Legal counsel for a Georgia woman accused in the tragic incident of her infant’s death in a hot car is seeking to have the charges dismissed, citing that the sleep-deprived mother’s mental state was compromised.
Deja Coleman, aged 29, found herself in police custody last month following the discovery of her one-year-old son, Daniel, deceased in her locked vehicle. This heartbreaking event occurred in the staff parking area of Northside Gwinnett Hospital, where she was employed as a nursing assistant.
Coleman is currently detained at Gwinnett County Jail, facing a charge of second-degree murder, a serious offense that, under state guidelines, mandates a minimum prison term of ten years.
Tom Ford, her attorney, has called for the case to be dismissed, asserting that ‘medical-grade sleep deprivation’ played a significant role in the unfortunate incident.
Ford explained to CBS News that ‘forgotten baby syndrome’ is a real and recognized phenomenon, describing it not as a result of indifference but of extreme exhaustion, affecting mothers who are critically and thoroughly fatigued.
He said Coleman was working nine-hour shifts to support her autistic six-year-old, four-year-old and infant son, with no one at home to help share the burden. Most of that week, he said, she had gone without real sleep because Daniel was teething.
‘She was in catastrophic failure,’ he said, according to WSB-TV News. ‘Her mind was failing her.’
Attorney Says Mom Was Living in Domestic Violence Shelter
Ford also revealed that Coleman and her children had been living in a protected domestic violence shelter, arguing that she should be viewed as a victim of abuse rather than prosecuted as a cold-hearted criminal.
‘We’ve labeled a grieving mother a murderer,’ Ford said, according to Fox 5 Atlanta News. ‘I would submit there’s no charges at all, because to be tired is not a crime.’
Ford’s push for his client’s freedom comes after Lawrenceville Police responded to Northside Gwinnett Hospital shortly before 4pm on July 29 following reports of an unresponsive child found inside a vehicle.
The call came from an employee who was walking to her own car that afternoon when she spotted a child slumped over in a car seat, police said.
Authorities forced their way into the vehicle in a desperate attempt to save Daniel, but the one-year-old was tragically already dead.
Coleman told detectives that she believed she had dropped all three of her children off at daycare before driving to work, but never took her baby out of the back seat after parking at the hospital shortly after 6.50am that morning.
‘There’s not any other reason other than being tired,’ her attorney told WSB-TV. ‘We don’t lock people up because they’re tired. We look at the end result and assume I could not do the same, but we could all do exactly the same.’
Lawyer Says Mom Suffered ‘Brain Glitch’
Ford described Coleman as a loving mother who suffered a ‘brain glitch,’ arguing that extreme fatigue can trigger neurological responses that cause the brain to rely on autopilot, according to Fox News.
‘None of us understand what autopilot, the basal ganglia, that’s what takes over. It’s the autopilot portion of your brain,’ he told the outlet.
Ford said the real issue is Georgia’s hot car death laws, which were significantly strengthened following the high-profile case of Justin Ross Harris and the death of his son, Cooper, in 2014.
Harris was sentenced to life in prison without parole in 2016 after his son died after being left inside a hot car for seven hours while temperatures climbed into the mid-80s as Harris worked his shift at Home Depot as a web developer.
In 2022, the Georgia Supreme Court overturned his murder conviction, ruling that jurors had been exposed to ‘extremely and unfairly prejudicial’ evidence, including claims that he regularly cheated on his ex-wife with prostitutes.
At the time, Cooper’s mother, Leanna Taylor, said the court had made the right decision, describing her ex-husband as a devoted father but a ‘terrible husband.’
Lawyer Calls For Legislative Reforms
Ford argued that state laws, tightened in the wake of the Harris case, now disproportionately punish working-class mothers who work hourly jobs – a system he described to Fox News as ‘inhumane.’
‘We don’t lock people up for making a good faith mistake,’ he added, according to WSB-TV.
Instead, he is calling for legislative reforms at both the state and federal levels.
He said federal lawmakers have the power to mandate vehicle sensors that cost only a few hundred dollars, which he argued could save lives across the country, noting that roughly 35 to 40 children die in hot cars each year nationwide.
‘The technology exists. We just need lawmakers with a spine that care more about infants,’ he told the outlet.
Ford is now proposing a bill called the Zero Hot Car Infant Deaths Act, which he said would require affordable cabin-screening technology to be installed in vehicles during the manufacturing process, according to CBS News.
‘The sensor will check if the little baby is even breathing. You can see it’s breathing under the blanket,’ he told the outlet.
Lawyer Proposes Child-Detection Sensors
‘So, the technology is there. We can put sensors in our car on the rear door so you won’t back over somebody, we can put it inside the car as well.’
He said he has taken a proposal to Sen Jon Ossoff and Rep Tim Burchett of Tennessee, calling for new vehicles to have radar sensors that can detect a child in the back seat, sound the horn and lower the windows, according to WSB-TV.
Congress ordered automakers to include rear-seat reminders under the 2021 infrastructure law, but the measure did not require vehicles to actually detect whether a child was inside.
Most automakers have already added reminder systems under a voluntary industry pledge, though the technology typically only alerts drivers to check the back seat rather than detecting the presence of a child.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration missed its November 2023 deadline to finalize the rule, meaning no automaker is currently required to install such technology.
Coleman is scheduled to appear before a judge for a preliminary hearing on August 11.