Oct 9, 2014 3 min read

Our system of justice, as superior as it may be to those of many other nations, has its flaws. Look no further than the case of Jessica Rizor to find the imperfection.

In November 2004, Rizor, then 27, was charged with killing the infant to which she had just given birth. She was jailed for three-and-a-half years before her case finally came to trial in Washington County in March 2008.

Rizor claimed she was not aware she was pregnant when she delivered the child, which she believed was stillborn. She put the infant in a plastic bag, where it was determined it suffocated. The prosecution claimed Rizor knew she was pregnant and planned to kill the baby when it was born, thus the accusation of premeditated murder.

Rizor’s attorney, Robert Brady, advised her to reject a plea bargain for third-degree murder that would have kept her in prison for another 2 to 27 years. Brady pursued a “diminished mental capacity” defense Judge John DiSalle ultimately ruled could not be admitted during testimony.

The jury found Rizor guilty of first-degree murder, and under mandatory guidelines, DiSalle had no choice but to sentence her to life in prison without the possibility of parole. She was also found guilty of concealing a death and abuse of a corpse. The state Superior and Supreme courts both rejected Rizor’s appeals.

As was reported last week, Rizor’s new attorney, David DiCarlo, is seeking a new trial, arguing her previous attorney was incompetent for choosing an “unwinnable strategy.” It seems to us, however, that blame in this sad case stretches beyond the defense table.

Regardless if one believes the prosecutor’s version of events or the defendant’s, Rizor’s behavior indicated she was mentally deficient, mentally disturbed or both. That she committed a crime is obvious, but her psychological state should have been something taken into account by judge and jury in determining her guilt and doling out her punishment.

As we pointed out in an editorial here recently (“Punishment not cure for mental illness,” Oct. 3), we as a society have decided to close down mental institutions to warehouse the mentally ill in prisons, where they receive little if any treatment for their disorders. The result is the United States leads the world in the number of its citizens behind bars, at an annual cost of more than $60 billion.

Also at fault for the overpopulation of our prisons are mandatory sentencing guidelines, which deny judges the discretion to weigh circumstances in sentencing convicts. Life expectancy for women in the United States is 81 years. If Rizor, ineligible for parole, spends the rest of her life in prison and reaches that age, she will have been incarcerated for 54 years. At an annual cost of $35,679 per inmate per year (based on Gov. Tom Corbett’s 2011 budget proposal), Pennsylvania taxpayers will have spent $1,926,666 in today’s dollars to keep Rizor behind bars.

We should all be asking not just whether the punishment Jessica Rizor has received fits the crime, but whether its cost can be justified.