Teenager guilty of murder.

I'm still a bit hmmm. I'm thinking that if a man had some kind of mental breakdown and, for example, raped a young woman we'd not be seeing such sympathy. I mean, look at Barbie Kardashian. Almost certainly a worse upbringing and loads of trauma yet nobody excuses him on here for his actions.

It was a 10:2 majority verdict, so there was clearly some debate by the jury.

I feel desperately sorry for both mother and baby.

The jury sided with one opinion over the other- that of the prosecutions expert. This is not the same as fact or proven by any measure

If two experts disagree, then that’s what the jury have to do, isn’t it? But they don’t “side”, which implies bias, they have to look at the evidence, listen to the experts’ opinions and go with the one they believe to be most correct. The defence talked of “possibly” and “could have”.

Somebody can do something wrong knowingly and without psychosis, and then regret it. If it was something very bad, they might indeed block out the details of what they did, but that doesn’t mean they were suffering with psychosis when they committed the bad act, just that they can’t face up to what they did.

Mayo has had a long time to deal with/think about/face what happened. She hasn’t done that. The judge was at pains to say he would state facts prior to his sentencing statement. He mentions the doctor who was claimed to be biased against Mayo, but continues,

”However, I accept the prosecution's submissions that, on any view, you knew you were pregnant and about to give birth an hour or so before you did so. At that time there is no question of the balance of your mind being disturbed by pregnancy denial or any other condition”

I keep coming back to the fact that if there was evidence that she was suffering from psychosis or false memory syndrome that would have been the basis of her defense. You simply can't jump to the conclusion that a defendant's statements in court are the result of psychosis etc if that's not been presented as an explanation.

I really don't know why they didn't opt to plead guilty to infanticide and present their evidence around her state of mind. Because the defense they opted for (essentially that the baby was potentially stillborn or fatally injured during the birth process, as oppose to due to intentionally actions to kill him) was quite clearly contradicted by the evidence.

Well, Mayo’s counsel don’t get to decide what plea she gives. She chose to not plead guilty to infanticide and go through with the trial for murder. This isn’t sane, only someone who believes they are innocent despite the evidence would opt for this and the law commission in their recommendations regarding how infanticide isn’t being applied the way it should found that many women who do neonaticide with the psychotic form of pregnancy denial do opt for this self-destructive path because they are still mentally disturbed.

Secondly the defence did present a case for a disturbed state of mind:
“It's possible that Mayo's state of mind was disturbed when she killed her son. One expert said she had created a false memory in order to repress her actions, to "block out the bad bits, the bits that are hard to live with".
"As a 15-year-old girl giving birth, she went into a state of shock, of panic and distress, with very high anxiety and emotional trauma," Dr John Sandford said.
"Such events could lead to a disturbance of the balance of her mind."

What you describe wasn’t their defence at all, you are describing the false memory that Mayo believes is a true memory of what happened.

First, the defence didn’t need to prove a psychiatric disorder as that is not the standard for the crime of infanticide to apply.

Secondly, it was not proven she did not suffer from psychosis. As she was never examined shortly after the birth & neonaticide, it cannot be proven one way or the other all we have is the expert opinions of two psychiatrists that examined her years later. One expert, for the prosecution, found her perfectly stable and this expert was (unusually) criticised by the judge for being unprofessional and overtly biased against the defendant. The other expert did not diagnose her with any disorder, but did note that she suffered from both pregnancy denial (the delusion) and also from false memories (not the same as believing your lies) and concluded she was disturbed in her mind at the time -which is the standard for the crime of infanticide.

The jury sided with one opinion over the other- that of the prosecutions expert. This is not the same as fact or proven by any measure.

Thirdly, both the crimes of murder and infanticide related to the intentional, deliberate - written as “willful omission or action” in the infanticide statute, so that is not a point supporting murder over infanticide.

I keep coming back to the fact that if there was evidence that she was suffering from psychosis or false memory syndrome that would have been the basis of her defense. You simply can't jump to the conclusion that a defendant's statements in court are the result of psychosis etc if that's not been presented as an explanation

Exactly that. If there was a sliver of a chance she’d be saved by having had psychosis, the defence would be all over that like a rash. They weren’t because it was proven that she wasn’t suffering from psychosis. She acted deliberately to snuff out her child’s life.

I doubt anyone was champing at the bit to find a young woman guilty of the murder of her own child. It appears the evidence showed that it was not infanticide but murder. Comparison with other women who have been found guilty of infanticide is unhelpful. Presumably those other women did show evidence of psychosis whereas Mayo did not. The judge hinted as to her thoughts/feelings in the sentencing statement. I think she was motivated by anger and/or hate.

Yes - having sat on a few jury trials (have been called for jury service twice!) it just sounds like the kind of alternative explanation of the facts I've heard from defendants. It doesn't follow that they're suffering from false memory syndrome.

I keep coming back to the fact that if there was evidence that she was suffering from psychosis or false memory syndrome that would have been the basis of her defense. You simply can't jump to the conclusion that a defendant's statements in court are the result of psychosis etc if that's not been presented as an explanation.

I really don't know why they didn't opt to plead guilty to infanticide and present their evidence around her state of mind. Because the defense they opted for (essentially that the baby was potentially stillborn or fatally injured during the birth process, as oppose to due to intentionally actions to kill him) was quite clearly contradicted by the evidence.

I tend to agree that really this was infanticide. However (from what I've heard) I think I would have somewhat reluctantly found her guilty of murder as there was clear evidence of her killing the child, and not enough to demonstrate it was infanticide given she denied having killed him at all - you can only reach that conclusion through speculation about her state of mind.

I don't know enough about how appeals work - can they present an alternative defense at an appeal? Could she plead guilty to infanticide in an appeal.

I haven't read about 'the older woman' and don't particularly want to if it's as upsetting as this one. Maybe the jury believed there was a lesser degree of pre-planning? Maybe her actions afterwards made them feel she was remorseful? Maybe they believed her mind was more disturbed?

AllOfThemWitches · Yesterday 23:32
A lesser crime than murder although still involves the killing of one's child. Why are you asking? I don't know exactly why she was found guilty of murder , I was not privy to the details thankfully.

The details of how the baby was most likely killed were in the judge’s summary posted here.

But I was asking you for your opinion as to why this brutal killing of a newborn baby by his 15 year old mother could be seen as different from a similarly brutal killing of a newborn baby by it’s more mature mother? (Links were posted recently by AP5Diva.)

The reason I asked you for your opinion on this was because you kept saying murder is murder, when Infanticide, is the unjustified brutal killing of a baby by its mother too.

So I wondered whether or not you could see a differential here between two similar killings ? Why might the older woman have been convicted for Infanticide rather than Murder in your opinion - if murder is murder?

A lesser crime than murder although still involves the killing of one's child. Why are you asking? I don't know exactly why she was found guilty of murder , I was not privy to the details thankfully.

@AllOfThemWitches · Today 22:27

What is Infanticide? Can you answer?

Did you know that other baby killers have been charged with Infanticide?

What to your mind distinguishes this girl and the killing she is guilty of, from the older, woman, who was found guilty of Infanticide, which AP5Diva posted earlier? In that case the older woman used similar way of killing the baby.

You can make every excuse there is to make, but anyone who stamps a newborn child to death.. their own child.. and stuffs their mouths until they choke is beyond the norm.

I mean where the hell do you draw the line, some of you? Newsflash, loads of murderers aren't 'OK in themselves.'

That's what I'm saying. The vast majority of traumatised, distressed and neglected pregnant teens do NOT murder their kids. SHE did because that's what she is.

Like I said before, her only excuse is complete insanity. Otherwise she's a murderer. Plain and simple.

Even if she only had 23 minutes, that would be enough for most teens to decide that battering their baby was not an option. What made this girl different

She had 9 months to thinks about what she would do.

I find this mad. The whole course of conduct was completely chaotic and irrational. The reverse of calculating.
the jury found her guilty of murder and the judge was clear in his sentencing remarks. The determination of people here who have not heard any of the evidence to go behind these findings and construct a narrative which suits their preconceptions is just utterly bonkers.

And nobody knows why teens murdering their unwanted babies isn't a far more common occurrence? I wonder if perhaps it's because most women and girls don't have a tendency to batter their newborns?

Panicked?!? Over a few hours? The coroner said in his opinion the baby lived a couple of hours at least. In which she kept him quiet. I don't want to think how.

Allegedly cleaned up all the mess of childbirth so much so that her family were unaware in happened.

That's not the work of a panicked child

Every murderer 'suddenly' turns murderous when they kill for the first time? I mean, presumably she'd never been alone with a newborn baby before. The brutal method suggests absolute rage tbh.

For me it's about likelihood.

What is more likely- that a previously unproblematic child suddenly turned murderous, or that a child in a terrible situation was temporarily irrational because she was unable to process what was happening to her, panicked, and did a terrible thing?

I just cannot see how anyone has sympathy with her. She stamped on her newborns head and when that didn't work she stuffed his mouth with cotton wool until he choked to death.

Ffs the only possible excuse is complete insanity.

Speaking generally, I would agree that saying 'I don't know/can't remember' is so much easier than trying to repeat a fake story several times over, to countless professionals.

It's the equivalent of 'no comment', but has a greater likelihood of being accepted.

Lying is exhausting and you will slip up especially in court where everything is scrutinised so deeply.

Oh my god the double standard.
I feel sorry for her. Having a baby is so all-encompassing, I can't imagine going through this at such a young age. Nothing will happen to whoever raped her.