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Susan Chiniewicz isn't guilty of murdering her infant son in a Texas World Speedway rest room two years ago, but she is guilty of causing the baby's death through gross negligence, a jury decided Wednesday.
The decision to forgo the first-degree felony murder charge for the lesser included offense of criminally negligent homicide came after more than 10 hours of deliberation over two days.
But later Wednesday afternoon, the jury appeared to be much more decisive on the 37-year-old suburban Dallas resident's punishment for the state jail felony -- taking less than 15 minutes to assess the maximum sentence of two years' incarceration and a $10,000 fine.
Chiniewicz, who was released on bail less than a month after her April 2006 arrest for murder, was led out of the courtroom in handcuffs Wednesday. But she was released from the Brazos County Jail a short time later, pending an appeal.
"How do we understand the mind that would throw her own blood into a trash can?" District Attorney Bill Turner asked jurors during closing arguments for the brief punishment hearing. "How do we understand the mind that shows no emotion talking about the death of her child?
"We may not be able to."
Chiniewicz did not testify during the trial, but she admitted to investigators in a recorded interview that she gave birth in the rest room in October 2005 and discarded the baby in the trash. The pregnancy -- which she claimed was the result of being raped by a colleague on The Colony's chamber of commerce -- had been a secret from everyone, including her husband, she said.
She only discarded the infant -- named Baby Joseph by investigators after a janitor discovered the body -- because it was stillborn and there was nothing she could do to save it, she told investigators. After giving birth, she said, she cleaned up and then went outside to join her three children and husband, who was competing in a motorcycle race at the track.
The defense argued throughout the eight-day trial that the infant was born dead, meaning she couldn't be found guilty of murder or criminally negligent homicide. Prosecutors disagreed.
Chiniewicz was indicted for capital murder, a charge that carries only two possible sentences -- life in prison or the death penalty. By the time the trial began last week, however, the District Attorney's Office had opted to downgrade the charge to first-degree felony murder. And by the time jurors were set to hear closing arguments and begin deliberations Tuesday, 85th District Judge J.D. Langley also allowed them to consider the lesser included charge.
According to state law, criminally negligent homicide occurs when someone causes a death with gross negligence. Murder occurs when someone knowingly or intentionally causes the death.
Chiniewicz's husband and three teenage children sat behind her as the verdict and punishment were read by the jury Wednesday. The children also were called to the witness stand during the punishment hearing, each stating that she was a loving mother who encouraged them in different endeavors.
The family was not in the courtroom, however, as prosecutors called witnesses in her punishment hearing -- including a physicians assistant who said the defendant had been pregnant two other times between the Baby Joseph incident and 2000, when her husband had a vasectomy.
Another witness recalled a chamber of commerce trip to Austin several months after the birth in which she was seen at a strip club sitting on the lap of the man she accused of raping her and lifting her shirt.
Chiniewicz wasn't thinking of anybody but herself the three times she got pregnant out of wedlock, prosecutors said.
"She engaged in conduct that caused Baby Joseph to be unwanted," Assistant District Attorney Andrea James said during closing arguments. "She continued to engage in that conduct with the man she accused of rape after Baby Joseph was born and after she proceeded to throw him in the trash.
"Susan Chiniewicz is a schemer, she's a liar, she's deceptive and she's pretty good at it."
Defense attorneys Jim James and Cameron Reynolds didn't ask jurors for a specific sentence but noted their client will now be a convicted felon -- a label that that they said will be punishment in itself. They also noted testimony from other witnesses that Chiniewicz appeared to be making plans to visit California in October that year -- perhaps to have the baby and give it away.
"She's raised three wonderful kids," Reynolds said. "Her husband, despite all this, is still with her. That's got to say something."
But she deserves the maximum, prosecutors responded, adding that she shouldn't get credit for the children who weren't thrown away.
"She may have been an excellent mother to the three kids she has," Andrea James said. "She was not an excellent mother to Baby Joseph."
• Craig Kapitan's e-mail address is craig.kapitan@theeagle.com.
