Dad gets 10 years for fatal beating of infant son (Milwaukee, Wisconsin)

Sometimes I think dads like MICHAEL CRAMER must think we're all idiots. You don't think there's a clear medical difference between SIDS and fatal abusive head trauma? Well, there is. And you know something else? Bail jumping didn't exactly add to your credibility either.

http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/96397829.html

Father gets 10 years for fatally beating infant son
By Crocker Stephenson of the Journal Sentinel

Posted: June 15, 2010 1:04 p.m.

A man convicted of beating his infant son into a coma, where the infant lingered for months then died, was sentenced Tuesday to 10 years and 9 months in prison.

No one but prosecutor Kevin Shomin spoke on behalf of the dead child, Matthew Cramer, who on Feb. 17, 2009, suffered abusive head trauma while he was with his father, Michael Cramer, 24. The child remained comatose for more than six months.

Cramer, convicted in April of first-degree reckless homicide, has maintained his innocence, arguing at his trial that his son's injuries flowed from his attempt to resuscitate him from an episode of SIDS.

Among those who spoke on his behalf Tuesday was his wife, Candice Cramer, who told Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Kevin Martens that the couple's two children needed their father home.

Shomin argued that medical evidence presented at Cramer's trial showed he "horrendously and viciously took his son's life."

He said Candice Cramer "has a hard time accepting that the man she loves took the life of the child she loves."

Cramer, initially charged with child abuse, fled to Illinois after posting bail and was also convicted of felony bail jumping.

Martens applied the time Cramer already has served to the bail jumping conviction and imposed no further sentence.