A Wrong Call Bagged Her 80 Years Jail Time!

                              

A Nigerian woman, Jessica Tata, whose daycare centre caught fire on February 24, 2011, killing 4 children and injuring several others, has been sentenced to 80 years by a Houston jury.

Tata was initially found guilty on November 13 for the murder of 16 month old Elias Castillo.

Tata, 24, left children in a home on Crest Park near Waypark alone with a pan of grease heating on a stove while she went shopping on that day. When she got home, the house was on fire. Elias, Shomari Dickerson, 3, Elizabeth Kojah, 20 months, and Kendyll Stradford, 20 months, all died in the fire. Three other children were hurt.

Jurors took eight hours to decide on punishment. Tata will be eligible for parole in 30 years!

Tata wiped away tears as her attorney, Mike DeGeurin, said the fire and deaths were an accident. He said Tata made a mistake and never intended for the children to be hurt because she loved them.

"She should have called for help or she should have said to herself, ‘I’ll wait until they wake up, change their diapers, I’ll load them up in the car and we’ll go to Target together,’" DeGeurin said. “But she didn’t.”

DeGeurin said that Tata will pay forever, no matter how long she spends in prison, for using bad judgment.

"She thought, 'They’ll be fine. I’ll be back in 20 to 30 minutes and they’ll be fine.' That is where she was wrong and that is where she’s going to live with that decision for the rest of her life. She mourns for those children,” DeGeurin said.

Assistant District Attorney Connie Spence said there was evidence that Tata left the children home alone in the past. She said the children came second to Tata’s personal desires.

Source: www.dailytimes.com.ng

Tata mourns for the children, we mourn for the children, with the family of the children. . . and most of all; for Jessica Tata. To have to spend the greater portion of your life behind bars for something as 'small' as 'bad judgement' is simply sad.

I'm not downplaying the tragedy, I'm just saying that here in Gidi, and Nigeria as a whole, we've had to live with 'bad judgement' all our lives. Politicians and leaders make 'bad judgement' calls, they get up, dust themselves (us?) up, and move on, meanwhile, the effects of their decisions leave bodies in their wake.

. . . and society carries on like nothing happened.

80 years for 'bad judgement'?. . . that's just sad.