纽约时报 孩子闷死车内 是意外还是犯罪?(1)（在线收听）

When a Child Dies in a Hot Car, Is It an Accident, or Is It a Crime?

孩子闷死车内，是意外还是犯罪？

By Sharon Otterman

文/莎伦·沃特曼

A father in upstate New York dropped off his two older children at school in 2014,

2014年，纽约北部一位父亲将两个稍大的孩子送到学校，

and then parked his car outside his house and went to work.

之后将车停在家门口便干活去了。

He forgot that his 15-month old daughter was still in her car seat, and she died of heatstroke.

忘了他15个月大的女儿还在车里，小女孩儿便因中暑离开了人世。

Two years later, a similar death occurred in another upstate town

两年后，类似的悲剧在纽约北部的另一个城镇重演——

when a baby boy sweltered to death in his car seat while his father, a police officer, did chores.

一名小男孩儿同样因为过热死在了他的座椅里，当时，他的父亲，一名警察，正在做家务。

Then last week, a social worker from Rockland County, a suburb northwest of New York City, delivered his 4-year-old to daycare

上周，纽约市西北部郊区罗克兰郡的一名社会工作者将他四岁的孩子送到托儿所后

and then he went to work at a Bronx hospital, leaving his year-old twins to die in his car in the heat.

去了布朗克斯的一家医院上班，被遗忘在车内的一岁双胞胎也在酷暑中失去了生命。

Though the tragic incidents were jarringly similar, the decisions by prosecutors who handled each of the cases were not.

这些悲剧惊人地相似，处理每一起案件的检察官的决定却各不相同。

Prosecutors charged the social worker with manslaughter in the deaths of his twins,

失去了双胞胎的那名社会工作者被判了过失杀人罪，

while the other two fathers upstate never faced charges.

北部的其他两名父亲却自始至终都没有受到任何指控。

The wide variation in charges highlight the complex and fraught nature of the decisions confronting prosecutors — in New York and nationally —

指控的巨大差异也凸显了检察官们——不止纽约，全国的检察官都是如此——需要面临何等复杂及令人头痛的抉择：

who must decide whether to indict grieving parents who said they simply had forgotten that they had left a young child in a hot car,

要不要起诉那些悲痛欲绝，口口声声说着自己只是忘了把年幼的孩子留在了温度很高的车内的父母，

a nightmarish phenomenon that claims about three dozen lives a year across the country.

这一噩梦般的现象每年都会夺走全国30多条性命。

Those decisions are influenced by many factors:

然而，左右检察官们决定的因素很多：

first, a desire among some prosecutors to extend mercy to parents they believe made a tragic mistake,

其一，部分检察官希望对他们认为犯下了悲剧性错误的父母施以怜悯；

next, scientific questions about faulty memory

其二，有关记忆出现的差错的科学问题，

and legal considerations about whether the state can prove the parent is guilty of a crime.

其三，对政府能否证明父母有罪的法律考虑。

Decisions are often made in the face of inflamed public opinion on both sides of the debate.

检察官们往往要在辩论两方面的公众观点都很激烈的情况下做出抉择。

As a result, some parents who forget their children in cars face no charges,

所以才会出现部分把孩子忘在车里的父母没有受到任何指控，

others are charged with felonies like involuntary manslaughter

其他人则被控过失杀人等重罪，

and still others are charged with misdemeanors, like child endangerment.

还有一些人被控危害儿童等轻罪这样彼此不一的结果。

“All in all, there is no rhyme or reason to how these cases are treated,”

“总而言之，这些案件的处理方式都是没有道理和规律可循的，”

said Amber Rollins, the director of KidsandCars.org,

KidsandCars.org的负责人安布尔·罗林斯说道，

which is an organization that has analyzed 833 pediatric deaths caused by heatstroke in hot cars since the mid-1990s.

该组织分析发现，自上世纪90年代中期以来，已经有833名儿童死于车内中暑。

In the Bronx case, the social worker, Juan Rodriguez,

布朗克斯的案件中，社会工作者胡安·罗德里格斯

told the police he was convinced he had dropped the twins off safely at their day care

告诉警方他确信自己把大儿子送到托儿所后

after he had dropped his older son off at another child-care provider.

把那对双胞胎也安全送到了托儿所。

But he had not.

然而事实并非如此。

While the babies slept, he drove his usual route to the Bronx,

孩子们睡觉的时候，他按往常的路线开车去了布朗克斯，

parked outside a veterans’ hospital where he worked and put in a full day, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., the police said.

把车停在他工作的一家退伍军人医院外面后，就从早上8点一直工作到了下午4点，警方透露。

He had started to drive home before he realized the babies, having died of heatstroke, were still in the back seat.

他开车回家的路上才发现已经中暑身亡的两个孩子还坐在后座上。

I blanked out,” he told the police. “I killed my babies.”

“当时我都懵了，”他告诉警察。“我害死了我自己的孩子。”