SC- Child abusers escape jail time

4-12-2009 South Carolina:

In at least 10 S.C. cases since 2002 involving death or serious injury, judges gave offenders probation

In 2001, Steven McCarter was accused of killing his 3-month-old daughter, Anna, by shaking her to death.

He initially was charged in the Chester County case with homicide by child abuse, which carries a minimum 20-year sentence. McCarter contended her death was an accident, though five years later, he pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of inflicting great bodily injury on a child, records show.

That charge carries no minimum sentence and a maximum of 20 years. But Circuit Judge Kenneth Goode let the then-28-year-old McCarter walk out of the courtroom a free man.

McCarter, who had prior assault, theft and driving violation convictions — was given a 12-year prison sentence that was suspended to five years’ probation, records show.

McCarter’s ex-wife, Heather McCarter, was shocked by the sentence.

“What kind of a judge would not give a baby killer prison time?” the 27-year-old Colorado mother of four said in a recent interview. “I can almost guarantee if this had gone to trial in front of a different judge, I think he would have gotten more than five years of probation.”

Steven McCarter is now serving seven years and six months of his sentence after his probation was revoked for an aggravated assault conviction last year involving another woman, records show.

(eAdvocate Post)

A State newspaper investigation found that since 2002, S.C. judges gave no prison time in at least 10 cases — four of which were handled by Goode — in which defendants were charged with inflicting great bodily injury on a child.

No time behind bars
Since 2002, S.C. judges have given no prison time in at least 10 cases in which defendants were initially charged with inflicting great bodily injury on a child — a felony that carries a maximum 20-year sentence but no minimum. Following is a brief summary of the probationary sentences in the 10 cases:

Judge Kenneth Goode in 2004 sentenced Antonio Sanders to three years’ probation after he pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature in Fairfield County.

Goode in 2006 sentenced Sheree Jivers to five years’ probation after she pleaded guilty to inflicting great bodily injury on a child in Lexington County.

Goode in 2006 sentenced Steven McCarter to five years’ probation after he pleaded guilty to inflicting great bodily injury on a child in Chester County.

Goode in 2008 sentenced Talisha Lavette Smith to five years’ probation after she pleaded guilty in Richland County to inflicting great bodily injury on a child.

Judge Markley Dennis in 2002 sentenced Cynthia McKnight to six months’ probation after she pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of unlawful neglect of a child in Berkeley County.

Dennis in 2003 sentenced Kenneth Lester Bell to five years’ probation after he pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of unlawful neglect of a child in Berkeley County.

Judge Paul Burch in 2004 sentenced Viola Bruce to two years’ probation after she pleaded guilty in Darlington County to inflicting great bodily injury on a child.

Judge Edward Cottingham in 2008 sentenced Anton Bushnell to one year of probation after he pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature in Marlboro County.

Judge James Lockemy in 2008 sentenced Eric Graham to two years’ probation after he pleaded guilty to inflicting great bodily injury on a child in Dillon County.

Judge Casey Manning in 2008 sentenced Richard Johnson Jr. to three years’ probation after he pleaded guilty in Richland County to a reduced charge of unlawful neglect of a child.

SOURCES: S.C. Office of Court Administration records, police incident reports, State Law Enforcement Division rap sheets.

Short of death, the charge is the most serious involving harm to a child. By comparison, a person who seriously injures an adult can be charged with assault and battery with intent to kill, which also carries a 20-year maximum.

One of Goode’s other cases involved Talisha Lavette Smith, a former Summit neighborhood day care operator who has been in the news for receiving probation after admitting to slapping then-7-month-old Kendra Gaddie so hard last year that it caused bleeding on her brain.

Smith, 26, who has no prior record, pleaded guilty Dec. 8 to the charge of inflicting great bodily injury on a child. She was given a 10-year sentence suspended to five years’ probation. Smith has declined to talk to reporters; efforts to reach her last week were unsuccessful.

“It’s an abomination the way the court system treats child victims in determining sentences for crimes of this magnitude,” Kendra’s mother, Michelle Gaddie, said last week.

A state Senate Judiciary subcommittee on Wednesday will consider a bill spearheaded by Gaddie that would require mandatory two-year prison sentences for day care operators convicted of inflicting great bodily injury on a child.

Gaddie said she and Heather McCarter plan to attend.

“Hurting a child is the worst thing you can do,” McCarter said. “If they’re pleading guilty, there’s some kind of guilt there.”

LIGHT SENTENCES

A State newspaper review of state court administration data on the charge of inflicting great bodily injury on a child found that during the past eight years:

• In slightly more than half of the 72 cases where sentencing information was available, defendants received sentences ranging from probation to nine years — less than half the maximum. Nearly two-thirds of those cases involved pleas to the original charge, not pleas to lesser charges.

• In another 62 cases where sentencing information was not available, prosecutors or judges dropped the charges, though the newspaper’s sampling of 14 of those cases in two judicial circuits found that charges typically were dropped in exchange for pleas to reduced charges and shorter sentences.

• In five of six cases in which defendants were convicted at trial instead of pleading guilty, judges gave sentences of at least 15 years.

“It’s unconscionable for any judge to give anyone who pleads guilty to injuring a child probation,” said Veronica Swain Kunz, chief executive officer of the S.C. Victim Assistance Network. “It goes back to women and children being viewed as property.”

She said she supports the state bill being considered Wednesday, noting, “I think (minimum mandatory sentences) should be much, much greater than two years.”

But prosecutors and judges interviewed by The State raised concerns about the bill, introduced Jan. 29 by state Sen. Mike Fair, R-Greenville.

They said mandatory minimums rob prosecutors and judges of flexibility in crafting pleas and sentences, which could result in more trials and a backlog of cases in an already overburdened court system.

“They’re looking at the wrong end of the telescope,” said 15th Circuit Solicitor Greg Hembree of Conway, past president of the S.C. Solicitors Association. “If you have one judge who’s off the reservation, you get rid of the one guy. We’re building systems all the time for the one exception.”

Circuit Judge Paul Burch of Pageland, president of the S.C. Association of Circuit Court Judges, said the Legislature needs to be “real careful about what they need to do about mandatory minimums,” though he noted the association has not taken an official position on the issue.

Burch and Circuit Judge Edward Cottingham of Bennettsville were the sentencing judges in two of the 10 probation-only cases in The State’s analysis. Both said their sentences were based on recommendations from prosecutors.

“When possible, I accept the solicitor’s recommendation because he knows things I don’t know,” Cottingham said. “But if I had a child in front of me who was really hurt, I would make a great deal about differing with the solicitor.”

GOODE’S OTHER CASES

Contacted last week, Goode declined comment through an office spokesman on specifics of the Smith case or his other three probation-only cases in the newspaper’s study.

The 58-year-old Winnsboro jurist, who has been on the bench since 1999, announced last month he was retiring, effective June 30. The State newspaper since December had been examining his handling of several child abuse and sex offender cases, including the Smith case. Lawmakers and the state judicial screening committee also were looking into the cases.

Besides Smith and McCarter, Goode gave no prison time to two other defendants who were charged with inflicting great bodily injury on a child. Both were “shaken baby syndrome” cases involving parents, records show.

In 2003, Cayce police said Sheree Jivers, then 20, “did violently shake her 8-month-old child, causing permanent brain damage and protracted impairment of body members and organs,” according to an arrest warrant.

In shaking her son, Jivers caused the child’s head to hit the wall of her bedroom “with a force so great that the child’s skull was fractured,” the warrant said.

In 2006, Jivers, who had no prior record, pleaded guilty to the original charge and was given a 10-year prison sentence suspended to five years’ probation, records show.

In 2001, Antonio Sanders, then 21, was accused of shaking his 2-month-old son so hard that his “eyes were damaged and his pupils were dislocated,” according to a Fairfield County Sheriff’s Department incident report. The report also noted that doctors believed there was bleeding in the infant’s head.

Sanders, who has a prior domestic violence conviction, pleaded guilty in 2004 to a reduced charge of assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature — which carries a maximum 10-year prison sentence, records show. Goode gave him a seven-year prison sentence, suspended to three years’ probation.

Sanders was sent to prison in 2007 to serve two years of his sentence after his probation was revoked because he was charged with driving violations, records show. He was released from prison Feb. 29.

Efforts in recent weeks to reach Sanders and Jivers were unsuccessful.

Eighth Circuit Solicitor Jerry Peace of Greenwood, who wasn’t involved in Goode’s cases, said last week that spouses or other relatives of parents accused of harming their children sometimes will put pressure on prosecutors to cut deals for lighter sentences.

But he acknowledged that some of Goode’s sentences have raised questions.

“Kenny Goode is a friend of mine, but his sentencing philosophy was different,” he said.

IN THE PEE DEE

Goode, an at-large judge who hears cases all over the state, wasn’t the only judge to give no prison time to defendants charged with seriously harming children.

Three of the 10 cases in the newspaper’s study were from the 4th judicial circuit of Darlington, Dillon, Marlboro and Chesterfield counties — more than any other judicial circuit.

Two of the three cases involved parents who said they were disciplining their children. Still, the defendants were charged with inflicting great bodily injury on a child, records show.

In July 2008, Judge Cottingham, of Bennettsville in Marlboro County, who for several years has had a reduced caseload as a judge on retired-active status, gave Anton Bushnell, 32, of Bennettsville, a one-year prison sentence suspended to one year of probation after he pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature.

Bushnell, who at the time had two prior convictions for assault and battery, was accused of beating his 9-year-old son with a belt and a bath brush. The father told police he beat his son for getting into “some trouble at school,” according to a Bennettsville police incident report.

The boy told police that after his father beat him initially, he ran to a neighbor’s house, but his father carried him back home and beat him on his head, face, neck and arms, the report said. The boy was taken to the hospital with a swollen and bruised arm, and later was placed in foster care, according to the report.

Cottingham, who served full-time on the bench from 1984 to 2000, said last week he based his probationary sentence on the recommendation of the solicitor’s office and the evidence in the case.

“The record shows the child was not hurt seriously, and it shows it was a father who did it because there was a discipline problem at school,” he said, though he acknowledged Bushnell was facing a possible 10-year sentence on the reduced charge.

Efforts last week to reach Bushnell were unsuccessful.

In a Darlington County case, Judge Burch gave Viola Bruce, then 56, a three-year prison sentence suspended to two years’ probation in 2004 after she pleaded guilty to inflicting great bodily injury on a child, records show. Bruce at the time had prior convictions for assault and battery and public drunkenness, records show.

She was accused of shaking an infant — at the time less than 6 months old — while baby-sitting the boy, according to a Darlington police report. Citing medical reports, the investigating officer said the baby has “retinal hemorrhage which can only be caused from someone shaking him vigorously.”

Efforts last week to reach Bruce were unsuccessful.

Burch, of Pageland in neighboring Chesterfield County, told The State he had no independent recollection of the nearly five-year-old case. But he provided the newspaper with a copy of the sentencing sheet indicating that then-assistant solicitor Will Rogers — now the 4th Circuit solicitor — recommended probation.

Asked if he normally accepted prosecutors’ sentencing recommendations, Burch, who has been on the bench since 1991, replied, “I do unless there is something unusual about it.”

Rogers, who took over this year as solicitor, said last week he didn’t “remember anything about the plea” in the Bruce case, though he acknowledged his recommendation on the sentencing sheet.

As for the Bushnell case involving the father and son, Rogers said he “wouldn’t be surprised” if his office had recommended probation.

In the third Pee Dee case, Rogers said his office recommended probation last year in a case in which a father was accused of severely beating his 3-year-old son.

In that case, Eric R. Graham, then 25, pleaded guilty to inflicting great bodily injury on a child and was given a two-year prison sentence suspended to two years’ probation, records show.

Graham told police he disciplined his son for spitting on him and for being “grown and sassy,” according to a Dillon County Sheriff’s Department incident report.

The boy had bruises on the back of his legs — bruises that were still visible a week after the beating, according to the report. Efforts last week to reach Graham were unsuccessful.

The sentencing judge in that case — James Lockemy of Dillon, who now sits on the S.C. Court of Appeals, the state’s second-highest court — declined to discuss specifics of the case when contacted last week, noting, “It’s all on the record about what occurred.”

Rogers said based on his initial review of the case file, “It was a father spanking a child, and maybe he went a little too far with it.”

Rogers said he couldn’t specifically say why his office recommended probationary sentences in any of the cases without fully reviewing all of the files. But he denied his office is weak on child abuse prosecution.

“You have to look at the individual case,” he said. “First, we’re supposed to seek justice. If there is a case that we don’t feel like we can prove ... we shouldn’t proceed with the case.”

He added, though, “The guys we know are a danger need to be put in prison.” ..News Source.. by RICK BRUNDRETT