broke down in the midst of a typically cold Idaho winter in December of 2008…not so typically, the 55-year old father of two told his children (11 and 12) to walk the many miles to their destination. Only the 12-year-old boy survived; Aragon’s daughter was found buried, wrapped in a blanket of drifting snow later in that same December night.
 
During his subsequent arraignment for 2nd degree homicide, Aragon sat at the defense table, only moaning, “oh, God,” and repeatedly striking his head against the table.
In New Jersey, the public defenders association notes the bringing of child abuse and neglect charges by state case workers has limits, and that a proceeding
“…is not a criminal case. It is a civil action. You cannot be incarcerated (put in jail) or subjected to any other criminal penalty if you lose this case.”
Yet there is also a warning by the same attorneys that ‘what you say can be used against you:
“Be aware that, in some instances, the prosecutor’s office may file a separate criminal case against you based upon the same situation…
Things that happen in criminal and civil child abuse cases can affect each other. For example, admitting that you harmed your child in your civil case can affect your criminal case. And pleading guilty to abusing a child in the criminal case can affect the civil case.”
In a similar vein, the standards for child abuse and neglect caseworkers do not protect, or conversely ‘red flag,’ people who probably should be subsequently criminally prosecuted.
So it is that in Idaho, on a typically warm Idaho summer day of 2009, police are told that Robert, a diminutive, 8-year-old boy, may have wandered away to “play” in a nearby canal. Robert was on a weekend visit with his mother, although sole custody was with Robert’s father. Days later, Robert’s mother (who had lost custody of yet another child because of her horrific physical abuse of him), would appear at her arraignment, alongside her live-in boyfriend, implicated in the murder of Robert.
 

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