Posted on 06/15/2006 1:51:26 PM PDT by freepatriot32
MACON, Ga. - A 27-year-old woman was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison for leaving her newborn daughter in a Wal-Mart restroom last year.
Amy Shorter covered her face after the verdict was read Wednesday, and several relatives cried as they left the courtroom. They declined to comment.
The jury found Shorter guilty of felony murder for causing the baby's death while committing first-degree cruelty to children.
Defense attorney Elizabeth Lane had argued that Shorter did not intend to kill her child. Lane said Shorter didn't know she was pregnant and panicked after giving birth in the Macon store restroom on Aug. 14, 2005. She left the baby there on impulse, Lane said.
The 8-pound infant died five days later at a hospital.
"I've seen you express remorse. I don't know what was in your mind that day," said Superior Court Judge Byron Smith.
8 pounds?!
And she didn't know she was pregnant?
How..?
What were the circumstances exactly? She certainly got what she deserved - I'm just wondering what facts the defense was trying to argue.
If she was morbidly obese there is an outside chance she may not have known. Doesn't excuse what she did when she received definitive proof, of course.
We had a girl in high school that didn't know she was pregnant until she passed out a choir concert.
At the time she was 7 months pregnant. And she wasn't fat or anything.
Okers.
That wouldn't occur to me actually, the weight thingy.
Excuse me while I now slap my forehead.
Kind of a harsh punishment from a society that would have let her kill the baby just hours earlier.
Yikes.
But an 8 pound baby would tend to show, one would think, if the person in question was a flyweight like myself.
she could have gotten away with it had she gone to an abortion clinic...
Looks like she would have felt something kicking, moving about on the inside? Maybe she watches too much science fiction TV, and she thought it was an alien.
Chestburster!
*snicker*
Maybe she, like my one sis-in-law, thought it was heartburn and gas?
I guess so....
She wasn't skinny, but she certainly wasn't even average. Maybe athletic is right.
anyway, I don't really know what happened after that. She was put on bed rest for the rest of the school year and I didn't see her again until she was a bridesmaid in my brother's wedding.
I oppose abortion, but if they didn't prove premeditation on the murder, I have trouble with a life sentence.
Especially if, as the story seems to suggests, she abandoned the child but did not take any explicit acts to kill the child, like beating it or drowning it.
I'd send her up for 10 years. It punishes her, and sends a strong message to other women not to abandon their babies, without being out of line with the intent of the crime.
Just my opinion.
Wow.
Now that is an unfortunate mental image.
I must now go scrub out my skull.
Any thoughtful person will realize that this verdict is itself cruel and excessive.
I sometimes think juries get a perverse kind of pleasure out of finding a legal way to punish another person.
That's real cruelty.
Wal-Mart employees discovered the infant, just minutes old Sunday afternoon in the bathroom toilet...then quickly administered CPR.
yep....
Gotta love Ohio :)
We didn't even know of any messed up stories like that when I lived in Hell ERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR Pennsylvania.
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