DEATHS l Deciding who will face prosecution
were filed.
Did an upscale address prompt prosecutors to treat the two women so differently?
Definitely not, prosecutors say. While the background of a caregiver is part of the equation, they say far bigger considerations are the degree of endangerment and the circumstances of each case.
But across the South Bay, people like Loretta Burns, a 48- year-old Saratoga mom, wonder, and are pushing for compassion for Hatton.
‘‘What makes the difference?’’ asked Burns. ‘‘If you are a low-income single mom and babysitter in South San Jose juggling three kids and you let go of the 2- year-old to pick up the 3-month-old, you get arrested, put in jail and face felony charges when tragedy happens.
‘‘If you live in Woodside, and your toddler drowns in your fountain because you’ve lost track of him for five minutes, it is a tragic accident. No arrest, no jail, no charges.’’
Chief Assistant District Attorney Karyn Sinunu said the difference in the cases is that Hatton willfully put Alexander in danger when she left him and his brother alone and went back across the tracks Nov. 21 to get her own baby in a stroller.
‘‘It has nothing to do with socioeconomic background,’’ Sinunu said. ‘‘Everyone would agree that leaving a child on the edge of a railroad track with an oncoming train is endangering the life of that child, just as leaving a child on the edge of a freeway would endanger the life of that child.’’
Affluent parents who endanger their children are charged as well, said Sinunu, pointing to the case of Brian Gilbert, a physician’s son, who was convicted of involuntary manslaughter after he accidentally left his infant son to die in a hot car in July 2001 while he watched Japanese anime ´ cartoons for three hours.
But Sinunu and other prosecutors concede that the decision to charge a parent is a complex judgment call that must take into account not only the facts of a child’s death but the circumstances of a caregiver’s life. Prosecutors said they are mindful of the feelings of surviving family members — who sometimes demand justice, as in the case of Arriaga’s mother, but other times ask for leniency. But it is not a determining factor.
Neither is the exact relationship of the caregiver to the child — parent, babysitter or distant relative — as long as the caregiver is in a position of ‘‘care or custody’’ of the child.
Decisions to charge can vary from county to county and are also influenced by community sentiment — and by whether a jury can be expected to sympathize with careless caregivers or to blame them, prosecutors said.
Last year, the San Mateo County District Attorney decided not to charge an obese mother who fell asleep on the couch with her baby on her lap and rolled over and suffocated the child.
‘‘The baby had been ill, and the parent had been rocking the baby to sleep,’’ said Steve Wagstaffe, the chief deputy district attorney. Wagstaffe said he believed most jurors would deem the death an accident.
In contrast, during the past four years the Santa Clara County District Attorney has charged two women who fell asleep with their children and ended up suffocating them.
Unlike in San Mateo case, the cases in which the mothers were charged involved drugs and alcohol.
On July 28, 2002, Jiovanna Sanchez’s 9-month-old daughter Leydi was found wedged between a mattress and a headboard. ‘‘I knew she was drinking because I saw her drinking,’’ Sanchez’s friend Trina Alvarado told a grand jury in September 2002. ‘‘She told me: ‘You know what? I’m already drunk. I’m going to go to sleep with the baby in my sister’s room.’’
The second case involved a mother who had been bingeing on methamphetamine.
In deciding to charge the two women, prosecutors compared their behavior ‘‘to what we would expect to be the conduct of an ordinarily prudent person,’’ Deputy District Attorney Dan Nishigaya said.
Nishigaya said such parents are charged with the deaths of their children because prosecutors have a duty to enforce a certain standard of care. There is also an obligation ‘‘to acknowledge when a crime has been committed against an innocent human being,’’ he said.
But Christina Burroughs, CEO of InnVision, which serves at-risk families, said accused caregivers like Hatton can also be victims.
‘‘We do need to protect children,’’ Burroughs said, but not necessarily by putting parents in prison.
Burroughs said she has known many women in crisis like Hatton. ‘‘These women are so fragile,’’ she said. ‘‘They are young. They haven’t been given much guidance. Many of them have been traumatized because of domestic violence or some other crisis in their life.’’
Burroughs said she’d like to see society respond with support, not criminal charges, when troubled parents make calamitous choices.
‘‘There’s something wrong with our system and if we don’t fix it the cycle will continue, and it will lead to more tragic accidents,’’ Burroughs said. Contact Elise Ackerman at eackerman@mercury news.com or (408) 271-3774.