What if someone went to sleep, and had left prescription drugs accessible to a child, or illegal drugs/alcohol or even household cleaning products like bleach, which a child consumed and died as a result of? Would that count as willful behaviours, or does it have to be absolutely deliberate harm?
It depends. If they knew they had left those substances there, and that they were accessible to the child and that they were doing something illegal, for example, then yes, it's willful. Willful doesn't have to be "deliberate harm" but it has to be some sort of intentional
act. That's the difference.
Here's what I quoted before regarding the definition of willful as it applies to child neglect cases: "Willful" generally means an act done with a bad purpose, without justifiable excuse, or without ground for believing it is lawful. The term denotes "'an act which is intentional, or knowing, or voluntary, as distinguished from accidental.'" The terms "bad purpose" or "without justifiable excuse," while facially unspecific, necessarily imply knowledge that particular conduct will likely result in injury or illegality.
http://www.courts.state.va.us/opinions/opncavtx/0148982.txt
So there are two Virginia appellate cases that illustrate when an act is considered "willful" and when it is not and thus, when a parent may be charged with child neglect. The first is the one I cited above. In that case, a mother left her napping 2 and four year old kids in her closed apartment, while she went to a nearby neighbor's home in the building to socialize for 15 to 20 minutes. She had left a burner on after lighting her cigarette with it on the way out. As a result, there was a fire and her children were injured with smoke inhalation.
In that case, her conduct was not found to have been willful. Thus, not child neglect.
In the second case, a mother put her almost three year old and 10 month old to bed in the house and went out all night, drinking. The kids were not left alone, it appears, but were with her boyfriend. She came home around 5:30 a.m. and went to sleep. Her boyfriend left the house around 7:00 a.m. and when he was leaving, the mother awakened and gave the kids food. She then passed out on the couch with the baby playing on the floor in front of her and the older child in her room.
Around noon, the boyfriend returned. He found the mother still passed out on the couch but with the older child watching t.v. He found the baby submerged in bathtub with clothing on top of him, dead. The 4 year old had placed him in a full bath and covered him with clothes.
The mom had known that her older child, Patricia, was very jealous of the baby and had tried to harm him several times before. The mom had been warned about not leaving the baby alone with her older child:
Prior to the fatal incident, Patricia had demonstrated jealousy and extremely dangerous aggressiveness toward Joshua. She had hit him, pushed him, choked him, and attempted to smother him. Several days earlier, Patricia had pulled Joshua into the bathtub with her. On that occasion, Barrett acknowledged that it was fortunate that she was there to save Joshua. Barrett had acknowledged before the fatal incident that there was something wrong with Patricia's attitude and behavior toward Joshua. She had been warned by others that the children required close supervision. She knew that Patricia could put Joshua in the tub and that she could run the water. The serious and likely hazard of leaving the children unsupervised was plainly foreseeable. Yet, Barrett did not place Joshua in his crib, but left him, without supervision, where he was accessible to Patricia.
http://www.courts.state.va.us/opinions/opncavtx/0833991.txt
The mom in that case was properly found guilty of child neglect however, her conviction was overturned on other grounds (failure to instruct the jury as to 'willful", for one).
Can you all see the difference? Prior knowledge that something dangerous is likely to happen, drug and or alcohol use, plain and callous disregard for the safety of the child, these are factors that go into determining whether an act or omission was "willful".
For that reason, in cases where kids are left in hot cars, if the parent is partying in a bar, for example, and left there kid in the car, they are going to be charged with neglect for sure, where it is questionable otherwise.
I think if we look further at hot car deaths, the analogy to this case would be a parent is IN the car with the child, strapped in. He or she decides to take a short nap, in the car with the child, not due to drugs or alcohol, but exhaustion. The baby dies either from getting out of the car seat of vehicle and facing some harm or heat exhaustion.
That would not be child neglect.