Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I don’t see how you can
find Nidia guilty. The smallest crime the Prosecution allows will put her in
prison for ten years. That is ten years of abuse by guards, cruelty and
politics with inmates, an infectious drug culture, and deprivation from the
outside world. Inmates are astronomically more likely to commit crimes once
they leave jail. Prisons are devastating environments where innocence is
shredded. You can’t fix them from the jury box, but you can decide who belongs
there.
What is she supposed to learn in jail? That leaving an
infant unattended can be fatal? You’ve seen her and heard from her
psychiatrist. She needed to spend the first two weeks of this trial under
restraints. She learned what was wrong before she turned herself in. There’s
nothing to reform about her. There’s nothing about our prison system that is
going to make her less likely to harm a child again. She can’t even look at one
without going into hysterics.
The Prosecution will not cut a deal. I’m not legally allowed
to speculate on the quotas for convictions that is causing him to refuse a plea
bargain, but Nidia needs psychiatric care and compassion. Some of you may not want to feel for
this woman, and want to punish her for the death she’s caused. She broke one of
the most sacred trusts in life: that of a mother to her child. That she’s
already suffering doesn’t allay your outrage, and I understand that. But if you
convict this broken woman, you are creating a criminal. If you don’t, you’re
giving her a chance to one day be able to look at a child without sobbing.
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