To me this sort of neglect is intentional. When you choose the things Ross did you are choosing actions which take away your ability to protect your child. Given his age Cooper was fully at the mercy of his father when in his care and instead of paying attention to his son and taking that responsibility seriously Ross chose another path and his son died a horrendous death. If Ross had chosen to exercise self control for just a few more minutes Cooper wouldn't be dead.
I can't help but wonder just how much people would wonder about intent if there had been a car crash because Ross was texting as he drove and Cooper died. Or if Ross hadn't properly fastened him in and he died in a crash? As far as I am concerned Ross's distraction weaponized his car as surely as it would have if he had killed Cooper while texting and driving.
Other scenarios come to mind like what if Ross got drunk or high while Cooper was with him and the baby fell down the stairs and died because his father was passed out on the couch? What if while in his care Cooper somehow gobbled up medicine left within reach that killed him?To me those hypothetical situations all have intent because a choice is being made and it is one that lowers the standard of care a child is recieving because on the most basic level the job of a parent is to keep their child alive. The ultimate consequence of a parent's failure to do so is in fact the death of their child.
I also sense Ross and LeAnn wouldn't give a damn about intent if a similar scenario played out except we replaced Ross with a babysitter. If a babysitter was hired to take Cooper somewhere and she got so distracted by flirting with men online that she let Cooper bake to death while at a mall I doubt there would be many voices calling it a terrible accident. She would probably lose what minimal support she had if we learned midway through her shopping and texting she took some of her purchases to the car and still didn't notice a now dead Cooper. No one would care how upset she may have looked when the police questioned her. The only reactions anyone would be thinking of would be Cooper's. Poor Cooper unaware that he is on a countdown to death when he realizes the car stopped. Poor Cooper in that moment where he thinks someone is going to get him out like always. Cooper wondering why he was left. Cooper starting to feel warm,then warmer, then so hot he is profusely sweating.Cooper starting to cry because in his world crying means mommy or daddy will come fix the problem. Cooper struggling in vain to free himself until the horrible inevitable conclusion of a fully avoidable situation.
No one would find anything remotely understanble about that situation at all because the babysitter shirked her duty to the child and that lead to fatal neglect.And in my world a parent has far more of a duty to protect their child than any other sort of hired caregiver hence I have no issue finding intent in this case nor do I question why the officers saw a crime not an accident. When a child dies like Cooper did it isn't a oopsie its a murder.
And on a final note I imagine myself as Ross and know that if I had to live with wondering about every horrible second my child spent in that car while I sexted I would never in a million years view my child's death as an accident. I would know I was murderer.
The fact of the matter is that RH wasn't texting or drinking or high or engaged in any activity whatsoever other than driving his car between the time he left CFA and reaching the intersection where he didn't turn left instead of going straight.
If he had been texting or drinking or high when he didn't turn left, he'd be guilty of criminal negligence, and even then would not be presumed to have had intent.
And, there is no way to know whether or not Cooper would be alive if RH had "exercised self control for a few more minutes." That's an opinion, not a statement of fact.
It's obvious RH spent a lot of time texting that morning, including while he was in CFA, but the fact of the matter is that he didn't text between the time he left CFA and the time he reached the intersection. By the time he reached the intersection, he was already not in the left turn lane he needed to be in to take Cooper to daycare.
No one on planet earth other than RH knows what RH was thinking about in that stretch. Maybe he wasn't thinking about Ms. X or Y or Z at all. Maybe he was thinking about what he had to do when he got to work, or what to say in his 10:30 AM project progress meeting, or about meeting up with friends at a movie that night. There isn't any way to know.
And, reality is, RH had only slept a few hours the night before. Maybe the few seconds of not focusing had as much to do with being tired as anything else. Yah, yah, he was up late doing what he wasn't supposed to be doing. So what. Countless other parents routinely stay up past their bedtimes, having friends over, going out, enjoying being married, reading a good book, watching a meteor shower, or getting lost in any other of a thousand different activities that make time go by too quickly.
Yes, maybe they are tired the next day, and no, their choices of the night before do not mean they wake up with the designation "bad parent," any more than RH's choice of activity made him a bad parent when he woke up, likely tired, on the 18th.