The General Prosecutor’s Office of Debrecen proposed upholding the verdict in the case of a woman who had been sentenced by the court of first instance to 10 years in prison for killing her newborn child.
The Eger Tribunal sentenced a woman who had left her newborn child alone on the outskirts of a town in Heves to 10 years in prison and 10 years in disqualification for the murder of a person under the age of fourteen. The tribunal also terminated the defendant’s custody of his three children.
According to the facts of the non-final judgment, the accused had been engaged in an unsettled life of prostitution since the age of 16, both at home and abroad. Over the years, she has had multiple unwanted pregnancies that mostly ended in miscarriages. Her three minor children live in the care of relatives and do not have contact with her.
The accused became pregnant again in the fall of 2019, but did not seek medical care. In March 2020, she visited her brother, who helped her because of her pregnancy. In mid-June, when the birth pains occurred – without telling anyone – she went to a farmland on the outskirts of the town, where she gave birth to her healthy, viable son. After giving birth, she did not take care of the newborn, leaving the baby lying on the floor covered with slate pieces and went back to her brother’s house. She answered her relatives’ questions by stating that the newborn had been placed in a systematic incubator at a nearby hospital.
The child left alone lost his life in a short time due to lack of care.
The accused confessed to the commission of the crime, waived her right to a trial, and did not appeal against the verdict. Her counsel filed an appeal to mitigate the sentence, reduce the length of the custodial sentence imposed, and establish a lesser degree of enforcement.
The Debrecen General Prosecutor’s Office requested that the judgment be upheld. In his view, the trial court imposed a very fair sentence on the accused. The penalty for classified homicide is imprisonment for a term of 10 to 20 years or life imprisonment. There is no reason to further reduce the prison sentence set by the legal minimum. This is because it is not possible to differentiate between child victims according to their age. In addition to assessing the danger of the accused person to society, the punishment should also serve the purposes of general prevention. There is no justifiable reason for the accused to have been sentenced to such a lesser penalty than the average sentencing penalty, in this case 15 years.
In the criminal case, the Debrecen Judgment Board decides in the second instance.
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