WOODLAND — Samantha Green received a 15-year-to-life state prison sentence Friday for the death of her infant son Justice Rees, the Yolo Superior Court hearing slamming the nation’s methamphetamine epidemic nearly as much as the Woodland mother’s egregious actions that led to her baby’s demise.
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Samantha Green. Sue Cockrell/Enterprise photo
“It is disgraceful that in this state we appear to treat plastic bags as a greater evil than methamphetamine,” said Deputy District Attorney Ryan Couzens, noting that Green’s trial was his second Yolo County child homicide case in which meth was a contributing factor.
“We in this state should take methamphetamine much more seriously, otherwise we’re going to see more Justice Reeses.”
Agreeing that “methamphetamine is a terrible scourge in this society,” Judge David Rosenberg imposed Green’s prison term moments after rejecting her attorney’s motion for a new trial or a lesser conviction for involuntary manslaughter, saying the evidence supported the jury’s second-degree murder verdict.
Prosecutors said Green was high on methamphetamine when, on Feb. 23, 2015, she swam across a Knights Landing slough with her 19-day-old baby and passed out on the other side, having gone there in search of her fiancé, Frank Rees, whom she suspected of cheating on her with another woman.
Justice, dressed in just a thin cotton onesie, died of exposure by the time Green woke up the next morning.
“You violated the most basic responsibility of a parent,” Rosenberg told Green, 24, as she wept at the courtroom’s defense table. “You put your child in harm’s way, and because of your actions, your child is dead.
“Frankly, I suspect that the term in prison that I’ve imposed may pale in contrast to the confines of your own mind as you replay the terrible events of February 23 and 24 of 2015,” the judge added.
Green spoke only once during the half-hour hearing, saying “yes” when Rosenberg asked whether she wished to participate in substance-abuse counseling and rehabilitation while in prison.
Her father and stepmother, Randy and Laurie Green, delivered statements prior to the sentencing, saying while Green should go to prison for causing her baby’s death, it should be for a lesser term.
Both described Green as a happy child and good student whose future potential tanked when she moved in with Frank Rees and became pregnant with his child.
“I will be the first to say that my daughter deserves to be punished for what she has caused,” a tearful and shaking Randy Green said. “My daughter never took my grandson to the slough intending to harm him. This was not murder. She loved her baby, but she was not in her right mind at the time.”
Green’s attorney, Deputy Public Defender Tracie Olson, argued at trial that Green was in the throes of a methamphetamine-induced psychosis when she went into the slough. She claimed Rees gave her several powerful meth injections that morning and “gaslighted” her, making bizarre claims of an impending apocalypse that caused her to question her own reality.
But prosecutors Couzens and Rob Gorman said it was methamphetamine-fueled jealousy and anger over Rees’ repeated infidelities that motivated Green to drive to Knights Landing, where Rees had gone to give a female friend a ride to Woodland.
Couzens also noted Friday that Green was well aware of meth’s dangers, having seen her own parents struggle with drug addiction when she was a child, and later becoming an addict herself.
Both she and Justice tested positive for methamphetamine following the baby’s birth, prompting Yolo County child welfare workers to intervene and create a “family safety plan” before allowing Green and Rees to take the infant home.
“She knew about every single possible consequence of using methamphetamine and decided to go on a bender,” Couzens said. As a result, “in a manner of death that can only be described as slow and agonizing, this child lost its life.”
Olson said she plans to appeal the jury’s verdict, which in court she called “the most unfounded jury verdict that I have seen” during her argument for a new trial.
— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8048. Follow her on Twitter at @laurenkeene