Plea bargain reached in baby’s death

Bill Gang

Wednesday, May 5, 1999 | 9:50 a.m.

A woman described by her attorney as mentally retarded has accepted a plea bargain in the 1996 death of her 14-month-old daughter, although she maintained in court that she is innocent.

Brenda Broughton, 38, pleaded guilty Tuesday to voluntary manslaughter and felony child abuse and neglect but did so under a legal provision that lets her accept the deal rather than face the potential life prison sentence if convicted of first-degree murder.

In District Judge Kathy Hardcastle's courtroom, Broughton said she wasn't responsible for the shaking-related injuries that led to the girl's death.

But Deputy Public Defender Roger Hillman said that evidence indicated Broughton was the only person with the girl when the injuries occurred.

At the time, the girl was in a body cast because of a broken leg, although Hillman said there are no indications that injury was the result of child abuse.

Broughton will be sentenced June 22 and could be given up to 12 to 30 years behind bars, although prosecutors agreed in the plea bargain that they would not seek more than 8 to 20 years.

Although Broughton had been ordered to stay in custody pending resolution of the original murder charges, Hillman said the woman actually was free for months because of a mistake at the North Las Vegas prison where she was serving time on an unrelated theft charge.

Hillman said that when Broughton served her time at the prison run by the privately owned Corrections Corporation of America, she was released in October despite the pending murder count.

The attorney said she "simply went home" and the error wasn't discovered until Broughton missed a scheduled court hearing. A warrant was issued for her release and she surrendered to authorities, Hillman said.