Posted on 10/02/2002 8:03:09 PM PDT by chance33_98
Woman who killed baby wont serve time
By JASON SCHULTZ
Sentinel staff writer
SANTA CRUZ A judge commuted the sentence of Joanne De la Cruz, a former UC Santa Cruz student, who admitted to killing her baby in 1996, meaning she will not spend time in jail.
De la Cruz, 26, was supposed to start a six-month jail sentence Friday. Earlier this year she pleaded no contest to voluntary manslaughter for smothering her newborn baby in a UC Santa Cruz dorm room and dumping it in a trash bin.
Judge Art Danner on Tuesday commuted the 180-day jail sentence. She will be confined to her parents home in San Leandro, being allowed out to go to work, to see her therapist and to come to Santa Cruz County to perform 500 hours of court-ordered community service.
De la Cruz was sentenced in July. Part of her sentence included serving 90 days with the electronic monitor. She has served 60 days of that sentence, said her attorney Ben Rice, so the remaining 30 days will be added to the new 360-day sentence for a total of 390 days De la Cruz must spend under house arrest.
Rice said De la Cruz thought she would be able to serve time through a work furlough program at the Alameda County Jail. But in September, citing concerns for her safety, Alameda County rejected De la Cruzs application for a work furlough, meaning she would have to serve 180 days in Santa Cruz County Jail.
Inmates convicted of violent crimes against children, molestations and former law enforcement officers are often targeted for violent attacks by other inmates.
Rice said it would be difficult for De la Cruz to find a short-term job here, making a work furlough program here not an option either. He said the same risks for her safety exist in Santa Cruz County Jail.
Assistant District Attorney Christine McGuire objected to the judges sentence change.
"Everybody that goes to jail has concerns," McGuire said. "Thats why jail is such an important part of the sentence, because its hard and nobody wants to spend time in jail. There has to be some punishment involved in this sentence."
The probation department said De la Cruz has been complying with all other aspects of her original sentence.
McGuire said De la Cruz has been coming to Santa Cruz County every Friday for weeks to publicize a state law that gives mothers the right to leave their babies at designated hospitals within 72 hours of the childs birth without facing criminal charges. De la Cruz has put up posters and will start putting stickers on trash bins around Santa Cruz, and she will help behind the scenes on the production of two 30-second TV public service announcements.
Waste Management Inc., which maintains trash containers in the unincorporated areas, Capitola and Scotts Valley, has said it did not want stickers on its containers. McGuire said she got a call Tuesday from Debi Faris. who runs a cemetery for abandoned babies in Southern California. McGuire said Faris told her the corporate office of Waste Management had agreed to reconsider its policy.
Sweden provides free abortions to teenagers. You'd think the satanic hate would take issue with them too.
Why am I not surprised? Does it still go on in China with Govt orders, or did the Chinese lighten up a bit on their forced abortion thingie?
I guess mommy just had a bad day. No big deal.
Afterall, she had the foresight to place the infant in a dumpster.
I bet she'll get a job soon with the Gub'ment.
There is yet a very strong remenant in this nation who know and fear God more than they fear man or government. They are not like some of these counterfeit or perverted religions that want to their dogma on others, they are use the Christian principles of persuasion and long suffering. But they also know what principles this nation was founded upon and will not give them up to force themselves.
I believe we are blessed to this day as a result, irrespective of what the liberal/socialist/marxists and the globalists and global governanve crowd or Hollywood or the press try to do. Ultimately, that remenant will make the difference in America.
It doesn't take a majority in such instances to garner God's continued blessing, just a committed and faithful remenant. Our founders were the epitome of this.
That doesn't mean we will not have some rough rows to hoe. We most certainly will and they will not be easy ... but they can serve to call us into rememberance and that remennt into prayer. Ultimately I believe that the ills, partocularly the unbelievably wretched practice of abortion, are going to cry out to God and He is going to have it set straight.
I also believe, that with the type of people I met at activities in Washington DC, in Dallas, TX, in Austin TX, in Boise ID, sleeping out at the headgates at Klamath Falls, OR, in the outback at Jarbidge, NV and in so many other places ... with folks like that by the millions, we will come out the other side of it preserved a nation and a people.
Best regards.
She's not stupid. She knew that in Kalifornia she would more than likely get a walk from some liberal judge for baby killing, but littering the enviroment, no way. She would have done hard time for sure.
Bingo! There is a movement underway to extend abortion to the first three months of birth.
Princeton "bioethics" professor Peter Singer writes "Killing a defective infant is not morally equivalent to killing a person. Sometimes it is not wrong at all."
The legalization of abortion opened the doors to the culture of death. It began with abortion in the first trimester. Eventually, it was extended to the 2nd trimester and now, right up until the child is delivered. Only one breath separates right from wrong. It is simply a matter of time before the next step is taken.
Would they kill her, like she did to her child?
I was born and raised in Santa Cruz. It's nuts in Santa Cruz. But there is no laughing about this one. It is just scary and evil to be so cavalier about a murdered baby. Years ago a Christian philosopher Francis Schaeffer made the point that abortion devalues life within the fabric of society. This is bearing out to be true. The mild treatment of the killer in this case is just the next step. Those who excuse and tolerate would bristle at the the moniker of 'blood thirsty' or 'evil'. And yet, taken in perspective without the sophistry of how compationate, tolerant and evolved it is to give this person a pass, that is exactly what it is. The dark will get darker and the light will get lighter. Pray.
Sorry, but the next step was already well worn, that's why the Republicans in Congress introduced and got passed the Born Alive Infants Protection Act. Now, if we can just get the public to realize these sixteen week to term individual human beings are human beings thus they are protect when they are forced into the world too early for their little lungs to breath safely. [Do you realize how insane it is to insist that because an infant is in the womb, it is not a human being?... Yeah, that's what the democrat championing of abortion on demand amounts to, because if one of these premies is delivered at say sixteen weeks, they are protected as human beings!]
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