Wrong, but not criminal?

A dead month-old boy. Parents who said they could not remember details because they had smoked crack cocaine. No charges. Huh?

It happened Thanksgiving weekend. Neal Bryan and Sonia Thomas called Boca Raton Fire-Rescue to their home that Saturday afternoon when the undiapered baby was not breathing. About 30 minutes later, the baby was pronounced dead. According to Boca Raton police, Mr. Bryan and Ms. Thomas said they had been smoking $500 worth of crack for three days. Police charged them with neglect. In December, Palm Beach County prosecutors said they could not press charges but would wait for a toxicology report on the baby.

That report came back last week, and it showed that the baby was cocaine-free and well-fed. Medicine that he had been prescribed was in his system at the proper level. So prosecutors dropped the charges. Boca Raton Police Chief Andrew Scott told the Boca Raton News that the judicial system is "broken." Mayor Steve Abrams called the decision an "outrage."

They're wrong, frustrating as that is. Police took no blood samples from the parents, leaving no way to independently verify their statements, which they recanted. Chief Scott says it "was not protocol" to take blood. Nothing in the medical examiner's report gave prosecutors evidence because the autopsy could not determine cause of death. There were no other witnesses.

This case illustrates the constant tension between police, who can arrest on "probable" cause, and prosecutors, who must charge on "beyond reasonable doubt." Chief Scott, who griped this week about "idiotic interpretations" of the law by judges, Mayor Abrams and State Attorney Barry Krischer are going to meet and discuss the case. Perhaps they can agree on this key point: When a child seems to die needlessly, outrage is fine, but evidence is better.