JACE BURGESS - 3 yo (6/2010) - Tulsa OK

A Tulsa County jury found Cody Keith Sartin guilty of the first-degree, child-abuse murder of Jace Burgess.

Jurors imposed a life term that requires Sartin, 31, to serve 38 years and three months before being eligible for parole from prison. He also got a $10,000 fine.

Prosecutors Sarah McAmis and Kali Strain maintained that Sartin abused Jace and inflicted unreasonable force on the boy between June 12 and June 13 of 2010, causing a subdural hematoma - or brain bleed - that resulted in his death on June 16, 2010.

A medical examiner ruled the death was a homicide and that the probable cause of death was blunt head trauma.

The medical examiner found that Jace had numerous bruising and brain injuries, a prosecutor said.

Jace had been born very premature at 25 weeks. Leslie Burgess became his foster mother and, as a single parent, ultimately adopted him.

Sartin had lived with Leslie Burgess and her healthy 3-year-old son for about four months, McAmis said.

Late June 12, 2010, the mother worked a night shift and Jace was left in the sole care of Sartin at their residence in the 4000 block of East 25th Street, police said.

After 1 a.m., Sartin called 911 and reported that Jace's eyes were half open and that his breathing was not normal, police reported.

Defense lawyer Julie Ball said there was reasonable doubt regarding the prosecution's contention that Jace was fatally injured during a time period when Sartin was alone with the boy.

Evidence indicated that Sartin loved Jace, Ball said.

In a closing argument Friday, McAmis asserted that Jace was murdered by a man who "had to be consumed with rage and had to be consumed with anger" to inflict these injuries on a boy "who had no way to get away."

Sartin did not testify at the trial. He has been in the Tulsa Jail since June 23, 2010.

District Judge William Kellough set formal sentencing for April 9.

• http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=14&articleid=20120225_14_A15_CUTLIN367954
  

Okla. court affirms life sentence in child's death
May 03, 2013 04:07 CDT


OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- An Oklahoma appeals court has upheld the life prison sentence of a man convicted of first-degree murder in the death of his girlfriend's 3-year-old son.

The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals handed down the decision on Thursday in the case of 32-year-old Cody Sartin. A Tulsa County jury last year convicted Sartin in the June 2010 death of Jace Burgess. Jurors recommended a life prison sentence without the possibility of parole.

Prosecutors say Sartin shook Jace, which caused severe trauma to his head. The child was hospitalized with brain damage and died after being taken off life support.

Defense attorney Wyndi Hobbs of the Oklahoma Indigent Defense System did not immediately return a telephone call seeking comment.

Sartin is confined at the Davis Correctional Facility in Holdenville.

http://www.okcfox.com/template/inews_wire/wires.regional.ok/3eef431e-www.okcfox.com.shtml