[aaronbaugher]

I served on a grand jury a while back, and one of the few cases that wasn't a slam dunk was one where a woman's baby smothered while in bed with her and under the covers, possibly while the mother was using someone else's prescription drugs. Some of us were queasy at the idea of potentially putting a parent in prison, thinking that losing your own child and carrying that guilt was punishment enough, plus the question of what would happen to her other children, who by all accounts were well cared for (she was a single parent with no father in the picture).

We quizzed the prosecutor about it, and he said he understood that, but, as he put it, "A child is dead." He hoped to use the seriousness of the charge to get the mother to accept counseling and supervision as part of a plea deal; but his office couldn't just let it go, which is what a lesser charge effectively would do in my state. After he explained that, he got the indictment. Maybe this prosecutor is thinking the same way.