Judge denies resentencing for woman who killed toddler, claimed domestic violence
A woman who killed her toddler daughter in Yonkers in 2003 has lost her bid for a reduced sentence.
Uniqua Smith, 40, relied on a 2019 state law, the Domestic Violence Survivor’s Justice Act, allowing convicts to seek resentencing if they were subject to domestic violence that significantly contributed to their criminal behavior.
But Westchester County Judge George Fufidio has denied Smith a hearing on the issue, finding that her application did not include adequate claims that she was suffering from domestic violence at the time of the killing.
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Smith was 20 when she fatally beat her 2-year-old daughter Theresa on Dec. 9, 2003, in a Westhab apartment on Hudson Street in Yonkers. She went to trial without a jury in July 2004 and the judge found her guilty of second-degree murder and sentenced her to 25 years to life in prison.
She has been in the state prison at Bedford Hills ever since and is not eligible for parole until late 2028.
Fufidio conceded that Smith had lived an “extraordinarily difficult life” but found that she had not “established a temporal nexus between the abuse and the crime.”
The required documentation she submitted cited an episode of domestic violence by her former partner 14 months before she killed her daughter. Fufidio noted that the legislation does not require the domestic violence to be simultaneous with the criminal behavior or that the abuser be the victim of the crime. But there does have to be some proximity to the crime and the abuse must be substantial.
A lawyer from the Legal Aid Society of Westchester who submitted the application for Smith has since left that organization. A staff member who answered the phone in the executive director's office said they don't comment to the media.
Smith is one of seven people convicted in Westchester who have applied for resentencing under the new law. The District Attorney has opposed all but one of them. Jonitha Alston, who fatally stabbed her abusive boyfriend in 2016, had her 12-year prison term for manslaughter reduced to five years and was released in the fall after the DA’s Office agreed she qualified for the relief.
Another inmate, Carla Scott, had a hearing last year before Fufidio, who has yet to rule on whether she will be resentenced. Scott was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 25 years in prison for running over a romantic rival with her car in Yonkers in 2015.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Judge denies domestic violence resentencing for Yonkers mother
