Justin Grodin convicted of killing Gretchen, despite acting like a loonybird in court

[coffee achiever]

http://www.news-press.com/article/20...0342/-1/storm2

Justin Grodin on Wednesday became a convicted baby killer.

...

The 35-year-old was found guilty of first-degree murder and two counts of aggravated child abuse by a jury that deliberated for about three hours and ended more than nine years of waiting.

...

As the verdict was read aloud Wednesday, Grodin, sitting next to his attorneys with sheriff's deputies guarding him closely, picked his nose and wiped it with a handkerchief handed to him by his attorney, J.L. "Ray" LeGrande. Staring down at the defense table, he appeared oblivious to the life-altering decision.

His behavior Wednesday was in stark contrast to his actions throughout the trial. He often tried to stand up, talk out loud and make crude comments under his breath but loud enough to hear in the courtroom.

...

Grodin's competency, or understanding of the court system, has been debated for most of the last nine years.

"Mr. LeGrande and I presented everything we could without Mr. Grodin's input," Mills said. "In 20 years in law, I've never had a client not speak with me."

Details from the mother's testimony can be found here:

http://www.winknews.com/news/local/48150822.html

[runecire]

Shoot him full of holes, and let him pick at those. Looney? I don't think so. Just deranged psychopath.

[coffee achiever]

Looks like his looney antics didn't fool the jury any, either.

http://cbs4.com/wireapnewsfl/Jury.re...2.1056679.html

A jury has recommended the death penalty for a man who was convicted in the death of his infant daughter.

The jury voted 10-2 Tuesday in favor of putting 35-year-old Justin Grodin to death. A circuit judge will make the final decision, but Florida law requires judges to give jury recommendations great weight.

[petrina]

if picking your nose was a sign of mental instability then half the asshats on the road would be in rubber rooms.

[lucky]

re: the "mom"

Prosecutors presented her as the only witness who could describe the scene inside the condominium after Gretchen died.

She testified that on April 26, 2000, her husband called her at work to say her daughter, Gretchen, was choking. She rushed to her North Fort Myers home to find him standing over the baby, breathing into her. He told her the baby had fallen.

Mary said Justin tried to bury the girl in nearby shrubbery, but the ground was too hard. The next day, the couple took a taxi to south Fort Myers and he buried the girl in the woods off Kenwood Lane in south Fort Myers. She testified she hid the shovel and the two took a bus to Seattle, where they were later arrested.

Mary also said that weeks earlier she noticed a knot on her daughter's wrist, but she didn't care for it. She said she asked Justin what happened and he "made light of it."

About a week after that, Justin was walking with the baby clinging to his leg and when she fell down, he pulled her up by the hair, Mary Grodin testified. As the two walked into different rooms that day, Mary Grodin testified she heard a "blood-curdling" scream and then silence. She said her baby wasn't the same after that.

Grodin's attorney, John Mills, attacked Mary Grodin's credibility, wondering why she stayed married to Justin Grodin if he was as controlling and abusive as witnesses said; why she had Gretchen with a different man while married; and why jurors should believe a woman whose sole motivation is a plea agreement that, amended in April, gets her out of custody five years early.

"If everything she says is true, there's no way a woman would stay married to a man like that," Mills said during closing arguments. "Mary's testimony is very suspect."

Thin and reserved, Mary Grodin took the stand Tuesday morning wearing a red jail jumpsuit. In 2000, she signed a plea agreement with the state that called for a 15-year prison sentence and her testimony. She has spent the last nine years in custody - the last six in the Collier County Jail.

http://www.news-press.com/article/20...906170392/1075

RIP Gretchen xoxo

[Dakota Valkyrie]

Today signals a new chance at life for Mary Grodin.

The31-year-old pleaded guilty on Oct. 20, 2000, to a charge of child abuse and after nearly a decade of waiting for her husband to go to trial for killing her 11-month-old daughter, Gretchen, she will be sentenced today by Lee Circuit Judge Edward Volz Jr.

The plea agreement, amended earlier this year, calls for Grodin to get out of custody as early as today and serve the last five years of a 15-year sentence on probation.

"I think it's going to be a challenge for her," said Scot Goldberg, her attorney. "I think she's got some fears about getting out - there's some trepidation."

Goldberg said she plans to move in with her brother in North Carolina after her release and attorneys have agreed to allow her to transfer her probation to that state.

She has three children — James, Murphy and a child she delivered while in custody. Goldberg has said she doesn't intend to contact any of them; she is without custodial rights.

Duane Dobbert, a Florida Gulf Coast University criminal justice professor, said family support and therapy is going to be important for her to successfully adapt to life without steel bars and dank floors. A halfway house could be a good short-term option, Dobbert suggested.
[...]

What could prevent Grodin from re-adapting to society could be the fact she has spent the last nine years in county jails instead of a state prison - more than 2,200 days in Collier County; more than 1,100 in Lee County.
[...]

If Mary Grodin had been sentenced and sent to prison, she would have no motivation to testify for the state - and she was the state's most important witness against her husband.

"She was never sentenced, so she never became an inmate of the Department of Corrections," Assistant State Attorney Anthony Kunasek said. "Until and unless she satisfied the plea agreement, we had to hold that open."

But for Mary, who entered jail as a fast-food worker with a third-grade education, spending day after day in a county facility could make her newfound freedom difficult because the difference between jail and prison is "gigantic," said Dobbert.

"There was a lot of emphasis placed on what can we do to assist these female inmates to assimilate into society," he said of his experience working with inmates at a Michigan prison. "That doesn't exist in a jail environment."

At more than three years in Lee County's jail, Mary Grodin has seen peers come and go. According to Sheriff's Capt. Tom Eberhardt, the average stay for inmates in April, May and June of this year was 20.4 days.

Seeing so many people come and go has likely made it tough for her to develop relationships, Dobbert said.
[...]

http://www.news-press.com/apps/pbcs....=2009908310347

[thequeenofsorrow]

WTF is someone supposed to feel sorry for her?? Just another person the state will have o pay for to have therapy and probably welfare, too. How is someone with a 3rd grade education supposed to get a job. Again, her fault.

If the state wants to pay for anything get her tubes tied. She's had at least 4 kids and that's enough for anyone.

[ineedanap]

JFC, she's still young enough to breed!!!!!

I am guessing Gretchen died of head trauma? The first link to an article is broken, so I couldn't read any of the back story.

[Dakota Valkyrie]

Life+30 instead of death:

From the time 11-month-old Gretchen Grodin was killed inside a North Fort Myers apartment to the day the stepfather who took her life faced his punishment, 3,433 days had elapsed.

Now, a sense of relief is heard in the words of attorneys, detectives and others who have spent more than nine years of investigation, courtroom appearances, legal battles and arguments about Justin Grodin’s mental health following his sentencing.

That sentence, pronounced Friday: life in prison, followed by 30 years.
[...]

In Volz’s 14-page order, the judge conceded that despite a 10-2 recommendation for death by Grodin’s jury, the defendant’s mental health issues, his tumultuous childhood and his lack of premeditation in the crime clinched the decision.
[...]

On April 26, 2000, Justin Grodin called the girl’s mother, Mary Grodin, and she rushed home from work to find Grodin standing over the girl, who wasn’t breathing.

He tried to bury the child outside their apartment, but the ground was too hard, testimony at trial revealed. So, he and Mary fell asleep and then put the girl’s body in a duffel bag, which they carried the next day to south Fort Myers, where they buried Gretchen outside his parents’ apartment on Kenwood Lane.

The Grodins then flew to Seattle, where they were arrested on unrelated pending charges out of Arizona. Gretchen’s body — with one foot sticking out of the ground — was discovered May 2, 2000.
[...]

“Any case this difficult, you want to get a resolution,” said one of Grodin’s attorneys, J.L. “Ray” LeGrande. “Based on the facts, based on the applicable law, the judge made a correct and pretty courageous decision of life.”

Kunasek said he wasn’t disappointed with the decision. He said the public often decides a defendant should be put to death based on emotion, not the law. Friday’s decision was based on the law, Kunasek said.
[...]

Alison Ward was the only juror of those who convicted Grodin to attend the sentencing. Though she recommended death, she said the judge made a fair decision.

“Putting her in a duffel bag and burying her and not being able to because the ground was too hard — those images are awful, but I didn’t want him to be overturned on appeal,” Ward said. “As long as he serves life in prison without chance of parole — end of discussion.”

http://www.news-press.com/article/20.../90918060/1075

[Kimberix]

thank goodness

[jus shaking my head]

DV, do you know what was done to the mother?

[Kimberix]

DV, do you know what was done to the mother?

read this in the transcript

As part of a plea deal, Mary Grodin was sentenced to 15 years in prison for child abuse. In exchange, she has to testify against Justin. However, Mary just testified that an addendum was filed in April stating that after she testifies in this trial she can be released from prison

messed up huh?

[Dakota Valkyrie]

DV, do you know what was done to the mother?

Funny you should ask LOL My previous post (#6 above) had her getting out of jail soon due to a plea deal. BUT, happily, that didn't go as planned yesterday:

Mary Grodin walked back to the Lee County Jail after her sentencing Monday, knowing full well she will live in a prison cell for almost two more years.

Grodin thought she'd be out of custody by now because prosecutors in April agreed to amend her plea agreement so she could spend the remaining six years of her 15-year sentence on probation for her role in the 2000 murder of her 11-month-old daughter, Gretchen.

But Lee Circuit Judge Edward Volz Jr. never signed off on the amended deal - and he showed Monday he didn't approve.

"She was very upset - she cried," said Grodin's attorney, Scot Goldberg. "Is it fair? No."

Volz sentenced the 31-year-old to nearly 13 years in prison followed by nearly two years on probation Monday, nine years after she pleaded guilty to a charge of child abuse in the death of Gretchen. It will keep Grodin in custody until June 2011, Goldberg said.
[...]

In the sentencing order Volz wrote for Justin Grodin, he makes clear he believes Mary Grodin is responsible for Gretchen's killing. He gave her sentence "moderate weight" in sending her husband to prison for life.

"The facts of this case reflect that Mary Grodin also bears culpability for the death of the victim," Volz wrote. "Ms. Grodin has received a comparatively short sentence despite her role in the victim's death."

But rather than completely quash the amended deal, Volz sentenced Mary Grodin to 153 months - or 12 years and 9 months - rather than the full 15 years. The 153 months represents 85 percent of the full sentence, which is how long she would be required to serve had she spent all her time in prison. Volz agreed to allow her to spend the two years and three months after that on probation.
[...]

http://www.news-press.com/apps/pbcs....=2009909220356