Last week Thursday, January 28, a jury of six men and three women deliberated for a bit over two hours before returning with a guilty verdict in the manslaughter trial of Shian White, 23, who had been indicted for causing the death of her infant child on May 13, 2008.
Supreme Court Justice Adolph Lucas had set this afternoon for sentencing White, a mother of three other children.
But White’s sentencing was deferred to next week Friday, February 12, because Justice Lucas asked her attorney Philip Palacio and Senior Crown Counsel Yohhahnseh Cave to provide the court with a sentencing guideline, given the peculiar circumstances of the case. When White is brought back to court for sentencing, the defense and prosecuting attorneys will present the court with precedents in this line of case from within the British Commonwealth jurisdiction.
Under the sentencing guideline of the Belize Court of Appeal, those convicted for manslaughter typically may receive a prison sentence of 15 to 25 years in prison, but in some instances the judge is able to pass a maximum sentence for manslaughter conviction of life in prison.
Two mitigation witnesses spoke on White’s behalf; her mother Shermaine White, and her aunt Joyce McNab. Her mother told the court that normally her daughter is a person of quiet nature, and is a loving mother to her children. She asked the court to show mercy on her daughter. McNab told the court that White once lived with her, and that when she got frustrated, she would spank her daughter occasionally. She also asked the court to show leniency toward her niece.
Shian White, in tears and speaking in a voice so low that Justice Lucas had to ask her to leave the prisoner’s dock and come closer so that he could hear what she was saying, told the court that she worries about her children. “I don’t know what is happening to them. When they get older, I will always remember and tell them what had happened. …Even though my daughter has passed away, sometimes I find myself at her grave.”
Justice Lucas told White, who has been remanded to the Hattieville Prison since being found guilty, that her comments had satisfied him that she was remorseful. “I just want to tell you that you have convinced me that you are sorry,” he said.
White’s daughter Delsie Anika White was two years and eleven months old when she succumbed to injuries at the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital on May 13, 2008, one day after she was taken to the hospital by her mother, who was accompanied by two of her neighbors.
The two neighbors are sisters, Shakira and Charlene Neal, who testified that when they had asked White what had happened to her daughter, after they had seen her lying down and breathing with difficulty, she had told them that she did not know what the matter was with the infant.
Dr. Mario Estradabran, who did an autopsy on young Delsie, concluded that she died as a result of blunt trauma to her head.
In a caution statement to police, White had admitted that she had beaten her daughter with a piece of stick, because she was frustrated after a misunderstanding with her boyfriend, who had left and did not return home.