Seat Belt Law

Re “Seat Belt Use at Issue in Trial,” July 20: Is this what we really want when we say we want to be tough on crime? To convict a suburban mother, who while driving her children to school has an accident and her baby is killed because she neglected to buckle them up? I don’t think so.

If we as a society can’t differentiate between tragic mistakes and true crimes, we need help. Why would the CHP officer determine it appropriate to question the woman “in a hospital emergency room as she sobbed and clutched Alex’s body moments after Alex had been pronounced dead”? Why would the district attorney determine that it is a good use of our tax money to prosecute this case?

Have we truly become so lacking in compassion, so lacking in humanity, that we can’t differentiate between mistakes and crimes?

SUE HAFFLEY

Long Beach