Gene Weingarten reports for the Washington Post on the terrifying and horrible case of Miles Harrison:
The charge in the courtroom was manslaughter, brought by the Commonwealth of Virginia. 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.
I’m not sure this is the only perspective with which to look at a case like this, but rather than asking if it “was” a crime, one might ask what one thinks could be accomplished by hitting Harrison with criminal sanctions. Do we fear that there’ll be an upswing in this sort of thing if people think they can get away with accidentally killing their children? That doesn’t seem right to me. If the issue is a belief that it’s not really an accident, that’s one thing. But if not, then I don’t see how jail time would make a horrible situation any less horrible.