General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Father of Boy Who Fatally Shot Brother Sentenced (brace yourself) [View all]Squinch
(50,949 posts)and the children subsequently died:
Not surprisingly, the harshest treatment is reserved for those who intentionally left their children. According to the AP's analysis, those people are nearly twice as likely to serve time than people who simply forgot the child. And on average, they received sentences that were 5 1/2 years longer.
In 2004, Tara Maynor was sentenced to 12 1/2 to 60 years in prison on two counts of second-degree murder after leaving her two children in a car for four hours outside a suburban Detroit beauty parlor while she got a massage and hairdo. She told police she was "too stupid to know they would die."
Just last month, Karla Edwards pleaded guilty in Aiken, S.C., to homicide by child abuse for leaving her 15-month-old son, Zachary Frison, in a car for nine hours in April 2006 while she worked at a home-improvement store. When Edwards was unable - or unwilling - to explain her actions, the judge sentenced her to 20 years.
That's from the article Captain Stern linked above.
We find them to be egregiously irresponsible. But when a gun is involved it's just not that big a deal. Why is it different?