Probation for woman who sliced son
6-year-old's tongue cut with scissors
By KATHY JEFCOATS
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 08/02/06
A Stockbridge mother accused of cutting a piece of her son's tongue with hot scissors was sentenced Tuesday to 10 years probation after the boy's father testified he didn't want her imprisoned.
"He told the judge she is a good woman, and he doesn't feel his son is unsafe around her," said the woman's lawyer, Rickey L. Richardson.
Henry County prosecutors had recommended Samantha J. Davis, 33, serve five years in prison. Instead, she will spend a 60- to 180-day stay in a detention center before going on probation.
Judge Wade Crumbley also ordered her to finish a 26-week parenting class and a nonviolence class and have only supervised visits with her son.
Henry County police said Davis heated a pair of scissors on the stove in August 2004 and held it to her 6-year-old son's neck before cutting off a piece of his tongue as punishment for talking back.
Her estranged husband, Toby Davis of Decatur, reported the injuries to police and she was arrested. The child has been in his father's custody since then.
Davis pleaded guilty in June to two child cruelty charges.
But the state's case was hampered when Toby Davis filed court papers refusing to cooperate with the prosecution and asking that charges
be dropped. The boy also signed an affidavit saying he did not want his mother prosecuted.
Henry District Attorney Tommy Floyd said he didn't know if the father's refusal affected the sentence.
"The judge didn't say, 'This is why I'm doing what I'm doing.' I know the father was very reluctant to prosecute and we feel he influenced the child," Floyd said. "We had to take extreme measures to even get them into court today."
Crumbley did not return a phone call seeking comment. Toby Davis said by phone Tuesday he had no additional comment. Samantha Davis could not be reached.
"She's relieved," Richardson said. "She was hoping for straight probation but at least it isn't the five years in prison the state wanted."
Davis will not serve her sentence as a first offender, which would have allowed her to have no criminal record on file if she successfully completed probation.
As Davis gets further along in her sentence, Richardson said, he will petition the court to amend those restrictions.
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