Fatal Distraction: Forgetting a Child in the Backseat of a Car Is a Horrifying Mistake. Is It a Crime?

Powerful journalistic storytelling. There’s no way to tell this story without being disturbing. And then there’s the big twist that comes in from left field at the end… stunning.

No significant facts were in dispute. Miles Harrison, 49, was an
amiable person, a diligent businessman and a doting, conscientious
father until the day last summer — beset by problems at work, making
call after call on his cellphone — he forgot to drop his son, Chase,
at day care. The toddler slowly sweltered to death, strapped into a car
seat for nearly nine hours in an office parking lot in Herndon in the
blistering heat of July.

It was an inexplicable, inexcusable mistake, but was it a crime? That was the question for a judge to decide.– Gene Weingarten, The Washington Post