WOODLAND — For Frank Rees, sentencing day Tuesday for the death of his infant son served as a retrospective of sorts, bringing forth those who say he’s wreaked havoc in their lives.
“I have no hope for him as a person anymore,” said Ruth Rees, one of his four sisters, noting that her brother’s methamphetamine-addicted lifestyle damaged their family and long predated the February 2015 death of baby Justice Rees. “My sisters and I think he should get the maximum possible sentence.”
His ex-wife, Stephanie Swanson, said she’s been drug-free and taking college classes since Rees exited their abusive marriage, and that their four children “have been the most stable they’ve been in a few years.”
And Randy Green, whose daughter Samantha was convicted of second-degree murder for taking 19-day-old Justice across a frigid Knights Landing slough and keeping him outdoors overnight following a weekend meth binge, decried the last-minute plea deal that netted Rees a six-year prison term.
Of that, prosecutors estimate he’ll serve significantly less, given prison credits and time already served.
“The DA was focused on one person and one person only, your honor, and that was my daughter, Samantha Green,” Randy Green told Yolo Superior Court Judge Paul K. Richardson. “They gave no options other than murder to her. They had their killer.”
Samantha Green, 25, is serving a mandatory prison sentence of 15 years to life.
As he had during prior victim-impact statements, Randy Green slammed child welfare workers for allowing Justice to remain in his parents’ custody after being born with methamphetamine in his system, and Rees’ parents for failing to notice the couple’s continued drug abuse in the family’s shared home.
This time, however, Green also delivered Rees a more personal message.
“They know you’re coming. They know you’re a baby case,” Green said, an apparent reference to prison inmates’ low regard for those convicted of harming kids. “They know you abuse women and children, and they can’t wait ’til you get off the bus.”
That caused some courtroom drama as Rees’ defense attorney, Rod Beede, declared Green’s comment “an implied, expressed threat against my client’s life.”
“I want that noted, I want it put on the record, and I want that referred to the district attorney’s office,” Beede said.
“I’m not threatening nobody, your honor,” Green replied.
In the end, Rees, 31, got his anticipated six-year sentence, the result of a no-contest plea to felony charges of involuntary manslaughter, child endangerment and furnishing methamphetamine to Green.
Prosecutors alleged that although Rees didn’t intentionally cause Justice’s death, he set off a fatal chain of events by providing Green with meth in violation of an agreement with social workers to stay drug-free, and allowed her to care for the baby in a drug-addled state.
Rees made the plea deal on the eve of his trial after Richardson ruled that prosecutors could present the jury with evidence that, two years after Justice’s death, law-enforcement officers found Rees in the company of his pregnant girlfriend who later gave birth to a meth-positive baby.
The damaging ruling prompted Rees, who faced up to nine years in prison if convicted of all charges, to cut his losses in the case.
For many, it was a less-than-satisfactory outcome, and Supervising Deputy District Attorney Ryan Couzens acknowledged as much during Tuesday’s court hearing.
“We charged Frank Rees with the most serious charges that we felt were justified by the law and the facts,” Couzens said, noting that his office also considered charges against others but ultimately rejected them as not meeting ethical prosecution standards.
In Rees’ case, “you never know what the outcome of a trial is going to be. …There was room to argue about the charges, and we took all of that and we came up with what I think is a just result.”
Beede, meanwhile, served as his client’s sole voice of support, saying even though Rees had a fighting chance at beating the charges, he alone took responsibility for his newborn son’s fate.
“Samantha Green never took responsibility for dragging that child out into a marsh on a 52-degree day in 48-degree water, wandering aimlessly for whatever reason,” Beede said. “I don’t know how much more responsibility the community wants, but he has taken that responsibility.”
In his sentencing remarks, Richardson said while fingers can be pointed in a variety of directions, Justice’s untimely death “is a tragedy of the first order for everyone.”
“This case is living proof of what happens when people, in unchecked fashion, begin using methamphetamine and abusing it,” Richardson said. “For everyone here who loved baby Justice, we need to keep him in mind when we think about our actions in the future.
“My hope is that everyone will take stock of what has happened and try to do something better with their lives.”
— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8048. Follow her on Twitter at @laurenkeene