By LARA SETRAKIAN
ABC News Law & Justice Unit

While juggling household tasks, single mom Jovanna Shiriver, 18, left her infant daughter in the tub with another child while she checked on cooking rice. When she returned, the baby was underwater and barely breathing.


More than a month later, the baby is in the hospital and her mother in jail. Now an inmate at New York City’s Rikers Island jail, Shiriver has been indicted on two counts of felony reckless endangerment and two counts misdemeanor child endangerment.

“She is very despondent, very depressed. … The judge ordered a suicide watch,” Shiriver’s attorney Carl Becker told ABC News.

“It was an accident,” Shiriver said in a jailhouse interview with The New York Times. “I don’t belong here.” Shiriver is fighting for her release, arguing that a momentary lapse in parenting should not cost a young mother her child and her freedom.

The Brooklyn District Attorney’s office, which filed the charges, was not immediately available for comment.

Experts in child welfare law say that while parents have legal obligations to protect their children, Shiriver’s case is an example of criminalizing an inexperienced and overwhelmed mother.

“There’s no clear line where the parent crosses from poor parenting to criminal behavior,” said Howard Davidson, director of the American Bar Association’s Center on Children and the Law.

States, however, draw that line in different ways; some state explicitly which actions constitute neglect. In New Hampshire a mother was recently prosecuted for leaving her baby in a car for 15 minutes. In Minnesota a father was charged with assault for shaking his infant son while trying to quiet him.

“The trend nationwide is to become more and more strict,” said Vivek Sankaran, a clinical professor of child advocacy law at the University of Michigan.

Sankaran says one solution to cases of poverty-based neglect is to assist mothers who lack the resources to balance parenting and other responsibilities.

“We should provide parenting classes, nurse aides for young moms. As a society we’re not offering supports and then we’ll wait to jump in when something like this happens,” she said.

Shiriver remains in jail, waiting for authorities to set a date for her next court appearance. Her lawyer said the 11-month-old baby is now in stable condition. Her condition is improving, but she is still in the hospital and on a ventilator.
SOURCE

Bookmark It

Hide Sites