I'm not condoning it but ease up people. Yes a kid is dead and that's terrible. If the guy did it on purpose hang 'em by his nuts.
But, it's also called human nature. If he wasn't use to dropping off the kid, he slipped into his old rut. I have two kids and forgot to drop my daughter (age 4) of one day. I had just dropped off my son at school and was taking my daughter to the daycare. Between the space of 5 miles and one exit, I'd forgotten she was in the car until she starting telling me we missed the exit.
I love my daughter to death (poor choice of words?) and wouldn't do anything to hurt her but in that small space of time, I was already dealing with traffic and the days problems. It wasn't my usual day to drop them off so as soon as I was back on the interstate it was back to my old routine.
In my case, I took the next exit and had to go all of a mile out of the way. Dropped her off and every thing was fine. Wasn't even running late.
If she had been an infant and was sleeping....who knows? I'm usually pretty good about looking around my car before I come in the office so I probaly would have notice. But how many of you honestly look in the back seat of their car before closing the car for a day.
As for charges being pressed, I'm torn. It was a terrible thing that happened and I would hate to see "I forgot" as a reason to get off if someone else read the case and wanted to get rid of their kids (very nasty but it could happen).
But do you send the guy to jail for life because his kid fell asleep and he slipped into his old pattern?
Before you say yes, how many of you forgot to get milk on the way home because you go the same way every day?