Florida court reverses felony murder charge for death of baby left in hot car

A state appeals court in Florida reversed the felony murder conviction of a woman who accidentally left a baby in her car, resulting in the child’s death.

In July 2023, while babysitting four children from two different families, 46-year-old Rhonda Jewell forgot 10-month-old Ariya Paige was in the back of her car, and went inside to care for the other kids. Strapped into her carseat in the Florida summer heat, Ariya died of hyperthermia before Jewell realized her mistake. Jewell was convicted the following year of third-degree felony murder, predicated on the underlying felony of leaving a child unattended in a vehicle. She was sentenced to 17 years in prison.

On Wednesday, Florida’s first district court of appeal reversed Jewell’s convictions for third-degree felony murder and leaving a child unattended in a vehicle, finding that both required Jewell to have knowingly left Ariya in the car.

The charges against Jewell represented an attempt to dramatically expand the felony murder doctrine , a sweeping legal theory in which any individual involved in a felony that leads to a death can be held criminally responsible for that death. Nearly every state, as well as the federal government, has some form of a felony murder rule. These statutes have resulted in shocking outcomes: women being convicted of murders committed by their abusers , the friends of a 19-year-old boy who was killed by law enforcement being charged with his death and a man being held responsible for a fatal accident that occurred while he was handcuffed in the back of a police car miles away.

Defenders of the felony murder doctrine argue that even if an individual didn’t intend to kill anyone, because they made the choice to commit a felony that resulted in death, they should be held responsible for the resulting harm. But Jewell’s case represented a stark departure from this logic. At trial, jurors were told they did not need to find evidence that she intended to commit the underlying felony of leaving Ariya in her car – or even knew it was happening – in order to convict her of third-degree felony murder. In fact, jurors acquitted Jewell of aggravated manslaughter, the only charge they were told required a finding that Jewell acted in a way that showed reckless disregard for the baby’s life.

“This really takes tragic accidents and elevates them to murder offenses,” Caitlin Glass, a Boston University School of Law instructor, who co-authored an amicus brief in support of Jewell, told HuffPost.

More than 650 children in the US have died after being accidentally left in hot cars since 1990, when the rise of airbags prompted parents and caregivers to put young children in the back seat, according to Kids and Car Safety. The deaths follow a familiar pattern: the parent or caregiver is usually stressed, exhausted, distracted or navigating a change in routine. The baby is asleep and out of view in a rear-facing carseat in the backseat of the car.

Whether these deaths are treated as tragic accidents or punished as crimes is remarkably arbitrary – but it is exceedingly rare for prosecutors to bring felony murder charges in these cases. Amber Rollins, the executive director of Kids and Car Safety, told HuffPost she was aware of fewer than 10 cases in which the responsible adult was charged with felony murder after accidentally leaving a child in a car.

Jewell, who was close friends with Ariya’s family, struggled with depression, panic attacks and suicidal thoughts after the baby’s death. “I feel guilty if I laugh or smile. I just have so much guilt from that day,” she told HuffPost. “I don’t know how it happened. I just go over and replay it in my head and say, ‘what if’ or ‘why not,’ ‘Why didn’t I just – why? Why?’”

On Wednesday, Florida’s first district court of appeal appeared to reject the use of felony murder charges in accidental hot car deaths. “Third-degree felony murder cannot be based on an unenumerated predicate felony that does not require any proof of intent,” the court wrote in its opinion. “This case highlights how imperfect our criminal justice system is to adjudicate an accidental death. There are no winners here; moral outrage is not assuaged. And beneath the tragedy, the issues are legally important.”

Christine Monta of the MacArthur Justice Center, one of the lawyers representing Jewell on appeal, said in a statement: “Tragic accidents are not the equivalent of murder, and the court rightly recognized that Ms Jewell should not be criminally punished for an act that the State of Florida did not – and cannot – prove was knowingly and consciously done.”

The appellate court called for the case to be remanded to the trial court for a new trial. Brian Kramer, a Baker county state attorney deferred to the attorney general’s office, which did not respond to a request for comment. An attorney representing Ariya’s family in a civil suit did not respond to a request for comment.

Copyright for this text belongs to The Guardian.