Judge: Reducing life sentence would be ‘an abuse’
The man jailed for life for murdering the little girl once known as Baby Doe will not have his seconddegree murder sentence reduced because there was plenty of evidence to uphold the jury’s verdict, a judge has ruled.
“In short, I agree with the commonwealth that reduction of this verdict would itself be an abuse of discretion and therefore a legal error on my part,” Superior Court Justice Janet Sanders said yesterday, ruling from the bench at Suffolk Superior Court. “The court sees no reason to resort to the rather extraordinary remedy.”
Attorneys for Michael McCarthy, who was convicted last June in the 2015 killing of Bella Bond and was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole after 20 years, asked Sanders to reduce his sentence from second-degree murder to involuntary manslaughter. Bond was initially known as Baby Doe after her body was discovered on the shore of Deer Island with no way of identifying her.
Jonathan Shapiro, the longtime defense attorney representing McCarthy, said the jury that convicted his client was blinded by the emotions of the trial and that the evidence was not sufficient for a seconddegree murder conviction.
“The court has the power to act as a check upon juries, and that is particularly relevant in the case where the case involved had so much passion, prejudice, sympathy and outrage as a result of the death of a toddler,” Shapiro said. “It’s fair to say this affected the commonwealth of Massachusetts and anyone who heard and read about it, and there’s no doubt that the jurors were aware of that.”
The case captured the attention of Boston and beyond and caused a long search for Baby Doe’s identity. A computer-generated image of Bond created by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children circulated via social media until someone identified her.
Shapiro had pointed a finger at Bella’s mother, Rachelle Bond, as the killer, but a jury ended up convicting McCarthy. Prosecutors yesterday argued that the evidence was clear: McCarthy was the killer, and he was the one who disposed of Bella Bond’s body after the crime was committed.
“The judge is not to act as a second jury,” Suffolk prosecutor David Deakin said. “A judge is not to substitute her judgment for the judgment of the jury.”