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Father gets 40 years for abusing infant
Friday, April 14, 2000
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
SHELTON -- A 19-year-old Mason County man has been sentenced to 40 years in prison for torturing his infant daughter.
Justin Ryan Jennings confessed last year to beating and throwing his daughter, as well as injecting citronella oil into her and raping her with a kitchen utensil until she frothed at the mouth in pain.
The baby was less than three weeks old at the time of the attacks last September.
Citing the extraordinary cruelty of the crimes, Mason County Superior Court Judge James B. Sawyer on Thursday sentenced Jennings to consecutive sentences of 20 years for each of two counts of first-degree aggravated assault.
Jennings' court-appointed attorney, Jim Dixon, said his client, who has no prior criminal history, will appeal the penalty on the grounds that it is "in excess of what is reasonable." Dixon complained that the sentence exceeded what a first-time offender typically would get for first-degree murder.
The judge said such a sentence is justified in light of the helplessness of the victim and the ruthlessness of the crime.
"In this particular case, the actions of the defendant could be conceived as nothing but deliberate cruelty," Sawyer said.
Prosecutor Gary Burleson, who had asked the judge to impose a sentence between 30 years and life, said Dixon was "playing with words" in comparing the consecutive sentences to a single murder sentence.
"This guy committed two counts of first-degree assault, and he did it in an aggravated fashion," Burleson said. "I think it was an appropriate sentence."
The girl has made a remarkable recovery from the skull fracture, broken leg, breathing problems and internal injuries caused by the assaults, court officials said.
With good behavior, Jennings could be eligible for early release after 34 years and 8 months.
Before the judge announced his decision, the victim's mother berated Jennings and vowed not to let his actions ruin her daughter's life.
Representing the child, attorney Donna Price spoke of the agony Jennings inflicted on the baby girl. Price said he deserves to serve at least 50 years.
Some of the defendant's family and friends have written letters to Sawyer in an appeal for mercy. They said that for most of his life, Jennings was a kind person and a devout Christian, and he never was in trouble before.
However, prosecutors and defenders agree that something went terribly wrong.
In childhood incidents which appear in retrospect as foreshadowing of later crimes, Jennings tortured and killed his pet hamsters by injecting them with toxic fluids, Burleson and Sawyer said.
His motives for attacking his daughter remain unclear.
Jennings at one point told an investigator that he resented having to care for the child while the girl's mother rested, according to court documents. The attacks occurred while the girl's mother slept or was in the shower.
Dixon disputed the report of a pre-sentencing psychological evaluator who said Jennings felt a "compulsion" to attack the child.
Dixon said he doesn't know why his client did it, and he doesn't think his client knows why.
"Clearly, it's an unanswered question," Dixon said. "There's no understandable rationale for why he did what he did."
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