This is why parents get away with things. All you have to do is say it was a mistake.
I made a mistake and forgot the baby was in the car. I made a mistake and left my prescription with the cover off on the end table. Oh I made a mistake and didn't buckle my toddler into the car seat because we were just going to the store (but its
really close only 3min away)how was I to know that someone was going to hit my car! oh I made a mistake I just ran into Walmart to return something I bought a couple of days ago. yeah I left my two toddlers in the car cause I didn't want to wake them, besides I made sure the doors were locked and a window was rolled down an inch so no one would take them. how was I to know the car would get so hot!!
Well see I'm pretty cynical about not holding people responsible because all I can think of is Casey Anthony getting off because she knew how to create "reasonable doubt." What's funny is that when a spouse kills their spouse and thinks they can get off on reasonable doubt they generally don't succeed.
But people feel so guilty about punishing a parent because they feel they have "suffered enough!"
In my life experience with a 20 year old 18 year old already out of the house I watched tons of parents who didn't give a damn about their kids on a day to day basis. If their kid died they would be crying to the hills. But on a day to day basis they didn't take care of their kids properly at all. Risky situations that would blow your mind.
One of my friends stayed with me for a time in my tiny two bedroom apartment in Brooklyn. I'm talking so small you could throw a tennis ball from the front door and hit the back of the bedrooms. And I came home once to find out from downstairs neighbor that her 5 year old and my 3 year old were found on the fire escape outside his second floor window because they climbed out the window from the fourth floor and down the fire escape while she "only left them for a minute to have a cigarette in the kitchen."
Another time I went to visit my sister and as we left the "girls party" out at a restaurant we found out that the police were at the house because my four year old had walked out the front door while her husband was babysitting him and fixing the car. He decided to take it for a test drive around the neighborhood and left him home with my other son who was 8 years old playing video games. My 8 year old is the one who found him. So this guy was 'soooo devastated and afraid when he came home" that he sent the 8 year old wandering around out in a neighborhood we'd only been to twice, filled with cul de sacs off major highways. My 8 year old found him. Nice going right.
I don't believe parents who say they "only left them for a minute" and it resulted in death. It's an exaggerated excuse.
As someone else pointed out before, we only hear about the ones that die, but I bet these people did this before. I bet in all of the stories it wasn't some RARE incident. I bet the parents that left their kids in the car were busy texting on their phone while driving anyway. And what's ridiculous IMO is that if they got into an accident while TEXTING they would be prosecuted.
If they were "texting" they didn't "Intend" to kill their kid either. So what's the difference? And the problem with making excuses for negligence that results in the death of a child is that it sets up a precedent that creates the possibility of someone deliberately doing this and pretending "they just forgot." As someone said before, how would you really know if they did or not?