Pinkfreud-ga (who made the first comment below) is correct in stating
that Oklahoma does not have a _specific_ law about leaving children in
cars. However, it does have at least one law that would apply, and
that's the law on child abuse:
Oklahoma Statutes, Title 10, Chapter 71, Section 7102
1. "Abuse" means harm or threatened harm to a child's health, safety
or welfare by a person responsible for the child's health, safety or
welfare, including sexual abuse and sexual exploitation;
2. "Harm or threatened harm to a child's health or safety" includes,
but is not limited to:
a. nonaccidental physical or mental injury,
b. sexual abuse,
c. sexual exploitation,
d. neglect,
e. failure or omission to provide protection from harm or threatened
harm, or
f. abandonment;
3. "Neglect" means failure or omission to provide:
a. adequate food, clothing, shelter, medical care, and supervision,
b. special care made necessary by the physical or mental condition of
the child, or
c. abandonment;
Leaving a child in a hot car for any appreciable length of time would
clearly fall under subsection 2e, "failure or omission to provide
protection from harm or threatened harm."
The criminal penalties are outlined here:
Oklahoma Statutes Title 10, Chapter 71, Section 7115
A. Any parent or other person who shall willfully or maliciously
engage in child abuse shall, upon conviction, be guilty of a felony
punishable by imprisonment in the State Penitentiary not exceeding
life imprisonment, or by imprisonment in a county jail not exceeding
one (1) year, or by a fine of not less than Five Hundred Dollars
($500.00) nor more than Five Thousand Dollars ($5,000.00), or both
such fine and imprisonment. As used in this subsection, "child abuse"
means the willful or malicious abuse, as defined by paragraph 1 of
subsection B of Section 7102 of this title, of a child under eighteen
(18) years of age by another, or the act of willfully or maliciously
injuring, torturing or maiming a child under eighteen (18) years of
age by another.
C. Any parent or other person who shall willfully or maliciously
engage in child neglect shall, upon conviction, be punished by
imprisonment in the State Penitentiary not exceeding life
imprisonment, or by imprisonment in a county jail not exceeding one
(1) year, or by a fine of not less than Five Hundred Dollars ($500.00)
nor more than Five Thousand Dollars ($5,000.00), or both such fine and
imprisonment. As used in this subsection, "child neglect" means the
willful or malicious neglect, as defined by paragraph 3 of subsection
B of Section 7102 of this title, of a child under eighteen (18) years
of age by another.
Similarly, there is no law specifically relating to keeping animals in
hot cars, but the law on animal cruelty would apply:
Oklahoma Statutes, Title 21, Chapter 67
Section 1685: Acts of Cruelty to Animals
Any person who shall willfully or maliciously overdrive, overload,
torture, destroy or kill, or cruelly beat or injure, maim or mutilate,
any animal in subjugation or captivity, whether wild or tame, and
whether belonging to himself or to another, or deprive any such animal
of necessary food, drink or shelter; or who shall cause, procure or
permit any such animal to be so overdriven, overloaded, tortured,
destroyed or killed, or cruelly beaten or injured, maimed or
mutilated, or deprived of necessary food, drink or shelter; or who
shall willfully set on foot, instigate, engage in, or in any way
further any act of cruelty to any animal, or any act tending to
produce such cruelty, shall be guilty of a felony and shall be
punished by imprisonment in the State Penitentiary not exceeding five
(5) years, or by imprisonment in the county jail not exceeding one (1)
year, or by a fine not exceeding Five Hundred Dollars ($500.00). Any
officer finding an animal so maltreated or abused shall cause the same
to be taken care of, and the charges therefor shall be a lien upon
such animal, to be collected thereon as upon a pledge or a lien.
Clearly, leaving an animal in a car would constitute depriving an
animal of "necessary food, drink or shelter."
These laws are more vague than some people would like, but they also
provide prosecutors, judges and juries some flexibility to determine
what acts truly put a child at risk.
I hope this has been of help.
Sincerely,
Mvguy-ga
Search strategy:
To find these laws, I went to http://www.findlaw.com and followed
links until I arrived at Oklahoma statutes. Then I used these
searches to find the laws quoted above:
http://www.oscn.net/applications/oscn/search.asp?query=neglect&title=&issueDatebegin=&modifiedafter=&issueDateend=&modifiedbefore=&effectiveDate=&superseded=&CaseNumber=&court=&mandate=&judge=&act=&codetitle=&fuzziness=0&stemming=Yes&maxFiles=25&dbCodeText=&ftdb=STOKST&SUBMITTED=true
http://www.oscn.net/applications/oscn/search.asp?query=animal+and+cruelty&title=&issueDatebegin=&modifiedafter=&issueDateend=&modifiedbefore=&effectiveDate=&superseded=&CaseNumber=&court=&mandate=&judge=&act=&codetitle=&fuzziness=0&stemming=Yes&maxFiles=25&dbCodeText=&ftdb=STOKST&SUBMITTED=true
I also performed numerous other searches using terms such as
"automobile," "child" and "animal" to verify that the information in
the site referred to by Pinkfreud-ga was correct, and I could find no
specific laws dealing with the issue of hot cars. |
