by Kerry Dougherty

Little Iijayah Johnson spent only nine days on earth. 

Her short sojourn was hell. Death, when it came, may have been a relief to her tiny battered body.

According to news reports, when Iijayah’s parents brought her lifeless body to Children’s Hospital of The King’s Daughters in Norfolk on the 4th of May the infant had several broken ribs, deep “partial thickness burns on her feet,” a blunt force trauma to her head, “healing cuts on her face and head” and bruises on her back.

When asked the date of the baby’s birth, her parents reportedly laughed, as they “struggled to remember.“

Are you sick yet?

It gets worse. 

On Wednesday Norfolk Circuit Court Judge Jamilah LeCruise accepted a guilty plea from the newborn’s father, Hilary Darnell Johnson II. In it, the 24-year-old pleaded guilty to 2nd degree murder. In exchange Norfolk prosecutors dropped charges of child abuse and neglect and agreed to a prison sentence that “shall not exceed 19 years.”

Nineteen years. 

He will be sentenced in October. The judge could give him fewer than 19 years.

Unthinkable.

In Virginia, 2nd degree murder carries the possibility of 5 to 40 years. If the killing of a helpless newborn doesn’t cry out for a maximum sentence, what does?

Iijayaj’s mother, Z’Ibreyea Parker is scheduled for trial on August 19. 

Norfolk Commonwealth Attorney Ramin Fatehi just won the Democrat primary despite Mayor Kenny Alexander and other prominent Democrats supporting his opponent because they saw the city’s top prosecutor as soft on crime. He will almost certainly be elected to a second term as the city’s top prosecutor.

Fatehi is a self-described “progressive prosecutor” who opposes cash bail, long prison sentences and who took $200,000 from George Soros PACs when he ran for office last time. Continue reading.