The attorney for Deja Coleman, a Georgia woman charged with second-degree murder in the hot car death of her infant son, is urging prosecutors to dismiss the case. Tom Ford contends that his client's "medical-grade sleep deprivation" and resulting "brain glitch" led to the tragedy, rather than a callous disregard for her child's life.
Coleman, 29, was arrested last month after her one-year-old son, Daniel, was discovered unresponsive in her locked car in the employee parking lot of Northside Gwinnett Hospital, where she worked as a nursing assistant. She faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years if convicted of second-degree murder.
Ford stated that Coleman had been working nine-hour shifts to support her three young children, including an infant son who was teething, with no additional help at home. He described her as being in "catastrophic failure" and that her "mind was failing her" due to a lack of sleep.
"Forgotten baby syndrome is a phenomenon," Ford said, as reported by CBS News. "It does happen... it's not because we've got callous mothers. It's because we've got tired mothers - medical grade, exhaustively tired mothers."
Coleman reportedly told detectives she believed she had dropped all three of her children at daycare before driving to work that morning, but failed to realize Daniel was still in the backseat. The child was found in his car seat after a hospital employee noticed the unresponsive infant.
Ford also revealed that Coleman and her children had been living in a domestic violence shelter, suggesting she should be viewed as a victim rather than a criminal. "We've labeled a grieving mother a murderer," Ford stated, according to Fox 5 Atlanta News. "I would submit there's no charges at all, because to be tired is not a crime."
Coleman's attorney is advocating for legislative reforms, including a proposed bill called the "Zero Hot Car Infant Deaths Act." This act would mandate the installation of affordable cabin-screening technology in new vehicles to detect if a child has been left behind. Ford pointed to existing technology that can alert drivers to check the back seat, but noted that a federal deadline for finalizing rules requiring such detection technology has passed.
He has discussed proposals with Sen. Jon Ossoff and Rep. Tim Burchett to require new vehicles to have radar sensors that can detect a child in the back seat, sound the horn, and lower the windows. Currently, while Congress mandated rear-seat reminders in the 2021 infrastructure law, the measure did not require vehicles to detect the presence of a child.
Coleman is scheduled for a preliminary hearing on August 11. The case draws parallels to the 2014 hot car death of Cooper Harris, whose father, Justin Ross Harris, was convicted of murder. However, Harris's murder conviction was overturned in 2022 by the Georgia Supreme Court due to prejudicial evidence presented during the trial. Cooper's mother, Leanna Taylor, had described her ex-husband as a devoted father but a "terrible husband."