A Push for Kieran's Law

Rule lets parents check many nannies' records

Newsday
By: Zachary R. Dowdy
9/29/00

Meltzer, Lippe, Goldstein & Schlissel, LLP and Schlissel, Ostrow, Karabatos, Poepplein& Taub, PLLC joined Nassau County Executive Thomas Gulotta yesterday to highlight a law designed to protect children by providing parents with criminal record history information about a potential nanny.

The drive to raise awareness about Kieran's Law, a 2-year-old state law that passed unanimously in the state Senate and Assembly, allows parents who are hiring a nanny for 15 hours a week or more to access the job seeker's criminal history records.

"We want to make Kieran's Law more user-friendly," said Richard Lippe, a partner at Meltzer, Lippe, Goldstein and Schlissel, one of the two law firms spearheading the effort to encourage the use of the little-known law. "Most of us have children. A few of us have grandchildren. This law hits close to home."

Kieran's Law was named after 10-month-old Kieran Dunne of Rye, who was killed in February, 1993, after his nanny threw him across a room.

The nanny, Ann Franklin, admitted in court that she hurled Kieran after he grabbed her hair. She was sentenced to 8 1/3 to 25 years in prison. Franklin had been wanted on petty theft charges before she was hired by Kieran's parents, a fact that Kieran's parents didn't know.

Despite the high-profile case and the subsequent law, few parents are aware of the measure.

It allows parents who obtain the consent of their prospective nannies to have them fingerprinted at a local police station.

The prints are then sent to the state Department of Criminal Justice Services, which runs a background check and supplies the results to the parents.

Yesterday's news conference was designed to reiterate that the fingerprinting should be done by trained professionals, not well-meaning parents who may think they should perform the process on a kitchen table.

"You can see how clear these prints are," said Gulotta, observing the results of fingerprints lifted from a nanny in Syosset.

The effort to promote use of Kieran's Law was launched by law firms Meltzer, Lippe, Goldstein and Schlissel and Schlissel, Ostrow, Karabatos, Poepplein and Taub.

"If one child is saved by the use of Kierna's Law, we will have succeeded," said Elena Karabartos, a matrimonial attorney with Schlissel, Ostrow.