Mom Gets House Arrest After Son Dies

[The Straight Story]

Mom Gets House Arrest After Son Dies

STUART, Fla. -- A woman whose toddler died after she left him in a truck for several hours has been sentenced to two years of house arrest.

Nellier Lima, 26, also was sentenced Wednesday to 10 years of probation for aggravated manslaughter. Martin Circuit Judge Larry Schack ordered Lima to enroll in a parenting class and follow a plan with the state Department of Children & Families to reunite her with her 6-year-old daughter.

"This was very difficult for her and for all of us," Lima's mother, Salena Mota said.

Lima was unloading packages in the back of her truck, when she found her 21-month-old son Harold unresponsive in his car seat Aug. 10, police said.

http://www.local6.com/news/10388086/detail.html

[radfringe]

1. sorry but she should get

truck arrest - 2 years in the back of the truck strapped into a car seat

[Kagemusha]

4. Jail costs a lot of money, whatever people deserve or not.

I don't like faulting judges for trying to find alternatives where they feel it's appropriate. I just hope it's the right decision.

[valerief]

6. Good call! nt

[pnwmom]

8. There's more to this story than you get from the OP.

It's in post #7 below.

[Limelight]

2. Unbelieveable...

This bitch deserves to go to JAIL for doing something so incredibly stupid! People KNOW you can't leave an infant in a car and to do it for as long as she did? C'mon...

Let me guess... the chick has to be white cuz if she was any shade of brown known to man they'd have sent her ass to jail.

Wait, ok, to be fair let me check......



Gee... What a shock.

[pnwmom]

7. Maybe you should learn some facts before making a judgment.

This scenario is all too understandable. Her race has nothing to do with it. In fact, almost the same thing happened to a father in California a couple of years ago, and he didn't go to prison either.

http://www.tcpalm.com/tcp/local_news/article/0,2545,TCP_16736_5161326,00.html

"The heart-wrenching saga of Harold Lima began Aug. 10 when his mother, 26, realized she'd left the boy in his car seat for more than eight hours as she went to work and then shopping at the Dollar General store on East Ocean Boulevard.

"Stuart police later said Lima had reversed her routine, dropping her daughter at school before taking Harold to day care because the baby was sleeping soundly and she didn't want to wake him. But she forgot the boy was in his car seat and went to work cleaning a house and shopping at Dollar General.

"Store employee Jami Hall found the 21-month-old lifeless in his mother's vehicle. Hall tried in vain to revive the boy.

"Hall would later lead a fund-raising effort to help pay for the funeral since the family is of modest financial means."

[Nicole]

13. What a racist thing to say!

For the record, that "white chick" happens to be Brazilian. I'm not sure what color her skin is & it shouldn't matter. This is a horrible tragedy any way you look at it.

[elocs]

3. The sad thing is that this will happen again and again.

There is no limit to the danger which parents will put their children into either through benign or deliberate neglect or criminal behavior. The people who should care and protect children are the ones most likely to harm them.

[Warpy]

5. ..... or through simple sleep deprivation

which may have been the case for this woman.

Tell you what, guys, you stay up for the next four nights with no naps during the day and we'll see what you forget.

I'm surprised more kids aren't killed like this.

If she'd left the kid in the car while she partied in some bar it might be a different call. This sounds more like a working mother with a lot on her plate and no day care.

[pnwmom]

9. This wasn't any form of neglect. Just a tragic mistake.

Parents get tired and go into auto-pilot. That's what happened to her. See post #7 for more info.

[elocs]

10. A definition of neglect:

" To fail to care for or attend to properly." Although it is a tragic mistake, it is a form of unintended neglect. The mother did not intend for the toddler to die, but through her actions she failed to care for or to attend to properly her child. No matter how it happened it is a tragedy and will happen again. Little children cannot care for themselves and are at the mercy of parents and adults to care for them. This woman needs no jail time because her child's death will haunt her the rest of her life.

[pnwmom]

11. The mother didn't even intend to leave her child in the car.

She had reversed the order of dropping off her two children, and she got mixed up. Most people who knew the facts wouldn't call this neglect. There was no indication that she was careless or indifferent. She was trying to take care of her kids, and she made a mistake.

Parents are human. Especially when they're tired, they can make disastrous mistakes.

To give you an example, I can remember once, as I started down a stairs, almost losing my footing. I felt a chill as I realized how easy it would have been to have lost my grip on my baby and sent her pitching down the stairs. In that case, I would have failed to care for her properly, but I wouldn't have been guilty of neglect.

[elocs]

12. She neglected to remove the child from the vehicle.

It was unintentional neglect. "Unintentional" + "neglect"= "unintentional neglect". She didn't intend to leave the child in the vehicle, but she neglected to remove the child from the vehicle.

[pnwmom]

14. So? If I had lost my footing,

I'd have unintentionally thrown my child down the stairs. That still wouldn't equal unintentional neglect. It would have been a terrible accident.

By your definition, whenever something bad occurred to a child, the parent would have failed to care properly for the child, and would be guilty of neglect.

[elocs]

15. Excuse me if I end this now. This is pointless. X