Chapter 21 - CHARLOTTE’S PLEA I did not attend the negotiation.
Victims do not negotiate criminal pleas personally.
I provided input through the prosecutor.
Charlotte eventually agreed to plead guilty to serious offenses reflecting her participation in the attempted killing and the financial abuse.
In exchange, prosecutors dismissed or reduced some overlapping counts and required truthful cooperation regarding Daniel.
She faced years in custody.
Not probation.
Not a weekend.
She had helped push a seventy-four-year-old woman into moving water and left her there.
The financial counts were serious.
The river was more serious.
At sentencing I spoke.
I did not ask the judge for maximum pain.
I said:
“My daughter watched me surface.”
Charlotte cried.
I continued:
“I do not know whether I will ever understand that. But I ask the court not to confuse her regret now with the choices she made while I was in the water.”
I looked at her.
“She was my daughter before she pushed me. She was my daughter while she watched. She is my daughter now. None of those facts erase the others.”
Charlotte lowered her head.
The judge imposed a substantial custodial sentence followed by supervision and restitution obligations.
I did not feel better when the gavel came down.
May you like
Courts are good at decisions.
Not resurrection.
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