Plea deal in death of infant found in trash can

[Big Don]

Plea deal in death of infant found in trash can

San Fransisco Chronicle/SF Gate/Associated Press Wednesday, May 21, 2008
(05-21) 04:00 PDT Los Angeles - --
Excerpt:


A Montana woman whose newborn son was found dead in a trash bin near the University of Southern California campus in 2005 pleaded no contest to child endangerment Tuesday after four attempts to charge her with murder were dismissed.
Holly Ashcraft, 23, entered the plea in Superior Court to the charge and a special allegation that the endangerment resulted in death.
Under a plea agreement, she will be sentenced June 27 to time already served - about 30 days of jail time and about 695 days of electronic monitoring. She also will be placed on five years' probation, said Jane Robison, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County district attorney's office.
Judge Kathleen Kennedy warned Ashcraft she could face up to 10 years in prison if she violates probation.
It was "a fair ending to a tragic situation," said her attorney, Mark Geragos.
(((END EXCERPT)))
A Fair Ending? On what planet? This woman MURDERED HER CHILD.

But, I guess that would seem fair, to the attorney of such well known moral leaders as (Child molester) Michael Jackson and (Wife Killer) Scott Peterson....

 

[tellner]

The vicious cold-hearted murderer Scott Peterson was sentenced to death. You can't really ask for more justice than that on this side of the grave.
Michael Jackson hasn't been convicted of anything which means that as far as the Law is concerned he hasn't committed any crimes.

I've followed a number of cases like the one above over the years. This sort of sentence is not out of line. Often the defendants are younger, panicked, hid their pregnancies and were afraid they would be tossed out on the streets if it were discovered. Or the death of the infant was an attempt to lash out at the father who abandoned them both. In many cases the judge has to deal with a defendant who fits narrowly inside the lines for legal competence. She understands the difference between right and wrong, vaguely in touch with consensus reality. But she was often distraught to the point of extreme irrationality, panicked, and not aware of the consequences at the time.

In these cases experienced judges often realize that long prison sentences will not serve any useful purpose and go with a more compassionate approach.

I wasn't at the trial. You weren't at the trial. The prosecutor doesn't seem to be unhappy. It sounds like courts doing what courts do, and if you have anything besides undirected general outrage at the legal system I'd be glad to hear it.

 

[Jai]

I have a hard time with cases like this being a father of three myself. I just don't see what drives people to do things like dumping a newborn, a total innocent that can not defend themselves from the world or others, into a trash can. Women who do things like this IMO should not be allowed to have anymore children. If she is old enough to get pregnant, then she is old enough to deal with what comes of it. There are other options out there besides tossing your baby in a trash can. Plea deals and insanity pleas are part of what is wrong with the american justice system. Now if I where to toss someone in a dumpster and leave them to die, I doubt I would get a 30 day time served verdict.

 

[MA-Caver]

I have a hard time with cases like this being a father of three myself. I just don't see what drives people to do things like dumping a newborn, a total innocent that can not defend themselves from the world or others, into a trash can. Women who do things like this IMO should not be allowed to have anymore children. If she is old enough to get pregnant, then she is old enough to deal with what comes of it. There are other options out there besides tossing your baby in a trash can. Plea deals and insanity pleas are part of what is wrong with the American justice system. Now if I where to toss someone in a dumpster and leave them to die, I doubt I would get a 30 day time served verdict.

A young pubescent girl is capable of having children when she gets her first menses... is she old enough to deal with what comes of it? This gal was 23 and yes I would agree that she is old enough to deal with it, or at least expect her (at that age) to be able to. But most likely and obviously she wasn't.
Cases like this likewise breaks my heart as much as anyone else's. I feel much more so because I'm not married and would love to be married and have children of my own and see things like this as a terrible waste of life and the waste of the love of life.
While this is not a case to condone for the choices that she made, we do have to look at the mental state of the girl in question. She'd already been suspended from school and things back at home (even though she is of age) might not be as rosy or as forgiving as some of her classmates. We just don't know.
Plea cases and insanity pleas are only part of the problems of the American justice system... mainly because they're abused too often. How easy it is to plea "temporary insanity" in cases like this and so many others. But some people do, just, lose it. It's up to a trained and experienced psychologist to determine that.
There are people who are just cold blooded callous killers out there and they should be granted no mercy or at least as much mercy as they showed their victims. They'll plea temporary insanity in hopes to get away with the crime. But evidence and a throughly put investigation will show otherwise.
I'd probably felt better had I read in the article that she is being court ordered to go to intensive therapy to help her discover what went wrong, in her head to make such terrible choices.
She killed her child yes, but murdered her child? No.

 

[tellner]

Jai, despite what the more sensational media portrayals would have you believe insanity is a very difficult defense. It's almost never successful, especially in the case of serious crimes. And the sad thing is that people who have legitimate mental problems are less likely to use it successfully.

Now plea bargains are something else again. They have become the standard, not the exception. It's a win for prosecutors. It give the defense attorney a paycheck without risking a huge number of billable hours on a defendant who might not have money. And when there's a public defender he's only going to get a small amount no matter how much time he puts in. As of a few years ago there were States where a public defender only got $100 for the entire process of a capital case.

Most of all, it saves the time and expense of a trial. If every indictment went to the jury the courts could not physically try all of the cases. We arrest so many people for so many things that we simply can not process them all by the means prescribed by law. Seriously. In fact, many judges have become very harsh with defendants who refuse to plead and insist on their right to a jury trial.

And suppose there is a trial and a conviction. We have 5% of the world's population and 25% of its prisoners. We put more people away for longer than any other country on Earth. China is a distant second at considerably less than half our incarceration rate, and that includes political prisoners and "re-education" facilities. We can not afford to lock up everyone who is convicted. And it doesn't seem to be helping our crime rate all that much compared to other developed countries. We can't lock 'em up and throw away the key. Besides, we need those jail beds for drug offenses and mandatory minimums for drug possession and small-scale trafficking.

We don't have the resources to give everyone a trial. So the standard has become a plea bargain. And we can not afford to lock everyone up, even though we try harder and spend more money doing it than anyone else on Earth. So the legal system has to prioritize who goes to jail and for how long.

In this case the judge decided that the risk of re-offense was small. The danger the defendant posed to the public was less than others up in front of the Court. So the prosecution, the judge and the defense went with the sentence described. It wasn't perfect, and it may not even have been very good. But it's more the rule than the exception. And it represents the choices that an overburdened system has to make with restricted resources, a for-profit prison industry, crushing caseloads and a public which is unwilling to make the difficult informed decisions necessary to fix it.

 

[Empty Hands]

...if you have anything besides undirected general outrage at the legal system I'd be glad to hear it.

It's all they really have. That and a conviction that if one punishment doesn't straighten someone out, then only a harsher one will. Not exactly a fountain of nuance.

 

[Tez3]

Put in print it sounds cut and dried, a woman murdered her own child and we all gasp 'how could she, what a monster' but in reality we have no way of telling the truth of this tragic case. I would want to hear far more facts about this before judging either way. I can't help thinking though that the prosecution would have driven it far harder if she had indeed presented herself as a ruthless killer.
Personally I'm not in favour of plea bargaining, it's still not common here, for all the reasons Tellner has put forward. I think the defendant can end up pleading guilty to a lesser charge when they may not be guilty of anything because the alternative if they are found guilty is unthinkable. I believe there is pressure form the lawyers for both the prosecution and the defence for them to plea bargain.

 

[Dave Leverich]

Maybe make her serve that 30 days cold, naked and helpless in a dumpster, or would that be too inhumane ;p.