It was far from an easy case.
A rising student-athlete makes a mistake and gets pregnant. In retrospect she seems ill equipped to handle the turn her life has taken, and the evidence suggests she handled her pregnancy by largely ignoring it.
A new life can be a lot of things, but ultimately, a new life can not be ignored.
So Mercyhurst College student Teri Rhodes delivered a breech baby by herself in her room and apparently still not knowing what to do or where to turn, decided to put the baby in a bag, took a shower and in the illogic born of panic, figured that if she acted like it didn’t happen then maybe it didn’t.
The death of baby Theresa left a family in shambles, left a Catholic college deeply shaken and left District Attorney Brad Foulk with a massive dilemma.
This kid was no cold blooded killer yet the horrific disregard for the baby’s well being could not go unpunished.
Already there were rumblings in the community that the nice white girl from the college on the hill would not face the sentence given to say, Chytoria Graham, a young black mother of five sent to jail after swinging her baby at her boyfriend during an alcohol fueled fight.
Graham’s baby survived.
So after months of negotiations, Foulk decided to support something of a compromise guilty plea of voluntary manslaughter.
That charge is usually reserved for cases where the victim has played a role in his or her own demise.
So, what, the baby contributed to her own death by being born??
Foulk admits that the decision is causing dissent, in the community and even within his own staff, and as a veteran of many high profile horrific cases he knows well enough that the charge doesn’t exactly fit the crime.
But the goal, as always, is to balance justice with fairness but in this case that line is harder to find since the voluntary plea will most certainly lead to a lighter sentence.
“It is the most difficult case I’ve ever negotiated. Ever.” Foulk admitted.
“There isn’t much to be served by giving her (Rhodes) a long jail sentence,” Rhodes attorney Phil Friedman told reporters.
But to follow that line of thinking, wouldn’t Ms. Graham be better served with alcohol and anger management treatment?
And what about Brittany Steward, the babysitter who passed out after a night of partying while two toddlers in her care drowned in a pond?
Rhodes will be sentenced this fall, and expect quick comparisons of that sentence to those other cases where women of different backgrounds and circumstances are being held responsible for the death or injury of babies.
They are all terrible, painful cases, and as the Rhodes case proves, they rarely come with easy answers.