True, but I did encounter a Tucson in a parking lot and I did the closest thing I could Ross's light-bulb-toss and I couldn't tell you if there was kid in the back.
Maybe if you stay home all day with kids, or find nothing as fascinating as all-things "kid," then forgetting Coop seems totally impossible. The fact is, as Leanna has said, kids get forgotten all the time. Not everyone that forgets a kid gets life plus 32.
"People forget kids all the time??"
Are you serious??? Forgetting a child in a perilous, deadly situation for HOURS resulting in their horrific and tortuous deaths do NOT happen all the time. I have three children: 9, 6, and 3 that I have to get off to separate places before I go to work. Habits and routines get broken all the time in the real world---I'm so sick of the routine-breaking excuse---that doesn't excuse one from being irresponsible.
I do BELIEVE it is possible for a parent to forget their child in a hot car. However, it is NEVER an accident. It is ALWAYS negligence. Whether you are a parent, grandparent, babysitter, aunt, uncle---whatever, and you have taken it upon yourself to be entrusted with the care of helpless infant or toddler, and then your proceed to be irresponsible enough to allow yourself to forget his/her existence so long that they suffer to death for hours in a hot car---that is the definition of negligence. You (the proverbial you of course) are the adult. You are the one responsible. You shirked your responsibilities---intentional or not, it is not something to be brushed off and we all move on. You need to stand before a jury of your peers, prosecuted, and promptly put in prison for the minimum of negligent manslaughter. Minimum.
Kind of like, if I accidentally take a Benadryl (say I meant to take my Effexor, but grabbed the wrong bottle), I drive my car, I feel myself getting sleepy, and I unintentionally fall asleep and unintentionally hit a pedestrian. It wasn't intentional, but it was NOT an accident. It was irresponsible, reckless, and I, as an adult, should've known that as soon as I felt drowsy I should've gotten off the road. And guess what? I would be arrested and charged appropriately.
Likewise, an adult entrusted with the care of child should absolutely have that child in the forefront of their brain, they need to make the choice to keep that child in their working memory, they need to make sure they verify the car is empty before proceeding to lock the vehicle and walk away for hours on end. They, as an adult should know enough to check, double-check, triple check. I am a mother of three small children, I place my teacher bag at the base on my youngest's carseat--that forces me to look into his carseat before exiting my vehicle everyday. Before that, I habitually check my review mirror as I round the corner before turning off at my school.
I am sorry, prosecutions need to be sought in every single solitary case of these neglectful, irresponsible care-givers.
With that said, Ross did it on purpose. The preponderance of evidence pointed to the only REASONABLE conclusion being intent. He deserves his life sentence, and honestly he deserves worse. For the record, the manner of Cooper's death was Leanna's worst fear, in her words "we talked about it all they time." If they talked about it all the time and feared it--that makes it even MORE LIKELY he did this intentionally because people who fear things take steps to prevent it. Just like I do, I'm deathly scared of forgetting my child in a hot car (because of this case), so I have multiple checks in place. I don't believe for one second Ross "feared" hot car deaths immensely, or this never would have happened.
He was very intent on interviewing me because I drove 8 hours one-way to be there at the sentencing. It was an incredible experience, and I'm glad I was there to represent Cooper. Although, I wish I had stayed on the defense side of he courtroom because I would have been recorded the entire time. When we moved to the prosecution side (we were confused, lol), we managed to sit behind this big dude and you can only see the outline of my hair and the shoulder of my pink jacket. 
