As a criminal defense attorney in Los Angeles who has handled a lot of child abuse, murder, and violent crimes cases, this story leaped out at me because it just seems terribly sad.  First of all, we know that the accused is only 21-years-old and one would expect probably has a lot to learn about life, relationships, and parenting.  Apparently, she is not the mother of the deceased toddler but is the girlfriend of the toddler’s father.  Secondly, it is hard to imagine that she feels anything but unrelenting guilt and anguish over the death of her infant through such a random, traffic type of incident.  Now on top of dealing with this loss, she is facing murder charges which could result in her serving substantial amounts of state prison time.  Although I am not privy to the details of how the toddler ingested the chili powder, charging this woman with murder, and not simply felony child abuse, seems like overreaching and fundamentally feels wrong.  Hopefully, this woman will get an aggressive criminal defense lawyer behind her to fight for some judicial leniency even in light of the terrible circumstances of the case.