Attorneys argue for reduced sentence for woman convicted of starving daughter to death
Attorneys representing Michelle Tharp, who was convicted of the 1998 starvation death of her daughter, Tausha Lee Lanham, want a judge to reduce their client’s death sentence to life imprisonment.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court upheld Tharp’s first-degree murder conviction obtained in 2000, but ordered a new penalty phase because it found her public defender was ineffective.
James J. McHugh Jr., first assistant defender in the Defender Association of Philadelphia, and Elizabeth Hadayia, assistant federal defender, argued a dozen witnesses who had direct knowledge of Tharp’s parenting and mental state and Tausha’s medical condition have died during the nearly two decades between Tharp’s conviction and Monday’s arguments in Washington County Court.
“Essentially, every critical witness is no longer here,” McHugh told President Judge Katherine B. Emery, referring to family members and medical professionals.
Tausha lived her seven years in Burgettstown and weighed less than 12 pounds when she died. Tharp and her boyfriend at the time, Douglas Bittinger, reported her missing April 18, 1998, at a Steubenville mall, but police said they had dumped her body along a road in Follansbee, W.Va.
Tharp claimed to have fed Tausha the day before she died, although a medical examiner testified the girl had not eaten for several days, she suffered from malnutrition and her teeth were worn from grinding, common in juvenile starvation cases.
Tharp, 49, is serving her sentence at State Correctional Institution-Muncy, Lycoming County.
Deputy District Attorney Jerome Moschetta objected to Tharp’s attorneys’ argument, telling the judge, “The substance of this testimony can still be presented to this jury.”
Trial testimony from family members could be read into the record for jurors who would be empaneled to decide if Tharp should receive a death sentence or life imprisonment, and medical reports on Tausha’s diagnosis of failure to thrive, her digestive problems and her mother’s efforts to nurture her despite a chaotic home life could be submitted as evidence.
Tharp’s attorneys said they view the reading of testimony from a trial 18 years ago to be vastly different than a person sitting on a witness stand and looking jurors in the eyes, asking them to spare Tharp’s life.
McHugh said submitting medical records would cause jurors’ eyes to “glaze over,” and he asked the judge not to empanel jurors but to sentence Tharp to life imprisonment.
“Their motion would be breaking new ground in both the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and in the United States of America,” Moschetta said.
The defense claimed the late District Attorney John C. Pettit mischaracterized Tharp during the penalty phase of her trial as an uncaring mother, but Moschetta said the appellate court ordered a new penalty phase for Tharp not because of prosecutorial misconduct but on the grounds that her own trial counsel failed to do an effective job.
On Monday, Tharp’s attorneys cited a psychiatrist’s interview with her co-defendant, Bittinger, who told the doctor, “Michelle did not starve the child.”
The psychiatrist, who has since died, was not called as a witness during the 2000 trial before then-Judge Paul Pozonsky.
Bittinger, 45, the father of Tharp’s fourth child, was sentenced to 15 to 30 years in prison after pleading guilty to criminal homicide, endangering the welfare of a child and abuse of a corpse. Prosecutors said Bittinger’s crime was failing to prevent Tharp’s abuse of Tausha, and he testified against Tharp at her trial.
He is serving his sentence at State Correctional Institution-Albion.
Tharp’s lawyers discussed their client’s intelligence quotient of 71 on a scale where 100 is considered normal, as well as the abuse and abandonment she, herself, had suffered. They said Tharp sought medical attention for the prematurely born Tausha, whose condition mystified doctors.
Emery took the matter under advisement.