Missouri Senate Bill No. 216, filed this month, also creates a new crime of child endangerment :
568.050. 1. A person commits the crime of endangering the welfare of a child in the second degree if:
. . . .
(5) He or she operates a vehicle in violation of . . . section 577.022, RSMo, while a child less than seventeen years old is present in the vehicle.
. . . .
3. Endangering the welfare of a child in the second degree is a class A misdemeanor . . .
Section 577.022 is the proposed new crime of driving with drugs inside you. So if you have any amount of controlled substance (or its metabolites) in your body, it would be a crime to drive a car with a child aboard.
My original post on this bill noted that the new law would pretty well obsolete the driver’s licenses of marijuana smokers. I said “get a bike.” But where do you stash a couple car seats on a bike? (Actually, I’ll bet some entrepreneur has this worked out already.)
I should note that child endangerment for driving drunk with a child in the car was already on the books. Truth is, however, that neither the Missouri DWI child endangerment law, nor this proposed one, are likely to be of ANY use to law enforcement.
But let’s save that for the next post.
Nikki Russell
June 14, 2007 at 4:57 pm
This is ridiculous. I am being charged with a class D felony for endangering the welfare of a child for having a joint in the house and they say we were driving smoking but as I understand it this is going to be considered a misdemeanor. Well another case of Scott county being on their own set of laws….doesn’t surprise me the crooked bastards
fed-up
May 28, 2009 at 3:30 pm
i know. the family court make their own laws . they can do anything they want without answering to anyone. i am going through the same thing. big brother is trying to tell me how to live my life. what clothes to wear, not smoking around my kids(i’ve done it for 15 yrs. now), who i can/cannot talk to, etc. to hell with the system. i will probably lose my home because of the idiots.
jenlamb35
January 4, 2010 at 1:35 pm
You two are freaking idiots – you SHOULD lose your home AND your kids if you honestly think you are a victim! We law abiding citizens don’t put ourselves in these situations. So if you want to break the laws and are stupid enough to get caught – shame on you – not the people trying to save your kids from their parents’ stupidity.
2nd Law Abiding Citizen
June 11, 2010 at 3:43 pm
From another law abiding citizen, I sure hope jenlamb35 does NOTHING WRONG, pick your nose the wrong way and watch out your kids and home are gone! Bad things happen to good people and ACCIDENTS do happen. That does not mean they need to lose their kids! Who takes them then, the STATE where more bad things could happen to the kids. The state should not be able to take your kids for a one time accident, anyone ever hear of probation and DFS doing more follow up on home visits first!