Feds ask for 'decades' of prison time for Sizemore
Jan. 19—Federal prosecutors are asking a judge to sentence a Krebs man found guilty on charges of manslaughter and child abuse in the 2016 death of his daughter to "decades in prison."
A federal jury found Devin Sizemore guilty in April of voluntary manslaughter in Indian Country and child abuse in Indian Country.
Sizemore, 29, was accused of drowning his 21-month-old daughter, Emily, in a pond near Krebs on July 15, 2016, and assaulting then-Krebs Police Officer Jack Suter during his arrest.
The jury acquitted Sizemore of counts of first- and second-degree murder in Indian Country and a count of assault and battery on an officer in Indian Country.
Federal prosecutors are asking a federal judge to "hold Sizemore accountable for this conduct and sentence him to a significant sentence consisting of decades of incarceration in the Bureau of Prison."
"Sizemore does not suffer from some sort of diminished capacity. Rather, based on the defendant's criminal history, he has a background of intentional behavior, escalating offenses, non-compliance while under supervision, and domestic violence that should be of concern to the court," prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum filed in the case this month.
According to prosecutors, sentencing guidelines in this case are 151 to 180 months in prison for voluntary manslaughter and up to life for child abuse.
Attorneys for Sizemore in a sentencing memorandum filed in September 2023 asked for a sentence of time served, meaning Sizemore would be released from the custody of the U.S. Marshal Service and serve no prison time.
A Pittsburg County jury originally convicted Sizemore in September 2018 of first-degree murder in Emily's 2016 death. The conviction was overturned in 2021 after the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals applied the 2020 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in McGirt v. Oklahoma to the Choctaw Nation.
Sizemore was indicted in May 2021 in the Eastern District of Oklahoma for the crimes following the dismissal of his state charges.
During the April trial defense attorneys for Sizemore argued there was no proof on how Emily got into the water. They argued the child's death was an accident because she could have fallen into the pond herself during the commotion of trying to get Sizemore into custody.
"He would never hurt the one person he loved in the entire world," Peebles told the jury. "Officers focused on the wrong person. It should have been Emily."
The defense argued officers should have immediately begun to rescue Emily from a pond near Krebs Lake Road when she was first spotted in the water instead of focusing over four minutes on getting Sizemore out of the water and into custody.
Peebles also told jurors officers did not perform proper CPR on Emily prior to medics arriving and taking the child to the McAlester Regional Health Center where she was pronounced dead.
During an interview with prosecutors, Sizemore told investigators he put his daughter in a pond to "baptize her, because of all the evil in the world" and that he held her head under the water for "maybe 30 seconds."
Sizemore claimed to investigators that "something went wrong" but he was able to bring his daughter back to life after performing CPR on her.
Court records show Sizemore will be formally sentenced by U.S. District Judge Ronald A. White on Jan. 25 at 1 p.m. at the federal courthouse in Muskogee.
