Judge finds mother competent to stand trial for killing baby
An Orange County judge has reviewed doctors’ reports and found a mother accused of killing her 7-month-old child mentally competent to stand trial, prosecutors said Monday.
Sonia Hermosillo, 31, is charged with killing her child on Aug. 22, 2011, by dropping him from the fourth story of a parking garage at Children's Hospital of Orange County.
Hermosillo’s arraignment, now set for April 6, had been postponed because of unspecified medical conditions. A week after her child’s death, she was too distraught and unresponsive to enter a plea to charges of murder and assault on a child and was under suicide watch at the county jail.
Prosecutors are seeking a murder conviction. Scott Simmons, the senior deputy district attorney handling the case, told The Times in August that Hermosillo's removal of a helmet the baby wore to correct a skull deformity and her presence of mind in validating her parking ticket before fleeing the garage suggest "she did know what she was doing."
Her husband, Noe Medina, who was at Monday’s hearing, made a statement shortly after the child’s death asking the public not to judge his wife.
If convicted, Hermosillo faces a maximum sentence of 25 years to life in prison.
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-- Rosanna Xia
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