This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2008, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
FARMINGTON - The day Kamilyn Kartchner Hadley caused the death of her infant son by leaving him outside in an oven-like car, the 31-year-old Clearfield woman had a lot on her mind.
Her family had been displaced from their home by a gas leak, her husband was starting a new job, and Hadley's focus was on her work as a multilevel marketer when she visited an associate and forgot about her child, said 2nd District Judge Michael Allphin.
Sentencing her to probation and counseling, Allphin said there "was a lapse" and that Hadley was "negligent." But he added: "I truly believe it was an accident."
"We have a good mom doing what she was supposed to do, having extra burdens because she has to work," the judge said.
Allphin also said he was "prepared to take public criticism" for handing down what may be perceived as a lenient sentence. "He who is without sin, let him cast the first stone," the judge said.
Hadley - who has no prior criminal record - pleaded guilty as charged to negligent homicide, a class A misdemeanor, and asked to be sentenced immediately.
"I wish a million times I could do that day over," she tearfully told the judge. "I will be paying for it the rest of my life."
On June 17, Hadley left 5-month-old Daniel in her car for about two hours outside a Layton home.
The car was parked in the driveway in direct sunlight on a day when outside temperatures ranged from 86 to 89 degrees. Police said the temperature inside the car may have reached 120 degrees. The boy died at a hospital three days later.
Defense attorney Richard Van Wagoner said after the hearing that when Hadley remembered her son, she brought him into the Layton home and attempted to cool him down. She was still doing that when her husband telephoned and, learning what had happened, told her to take the baby to the hospital. Hadley drove to the nearest medical facility.
Police - who have refused to release reports on the case - had said Hadley was visiting a "friend" while the baby sweltered outside in the sun. But Van Wagoner told news reporters on Monday that Hadley was on a business-related visit with a "down-line distributor." He also noted the child's car seat was not on its usual side of the vehicle.
Judge Allphin on Monday brought up news reports about the death and lambasted the media. He claimed it did not "bother to get the real facts," and made it seem like Hadley was "having a gay old time" during the Layton visit.
After completing 18 months of probation, Hadley may ask Allphin to reduce the conviction by one degree to a class B misdemeanor.
The judge ordered her to obtain counseling with LDS Family Services with her husband, Brian, complete a parenting class and have no further violations. She and her husband have two other sons, ages 3 and 5.
Van Wagoner said he tried to persuade prosecutors not to file any charges, but he guessed they "felt the need to send a message to the public to be careful" about leaving children in cars.
Davis County Attorney Troy Rawlings said his office agonized over the decision to charge Hadley with a crime and received input ranging from people who believed Hadley should be prosecuted as a felon for her son's death to those who felt it was purely an accident.
Rawlings said the charge stemmed from what he and his staff "thought was appropriate, based on the facts and circumstances of the case, and the applicable law."
12 kids left in cars have died in '08
Nationwide, there have been 12 deaths of children left in hot cars in 2008, said Jan Null, a meteorologist and adjunct professor at San Francisco State University who studies the trend of hyperthermia deaths of children in vehicles.
That includes the April 28 death of 18-month-old Myles Gailey in Kearns. In that incident, the toddler's mother returned to her Kearns home from a trip to the grocery store and left her son in the back of the vehicle. Three hours later, she remembered the boy was in the car. Paramedics arrived at the home and pronounced the boy dead. Temperatures outside the day of Gailey's death hovered around 80 degrees.
No charges were filed against Myles' mother, Jana Gailey, in that case.