“Parenting is our core responsibility”: Jennifer Ward receives 15-17 yrs

November 4, 2009 by Cathy Ribble  
Filed under: News

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“Parenting is our core responsibility.  Every day in my job I see the repercussions of parents not meeting this responsibility.”

Salem Superior Court Judge David Lowy announced in open court that no matter what else is going on in a person’s life, “our children’s needs come first.”

Judge Lowy embraced the tragedy before him with grim truth.  Jennifer Ward killed her baby and sat through the entire trial process without showing any emotion.  Ward received 15 to 17 years imprisonment for the involuntary manslaughter of her 9-month-old daughter, Jocelyn Mae Ward-Anderson.

“What the sentence does not reflect is the evil of the crime.” Judge Lowy went on, “No sentence could.”

Ward finally shed tears earlier in the morning when her ex-boyfriend, Robert Anderson, begged Judge Lowy for justice for his youngest child.

The prosecution led by Kate MacDougall had hoped to convince jurors that Ward was guilty of first-degree murder.  McDougall said the Defendant showed “an utter lack of remorse” for what she had done to a helpless baby.

“This was not some 18-year-old with no support,” McDougall told Judge Lowy.  “She was, by her own statements, valedictorian of her class at Bishop Fenwick and a college graduate.”  The prosecutor went on to tell the court that Ward had two families — Anderson’s and her own — who would have taken the baby “in a heartbeat,” if only Ward had asked.

“She was by all accounts a precious baby filled with limitless potential,” the judge said.  “The defendant failed her.  She was selfish and weak.  She failed Jocelyn, she failed the child’s father, she failed her own family and she failed the whole community.”

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