This sentence is a travesty!
SPRINGFIELD - Jason D. Strickland will spend 12 to 15 years in state prison on charges in the child abuse case that left his stepdaughter Haleigh Poutre with a severe brain injury.
Judge Judd J. Carhart Thursday imposed consecutive prison terms of eight to 10 years and four to five years, saying Strickland's "action, or inaction" had caused substantial harm to the child and that he had violated one of life's most precious gifts - the care of a child.
A jury on Nov. 26 convicted Strickland in Hampden Superior Court of charges he allowed serious injury to be caused to the then 11-year-old Westfield girl in 2005. The defense had argued that Strickland had believed his late wife, Holli A. Strickland, Haleigh's adoptive mother, when she told him the child was self-abusive...
