Mind-bending excuse woke Oregon judge made to set free dad who killed 15-month-old daughter in most abhorrent way
A father who killed his infant daughter will soon walk free after an Oregon judge ruled prosecutors acted with racial bias.
Darian McWoods had his lifetime sentence overturned and massively reduced to 10 years after appellate judge Josephine Mooney tossed his conviction because two black people were excluded from the jury.
Having already served 8.5 years, McWoods will be released in 18 months despite being found guilty in 2018 of killing his daughter Kamaya Flores from a methadone overdose. She also suffered broken ribs, bruises, bleeding, and strangulation.
In the original trial, the jury heard of McWoods' violent bedtime routine in which, instead of rocking or holding Kamaya to sleep, he would hold her down in her crib until she stopped struggling.
But Judge Mooney ruled in 2022 that the jury that heard those arguments didn't include two black candidates - despite acknowledging Multnomah County Senior Deputy District Attorney Amanda Nadel had given 'race neutral reasons' for striking them.
'Racial discrimination in the selection of jurors is harmful,' Mooney wrote in 2022. Mooney resigned from the court of appeals in 2024 after being accused of being biased in cases.
In order to avoid a second trial, Judge Christopher Marshall resentenced McWoods, 32, on Wednesday to the greatly reduced 10 years, with time served, meaning he only as 1.5 years left in custody.
The original trial heard that the amount of methadone found in the baby's system was enough to slow or stop her breathing. Methadone is a narcotic that is often used to ween drug addicts off of opioids like heroin.
Under the resentencing deal, the father-of-one pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter, criminal mistreatment, and admitting that his daughter died due to him not seeking medical care for her, The Oregonian reported.
'He did not give his daughter drugs, he did not assault or abuse her - but he failed her,' his attorney, Lynn Morgan, said on Wednesday.
'I aspire to atone,' McWoods told the court. 'I just wish everybody the optimal healing that's available to them.'
The girl's grandmother, Raquelle Flores, has made peace with the decisions, despite the family being left with some unanswered questions.
'This pain is no longer mine to carry, and the burden is now Darian McWoods' karmic path to walk,' she said, according to the outlet.
The family did not address McWoods in court, but remembered the girl loved Elmo, spending time with family, laughing, and was very joyful.
McWoods looked at a photo of his daughter that was displayed in court, the outlet said.
Chief Deputy District Attorney Amanda Nadell said prosecutors understood the new sentence was significantly lower than the original, but said the family just wanted closure.
Baby Kamaya was found dead in McWoods' home in December 2013, after he spent time alone with the child.
The night before his daughter's death, McWoods told police that he picked her up from a relative's house between 10pm and 11pm.
She was sleeping so he woke her up, bringing her along to the grocery store and then a Jack in the Box for french fries. She was not interested in eating, so she went back to sleep between 2am and 4am.
When McWoods tried to put his daughter down for a nap later that day, he said she had been fussy.
When he went back to check on her, he claims he found her with her face wedged face down in a gap between the mattress and the wall and she wasn't breathing.
Emergency 911 dispatchers got three calls about the girl between 12:36pm and 12:46pm. The calls came from McWoods and his sister, Diamond, and were contradictory - saying she was either fine or unresponsive.
They rushed to the home anyway and found that she had been dead for a while.
Her heart was no longer beating, her body was cold and her face was blue - indicating oxygen deprivation.
An autopsy also revealed that some of her ribs were cracked and that her liver was lacerated.
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