AUGUSTA (AP) – The Maine supreme court has agreed to take another look at the sentence given former state social worker Sally Schofield in the death of a 5-year-old girl under her charge five years ago.

The Maine Supreme Judicial Court has agreed to review the 20-year prison sentence, with three years suspended, that Justice Thomas Delahanty gave Schofield last October.

That sentence came after supreme court justices threw out her original 28-year sentence, with eight years suspended, in the asphyxiation death of Logan Marr on Jan. 31, 2001. The girl died after Schofield bound her with duct tape and left her alone in the basement of her Chelsea home during a disciplinary time out.

In overturning the original sentence, the state’s highest court ruled that the judge couldn’t sentence Schofield to more than 20 years without a jury’s finding that the crime was especially heinous.

Schofield’s attorney, Jed Davis, appealed the second sentence in November, arguing that the sentence is excessive for manslaughter, especially for a defendant with no prior criminal record.

He said Delahanty has imposed lesser sentences in manslaughter cases where there was evidence of a long history of abuse.

The court this week agreed to hear the appeal. Maine supreme court Clerk James Chute said the court reviews only a few sentence appeals a year, and that a second review is extremely rare.

He said Davis’ brief is due by April 12, with prosecutors’ arguments due a month later.

Deputy Attorney General William Stokes, who tried Schofield and opposed her appeals in the past, has said the longer sentence was appropriate and reflected the seriousness of the crime.

—

Information from: Kennebec Journal, http://www.kjonline.com/

AP-ES-03-15-06 1539EST

Copy the Story Link