Sick

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=4533806

Texas Jury Sentences Man to 25 Years for Burning 2-Month-Old Daughter in Microwave

Minutes after a jury sentenced him to 25 years in prison for severely burning his daughter in a microwave, a teary-eyed Joshua Mauldin listened one more time to details about the pain he had caused his child.

His daughter Ana’s foster mother fought back tears as she detailed how after being injured, the girl’s left hand was so burned that there was no skin, no muscle, no fat, only tendon and bone.

Ana suffered second- and third-degree burns to her left ear, cheek, hand and shoulder and has required several skin grafts. Part of her left ear had to be amputated.

Her foster mother, Heather Croxton, testified about Ana’s screams as she’s undergone painful surgeries and physical therapy that will continue for years.

“There is no excuse for your actions and I hate that one day you will be set free and allowed to move on with your life while Ana continues to pay for your actions,” she told Mauldin during her emotional victim impact statement Wednesday.

Mauldin, 20, was sentenced after jurors deliberated for 6 1/2 hours over two days. They also fined him $10,000.

Jurors had rejected Mauldin’s claim he was insane at the time he put his then-2-month-old daughter in a Galveston hotel-room microwave and turned it on for 10 to 20 seconds. They convicted him Tuesday of felony injury to a child.

Just before putting her in the microwave in May 2007, Mauldin had punched Ana and placed her in the room’s safe and refrigerator.

Prosecutors had wanted Mauldin to be sentenced to the maximum of life in prison.

But Galveston County prosecutor Xochitl Vandiver said she was satisfied with the decision. Mauldin has to serve at least half his sentence before being eligible for parole.

“I feel Ana will be well into adulthood when her father (is paroled) and that in and of itself is a great thing,” she said.

Sam Cammack III, Mauldin’s attorney, had asked jurors to consider his client’s long history of mental illness and sentence him to probation so he could be treated at a hospital.