Also Elizabeth Smart's father (man was he skewered and accused!), Somer Thompson's mother, Breann Rodriguez's dad, etc., etc..
You know, the fact that the police stated that a "hard, credible tip" led them to the child, raises alarm bells to me. Seems like something else may be going on. But in the absence of any information to the contrary, we are left with the assumption that the facts as stated are true, and operating under the assumption that this is purely a case where the mom fell asleep and the child wandered off and died, then I can explain the dynamic here. That dynamic is that some of us are willing to admit we are not perfect. Some of us are willing to admit that bad things can happen to good parents. Some of us are unwilling to accept, despite the risk otherwise, that children must be totally bubble wrapped and observed at every moment, no matter the age or circumstances, or we are "neglecting" our kids or being "negligent".
And some of us can put ourselves in the shoes of a worn out, exhausted, low income mother of a kindergartner and an infant, who works late, who took a fateful nap with her baby, while her 5 year old child, who is not known to wander, sat watching cartoons.
I call that empathy.
Not only would this conduct NOT be criminal negligence, as I cited and explained above, it would not even be considered child neglect, BTW (a totally separate charge). Napping while your kindergartner watches tv in the same house would not be chargeable as child neglect whether or not he wandered off and died:
Oh and the case that I quoted above for the definition of willful involved the appeal of a conviction for child neglect of a mother who left her almost five year old and 27 month old alone, who were napping, in an apartment, for up to half an hour while she went and socialized with a friend in the complex, after accidentally leaving a burner on that she had used to light a cigarette. A fire started and her kids suffered serious injury.
She won her appeal.
