Dad gets life for abuse that left son blind, deaf, paralyzed (Dallas County, Texas)

Dad DAVID CORONADO has been sentenced to life in prison for horrific abuse that left his infant son blind, deaf, and paralyzed. This baby can't even swallow on his own, and isn't expected to live until adulthood. Notice that the mother is mentioned by name for failure to protect--contrary to the two posts below this one where fathers who failed to protect--at MINIMUM--are NOT named publicly.

http://www.dallasnews.com/news/crime/headlines/20110401-jurors-give-father-life-for-abuse-that-left-child-blind-deaf-paralyzed.ece

Jurors give father life for abuse that left child blind, deaf, paralyzed By JENNIFER EMILY
Staff Writer
jemily@dallasnews.com
Published 01 April 2011 12:20 PM

Two-year-old “Baby David” was brought into the courtroom Friday where his father was convicted for abuse that left the child blind, deaf and paralyzed. Jurors wept, but they were asked to meet the victim before they sentenced the father.

David Coronado looked away.

Coronado, 26, wouldn’t watch as the nurse showed jurors how the boy born David Coronado Jr. lives since his father’s hands severed his spinal cord in December 2008.

Jurors deliberated about 30 minutes before sentencing Coronado to life in prison.

“I looked at him a lot — no remorse,” Juror David Greenblatt said after the sentencing. “The evidence showed it was all about him.”

Coronado will be eligible for parole in 30 years. The boy known as David Lopez by his adoptive family is now little more than a shell and is not expected to live into adulthood.

“Baby David,” as he was known in the Dallas County courtroom, slept and sometimes snored as his nurse, Patricia Kumi, stood with him in front of the jury box. She can tell when he is awake because his heart rate speeds up.

Jurors wiped away tears and shook their heads as they gazed at the child in his wheelchair. One juror began rocking in her seat as soon as she saw David, dressed in a blue shirt, jeans and white socks.

Kumi told them that he was having “a good day.”

“What is a good day?” Prosecutor Sheree Sweet asked.

A good day means he hasn’t had a seizure and has spent the day sleeping soundly. It means that his breathing and heart rate are normal and he hasn’t needed oxygen. David can’t hold his head up, and his spine is curved because doctors made a new one out of his ribs to prevent further damage.

“Pretty much, he’s in this state all day,” Kumi said, showing jurors his feeding tube, heart monitor, oxygen and machine to suction saliva because David can’t swallow.

Even though David can’t see or hear, Kumi told jurors that she sings to him and asks him questions. She plays with him and takes him outside.

As Kumi unbuckled David from his wheelchair and held him, Sweet asked if David would always be like this.

Kumi hesitated, hugged David and sighed, fighting tears.

“I’m not God,” she said. “But yeah, medically.”

Jurors afterward said they called Coronado “a monster” during deliberations and wished they could sentence him to more than life. Some left the courtroom in tears.

Juror Calvin Schiff said that while sitting through the trial was “heart wrenching,” sending Coronado to prison for life “was not hard at all. It was easy.”

Greenblatt said there were lots of tears is the jury room and no disagreement about the life sentence, especially because Coronado did not appear sorry.

During testimony earlier in the week, Coronado denied hurting the baby.

It’s not clear exactly how the child was hurt. He was five months old when, doctors say, he was either shaken or hit with or against something. His parents took David to the hospital when the baby stopped breathing, and he was revived.

David had 42 fractures — including to each finger and toe — bite marks, severe bruising and at least one of his fingernails was torn off. Some of the breaks were healing and had not been treated. He is severely brain damaged.

Prosecutors had urged jurors to sentence Coronado to the maximum penalty.

“What could somebody this small have done to deserve that?” Prosecutor Eren Price said in closing arguments, holding up the baby’s long-sleeve T-shirt. “Sweet Baby David Coronado suffered. He suffers today as we sit here. He will suffer tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that.

“It’s all his daddy’s fault.”

The defense tried to shift blame to the child’s mother, Ruthy Chabolla, 24, who faces trial later in the case. Coronado’s attorney, Charlie Humphreys, said that the baby was injured when Chabolla handed him to Coronado. Doctors say that the baby would not have taken a breath or moved after the spinal cord injury.

Humphreys asked for less than a life sentence for Coronado but did not say how much time he deserved. Coronado was eligible for probation because he had never before been convicted of a felony.

“He’s got to live with this the rest of his life,” Humphreys said. “I expect you to punish. He needs to be punished for what you guys decided he did.”