South Carolina Child Injury Lawyer Blog

Charleston child injury attorneys report that a Summerville man suspected of child assault has turned himself in to the police. The suspect is accused of sexually assaulting a 9-year-old girl over an extended period of time. The accused, a 40 year-old man, was charged for the alleged sexual assault to a minor on March 6 and was supposed to turn himself in, but he did not.

When he turned himself in he had multiple charges awaiting his arrival. He has been charged with two counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct with a minor and committing a lewd act upon a child under the age of 16 years old, Summerville Police Captain Jon Rogers told journalists.

The charges against the suspect were filed after the young girl told a classmate about the suspect’s inappropriate touching. The classmate told her parents who then emailed the school’s guidance counselor. The guidance counselor immediately had the student come in for a counseling session, where the counselor got the child to admit to the alleged sexual assault.

The 9-year-old girl told the counselor the abuse took place when she was left alone with the suspect and had been occurring from August 2009 until late February 2010. After the counseling session with the young girl, the counselor contacted the Police. The Police immediately filed charges against the man demanding him to turn himself in. The suspect did not turn himself in until Wednesday, March 17, twelve days after his warrant was issued.

Source: The Post and Courier- “Child assault suspect turns himself in.” March 18, 2010.

South Carolina child death lawyers advise state citizens and locals to demand their representatives to install the Child Death Review board in their local community. A child's death is traumatizing for the family and heartbreaking for the community. Many times these deaths could have been easily prevented. In order to make proactive changes many states and local communities have formed a Child Death Review system that will help pinpoint changes parents, guardians, and members of the community can make to prevent future child fatalities.

In 1978 a multi-agency review of unexplained child deaths began in Los Angeles, California. In 1997 there were multi-disciplinary teams in all 50 states, including the District of Columbia, that investigated children deaths. Typically these teams included a coroner, social services, law enforcement, medical representatives, child protective services, and mental health.

Today some states have expanded their multi-disciplinary teams from the original statewide team. These states have formed the teams that work within a community and then report their findings to the state multi-disciplinary team. The state team serves as a data collection team that reviews information and then suggests new legislation to state representatives and areas for law enforcement to focus on. This system has proven to work best because it is unrealistic for a state team to conduct a thorough investigation of all child deaths throughout the entire state. Local teams vary due to county population size and city population size. Sometimes one team will oversee multiple counties, as well as multiple teams may be needed for large counties.

These teams have been proven to be effective, because they can spend more time conducting a detailed investigation of the death of a child than law enforcement can. These findings are then are reviewed and transformed into precautionary tips that are released to the community. Child fatalities are typically preventable and the team's tips remind locals of easy precautions they can take that can save a child's life. If your community does not have a Child Death Review system currently in action write your local representatives and request them to look into the system.

Source: Injury Prevention Web-AInjury Prevention Policy- "Child Death Review and Injury Prevention."March 23, 2010.