Forgetting Is Not Murder

Georgia law lets prosecutors charge a grieving parent with murder for an accident. A Lawrenceville mother lost her son, then spent six weeks in jail before his funeral. Read why Florida's appeals court said this can't stand: https://gps.press/forgetting-is-not-murder/

In Georgia, a parent who forgets a child in a hot car can be charged with murder. A Lawrenceville mother was jailed for weeks after her one-year-old son died, released only briefly to grieve before his funeral. Florida's appeals court recently threw out a similar murder conviction, writing that it was the parent's fault but it was an accident. Georgia's law doesn't make that distinction. Should an accident be prosecuted as murder?

Georgia law allows prosecutors to charge a grieving parent with murder after a hot car death. A Lawrenceville mother spent about six weeks in jail before her son's funeral. Florida's appeals court said it plainly: it was her fault, but it was an accident. Georgia's law should be able to tell the difference. #GAPrisons #PrisonReform #GeorgiaPrisonerSpeak #CriminalJusticeReform #HotCarDeaths

Georgia's second-degree murder statute, created in 2014, covers a child's death caused by criminal negligence and carries 10 to 30 years. Prosecutors can also still charge felony murder, which carries life. In practice, parents whose children died in hot cars have pleaded guilty to murder charges rather than risk trial. A Florida appeals court recently vacated a murder conviction in a similar case, holding that the state never had to prove intent and that a murder conviction cannot rest on an accident. Georgia's law has no equivalent safeguard. The legislature wrote O.C.G.A. § 16-5-1 and can rewrite it.