I'm set to go on Bill O'Reilly's talkfest tonight on Fox News Channel.

Tonight's subject has to do with a local Atlanta case where a mother killed her own five-week old baby by shaking her to death in December of 1998.

34 year-old Carissa Ashe pleaded guilty to a charge of voluntary manslaughter last week in Fulton County Superior Court, bringing to an end her murder trial.

Superior Court Judge Rowland Barnes sentenced Ashe to five years probation and to have a sterilization procedure performed in order to prevent her from having any more children. Ashe has had two more children since the death of her baby daughter Destiny Ashe in 1998.

The premature infant had been hospitalized for weeks and was killed two days after going home to her mother. Ashe told police the child simply stopped breathing.

Ashe, who has no prior criminal history or complaints of abuse, could have been sentenced to 20 years in prison on pleading guilty to voluntary manslaughter — defined as a killing committed with a sudden, violent irresistible passion after the assailant has been provoked.

Instead, Superior Court Judge Rowland Barnes ordered Ashe to serve five years on probation and to have the tubal ligation within three months. If she doesn't comply, prosecutors can try her on the initial murder charge.

The judge questioned Ashe to make sure she was voluntarily agreeing to the procedure.

"It was her choice to go forward," said Jan Hankins, director of the Fulton County conflict defender's office, which represented the mother.

Two of Ashe's children are living with her mother, while four are in state custody, Howard said. Her oldest child ran away from home, he said.

I'm set to be on around the bottom of the hour (Fox News Channel - 8P ET/5P PT), in what the producer describes as the longest segment of the program.

O'Reilly tapes during the 6P hour, so I ought to be back home in time to watch and live-blog it here.

Posted by: mhking at 10:58 AM | Comments (16) | Add Comment
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