Apparently, this is only the second time in the history of the federal courts that there has been a person convicted of neonatcide. Thank you Major Crimes Act. 😦
The facts in this case are beyond horrible, and we usually don’t post criminal cases like this, but the dissent is so passionate in this case.
Here is the opinion: US v Deegan.
From the dissent (Judge Bright):
In the view of this judge, the procedure followed and the imposition of a ten-year-plus prison sentence on Ms. Deegan, a young American Indian woman, represents the most clear sentencing error that this dissenting judge has ever seen.
* * *
Ms. Deegan’s crime of neonaticide was a unique sort of homicide and completely unlike the usual and ordinary killings that constitute second-degree murder under federal law. As I have already observed, federal courts do not ordinarily deal with these types of cases, which may be grist for the mills of state courts. Only because this neonaticide occurred on an Indian reservation does this case become one of federal jurisdiction. There exists no basis in the statements of the Sentencing Commission or in reviewing federal appellate second-degree murder cases to conclude that the crime of neonaticide comes within the federal second-degree murder sentencing guidelines.
Turtle Talk 
The disparaging sentencing in U.S. v. Deegan represents the view of heinous punishment inflicted ten-fold on Native American people in the State of North Dakota. A similar case, where a young, white woman dumped her baby alive in a dumpster that resulted in the infant’s death yielded a three year probation sentence.
This case is on appeal, but the argument laid forth by Deegan’s legal team is correct, “that the sentence of 121 months’ imprisonment is unreasonable, because the advisory guideline for second-degree murder is not based on empirical data and national experience, and because the sentence imposed is greater than necessary to comply with the statutory purposes of sentencing set forth in 18 U.S.C. 3553(a)(2).”
I have to agree with Judge Myron Bright on this one, the sentencing is too harsh and the desparity on this case sheds a shadow of unfairness from the ND Bench.