Many people live with the weight of guilt for their failures, it doesn't preclude them from just punishment by a jury of their peers.

And I suspect that a jury of their peers, in this case, would be horrified and filled with dread and wouldn't convict them of anything.

See, this is the thing. Technically, you're right. However, after ruling out deliberate intent, the whole idea of sending someone to prison for inadvertently leaving a child to bake to death is absurd. I'll bet a lot of these people WOULD go to jail for six months, a year, three years, ten years, whatever...if only it would bring back the baby.

Sure, their negligence should be an example. And it is. That horrible moment of realization and/or discovery is a far more effective deterrent to this kind of future negligence on the part of others than a prison sentence could ever be.

More valuable are the comments here that not only confess fears of exactly this outcome but offer practical suggestions for ensuring it doesn't.

Bingo.

The fact that you can't understand "people who leave their pets (or children) in the car in summer" doesn't mean you won't someday be one of them. I'll bet most of them couldn't understand that either before it happened to them.

It doesn't happen all that often? Most deadly accidents don't happen all that often. The people who killed themselves, or others, in deadly accidents are not the majority of those we know. That goes to show that, all in all, we're all taking quite good care of each other. Including those who have the misfortune of actually going through such accidents at some point in their lives.

The naysayers here seem to believe everything is controllable in life, and if shit happens someone is to blame. Life is a bit more complicated than that, though.

You're quite entitled to your opinions. But here's the thing: you are just as lucky as all the other of us of not having killed anybody or anything you loved by accident. You may feel entitled or protected by your sense of whatever procedures you have in your life to avert such accidents (the old 'it never could happen to me' feeling), but as one poster said above who always thought of himself as a worry-wart who always, always, always took good care of not letting accidents happen, well, accidents will happen anyway. Hubris, ate.

For those who are totally defending all of the parents, have you not noticed how many parents ARE killing their inconvenient children?

Indeed, I have heard several reports of this phenomenon. But it doesn't change what I say, in the sense that I think (hope?) such cases are not what this article is about. If intent to kill is present, then this is simply murder. When however one has a tragedy, then it's a totally different situation. I don't see how anyone could imagine that feeling empathy for the latter would imply any level of support whatsoever for the former.

I hope that all of us who have had those "near misses" will reflect on the memory not only to become more mindful but also to remember how extraordinarily lucky we are.

Not long ago we had snow that actually stuck to the ground for a while, a fairly rare occurrence where I live. Come on, I said to my five-year-old son. Let's go sledding.

A little incline a few blocks from our home. Just a short ride down to a leveling off into some dirt. Below the dirt, a street, but a quiet one.

I helped my son onto the sled and gave him a little push. Whoops. The incline was greater than I had estimated. The sled moved a lot faster than I had anticipated. The dirt failed to stop it. Down, down, down my son went, away from me rapidly, and just as rapidly toward the street.

Fortunately, he stopped when the sled collided with a tree. Fortunately, no car passed at that moment. Unhurt by the collision, my son climbed out of the sled, eager to go again. I rushed toward him, in a panic. At that moment, a car did pass.

What if?

I reflect on that moment every time I start to feel sorry for myself over the loss of half my retirement savings and a chunk of my son's college fund as well, the occasional boredom of my work, my poor health in winter, the utterly inconsequential - by comparison - frettings of everyday life.

I am not a religious person, but whenever I look at my son now - oh, several dozen times a day - I say a little "prayer" of thanks.

Oh, yeah. A big one.

Remind me again why it's such a good idea to have medical residents working 36-hour shifts? You know, the folks who have people's LIVES in their hands?

I don't think the purpose of most of these posts is to say that these parents should be burned at the stake for their carelessness, just that there should be consequences to their actions, other than the overwhelming guilt of accidentally killing their child. I thought the purpose of the article is to bring attention to the fact that there are circumstances in which these accidents can happen to even the best of people and you should keep that in mind before judging them, not that these people should be let off the hook. I used to judge these people, but there are times where your mind tricks you. I believe that. And I believe this could happen to me. But I also believe that if it did, I should have to deal with the legal reprocussions. I don't think the people in the article need to be reminded of what they've done and I don't think the posters here care to remind them. People expect that when something bad happens, someone will "pay" and there will be "justice".

This doesn't happen all the time and to everyone. People have offered a lot of suggestions to help out parents. I'm not saying I'm better than any of the people in the article, but I always put my purse in the backseat with the baby. We sing and I try to get him to babble because it helps his vocabulary it's adorable and makes me laugh (he's 16 months). It's probably paranoid, but I always check the car before I get in it (To make sure no one's hiding in the back? Maybe- I really don't know why.) and I've taken to checking the car before I walk away from it, just kind of to review what I've left behind. One poster wondered what this kind of anxiety does to the kids; I just hope it makes mine diligent and aware.