CHILD NEGLECT CHARGES ARE OFTEN TOUGH TO PROVE

BRADENTON -- Drug needles were scattered around the house and the
refrigerator did not work. Rotten food clung to dirty dishes. A
notice on the door said the power was about to be turned off.

The authorities called the living conditions at Luz M. Jaime's house
in Bradenton deplorable, and Manatee County sheriff's investigators
arrested Jaime, 40, on a child neglect charge.

A few miles away, Jaime's 11-year-old daughter was living at a
reputed safe-haven for prostitutes. Jaime knew the man running the
escort service there, and she believed her daughter would be safe in
his company.

Despite what appear to be egregious circumstances, the state
recently declined to prosecute the child neglect charge. Prosecutors
said the state could not prove at trial that Jaime knew her behavior
created an imminent, potentially life-threatening danger for her
daughter, who was not physically injured.

Prosecutors in Florida often abandon child neglect and abuse charges
because the burden of proof has been set high by the appellate
courts. The dropped charges are a constant source of frustration for
law enforcement officers.

Criminal charges rooted in cases of so-called "simple neglect,"
where a person shows a temporary lapse of sound judgment, have been
deemed unconstitutional. The appellate courts have shown a
preference toward resolving abuse and neglect allegations in
family court, not in the criminal arena.

Still, not every neglect and abuse charge is dropped. Cases
involving seriously injured children are routinely prosecuted. And
prosecutors and law enforcement officers say the interests of the
children -- which includes removing the victims from their parents
- -- are paramount.

"What's most important, on everyone's mind, is that the children are
safe. That helps out any frustration, knowing that the kids are
safe," said Capt. Kris Ministral, who heads the Sheriff's Office
child protection services unit.

A relative of Luz Jaime in New York has expressed interest in
adopting Jaime's son and two daughters, who are under the age of 13,
according to court records.

After the dropped charge, Jaime did not walk away unpunished. She
was sentenced this month to three years in prison and to a year of
probation for violating her probation in a Manatee County theft case.

"Drugs have affected my attitude, my outlook and my lifestyle,"
Jaime said in a jailhouse letter to a judge. "I know that I have a
chronic drug problem and have become a drug offender, not
necessarily a criminal."

In 2000, the 2nd District Court of Appeal in Lakeland, which
oversees courts in Manatee, Sarasota and Charlotte counties,
reversed a child neglect conviction against a Hillsborough County
man whose home was in worse condition than the house in the 600
block of 68th Avenue West where Jaime lived.

At David Arnold's trailer, a newspaper shielded a knife on the
floor. Nails protruded from a board. A shredded mattress in the
child's room exposed the coils. An investigator wrote about the
"skittering" cockroaches and the "grimy, smelly and repulsive" odor
in the house.

The appellate court said the facts did not show a "reasonably
expected" potential risk for serious harm. A mere potential for
injury is not enough to secure a conviction. A person's neglect, the
court said, must be willful.

"It is apparent that child neglect is a difficult (but we think not
impossible) crime to prove," an appellate court judge, Darryl
Casanueva, wrote in the opinion, which is routinely cited in dropped
neglect cases.

In some cases, a neglect charge is reduced and prosecuted as the
misdemeanor crime of contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
That happened in a recent Sarasota case in which a mother was
charged with neglect for leaving her children at a drug house.

Tamara D. Lightfoot, 23, was sentenced to probation. Family members
had made several abuse complaints this year against Lightfoot.

Julie Binkley, an assistant state attorney in Bradenton, declined
the child neglect charge against Jaime in part because jurors were
not likely to deem the facts worse than those against Arnold.

Jaime's daughter, according to sheriff's reports, said she enjoyed
living at the known-prostitution house in the 4000 block of Ninth
Street East in Bradenton because she was allowed to use a computer there.

Her mother called on occasion, checking in. One time, Jaime asked
her daughter whether anyone had touched her. The girl said she was
not being abused, and so Jaime allowed her to stay there longer.

The girl said she wanted to come home, but Jaime reportedly said
"she had too much going on" at her house to allow her daughter to
return, according to sheriff's reports.

At the prostitution house, the girl said people were "fighting" over her.

"I also don't like being around the drugs, and all the strange
people are coming over, staying for a few minutes and leaving,"
Jaime's daughter told investigators. "I miss my mom."

Authorities said the girl cut her foot after stepping on a crack
pipe at the house. She said she washed her foot but did not get
medical treatment.

Jaime admitted using crack cocaine and heroin the night before she
was arrested. She told a sheriff's deputy that she is unfit to raise children.

She said in her letter to a judge that she needs to turn her life around.

"I am a good woman with strong values," Jaime said in her note,
which was filed a week after the state abandoned the neglect case.