The 2010 Pulitzer Prize Winner for Feature Writing was Gene Weingarten of the Washington Post, for his rather lengthy article on the horror and legal issues surrounding parents who have forgotten their children in the backseats of cars.
Rightfully so, the Pulitzer Prize website notes that this is a haunting story, and one that is full of the emotional torment of parents who make one fatal mistake.
It focuses on Miles Harrison, a man described as both an amiable person and a conscientious father. Up until that day in July. Weingarten writes that
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.
This is an awful tale, but one that is not the least bit unusual. This has happened more times than anyone wants to admit. It’s a terrifying scenario, but one that grows as parents try to balance the multitude of things going on each day in modern life. In the days of Blackberries and constant emails, of work leaching into private life, of multi-tasking on the drive to work, these things happen. Oddly, part of the reason is because of the push to keep children safe by forcing them to ride in the backseat. Weingarten states:
Two decades ago, this was relatively rare. But in the early 1990s, car-safety experts declared that passenger-side front airbags could kill children, and they recommended that child seats be moved to the back of the car; then, for even more safety for the very young, that the baby seats be pivoted to face the rear.
What’s fascinating about this article is the focus on the personal and emotional penance these individuals face. According to the law, they are often charged with manslaughter. At least sometimes. Although the facts are nearly identical in every case, statistically the numbers don’t work out. Weingarten notes that:
According to statistics compiled by a national childs' safety advocacy group, in about 40 percent of cases authorities examine the evidence, determine that the child's death was a terrible accident -- a mistake of memory that delivers a lifelong sentence of guilt far greater than any a judge or jury could mete out -- and file no charges. In the other 60 percent of the cases, parsing essentially identical facts and applying them to essentially identical laws, authorities decide that the negligence was so great and the injury so grievous that it must be called a felony, and it must be aggressively pursued.
The distinction appears to be with the state prosecutor. Usually, when ruled an accident, the DA says that there was no intent to commit a crime and that this was just a tragic accident. In others, the DA states that intent is not an issue because it was negligent.
Harrison was found not guilty. But that seems to barely register with him. The parents in these situations punish themselves far more. The article changes its focus onto two women, Lyn Balfour and Mary Parks. Balfour’s tale is depressing and yet poignant. She was charged with second-degree murder for forgetting her son. And she fought it. And won. That charge requires intent, where is involuntary manslaughter would not.
From a strictly legal viewpoint, the prosecution of those involved in these incidents is discretionary. There is little to be said beyond the fact that it is up to the individual state prosecutors to decide whether or not to make a case of it. The reasons for choosing to prosecute are their own, and one that result in tremendous repercussions. While many argue that these parents deserve to be held accountable for their mistake, many others state that this is an accident that can happen to anyone. And more importantly, they note that the private hell and torment that these parents go through far exceeds any criminal charge.
[Source: Washington Post]
