Sentences Vary When Kids Die in Hot Cars

This undated photo of Leon T. Jewell was released by the Kentucky Dept. of Corrections. Jewell, of Lexington, Ky., said he was drunk when he left his 9-month-old son, Daniel, in a car in August 2005. He pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter, but a merciful judge sentenced him to seven years' probation and ordered him into rehab. After becoming drunk on what would have been Daniel's second birthday, the distraught Jewell was kicked out of rehab. He is now serving out his sentence in a Kentucky prison. (AP Photo/Kentucky Dept. of Corrections) (AP)

In cases involving paid caregivers, 84 percent were charged, with 96 percent of those convicted. But while they are jailed at about the same rate as parents, the median sentence in those cases was just 12 months.

Women were jailed more often and for longer periods than men. But when the AP compared mothers and fathers, the sentencing gap was even wider.

Mothers were jailed 59 percent of the time, compared to 47 percent for fathers. And the median sentence was three years for dads, but five for moms.

"I think we generally hold mothers to a higher standard in the criminal justice context than in just family life generally," says Jennifer M. Collins, a professor at the Wake Forest University School of Law who has studied negligence involving parents and such hyperthermia cases. A large segment of society, she says, thinks "fathers are baby-sitting, and mothers are doing God's work."

In 27 percent of the cases the AP studied, the children got into the vehicles on their own. Those cases are much less likely to be prosecuted, though sometimes parents are punished for negligence _ particularly where substance abuse is involved.

The AP identified more than 220 cases in which the caregiver admitted leaving the child behind. More than three-quarters of those people claim they simply forgot.

It's easy to forget your keys or that cup of coffee on the roof. But a child? How is that possible?

The awful truth, experts say, is that the stressed-out brain can bury a thought _ something as trite as a coffee cup or crucial as a baby _ and go on autopilot. While researchers once thought the different parts of the brain worked in conjunction with each other, they now realize that different portions dominate at different times.

"The value of the item is not only not relevant in these competing memory systems," says memory expert David Diamond, an associate psychology professor at the University of South Florida who also works at a Veterans Affairs hospital. "But, in fact, we can be more complacent because we tell ourselves, 'There's no way I would forget my child.'"

Harvard University professor Daniel Shachter, a leading brain researcher, says memory is very "cue dependent."

"And in these cases, the cue is often missing," he says. "When we go on automatic, it's very possible for us to ignore or forget about seemingly important things."

Like a baby.