And he slammed her on the ground and then he’s like

Get this little bitch and go take care of her

Take care of your daughter

It was another day at the office with another defendant

It felt like there was sort of an audible gasp

I watched the judge do something that I don’t think they do very often

So here’s a story of this judge in Oklahoma City

Who had a profound moment of conscience

My names Kenneth C. Watson. I’m a district judge here in the Oklahoma County

But the story’s part of a much larger story that our colleague Alex here has been reporting

My name is Alex Campbell and I’m an investigative reporter at Buzzfeed

So I’ve been reporting this story for about 6 months

I’ve been looking at cases around the country where mother is put in prison for failing to protect her children

Even though she herself was abused

The laws are different in every state and the penalties are different

But basically, the whole idea is that

If you knew your child was being abused and you weren’t able to prevent– get the child out of that situation

Then you should go to prison, too

Now how long you’ll get put away will depend a lot state to state

In New York, it might be up to a year; in Oklahoma it’s up to life

So the story began with a woman named Victoria Phanhtarath

Victoria was sentenced to prison after her boyfriend killed her 3-year-old daughter

Even though she was essentially a victim of her boyfriend, too

Judge Watson presided over Victoria’s hearing when she agreed to a plea bargain

And even when she entered the plea of guilty, I don’t remember anything about her or about the plea

Though, I don’t hear much about the facts in an agreed plea

Hers was an agreed plea

So it was just another day

It was another day at the office with another defendant

In the fall of 2014, Victoria’s abusive boyfriend Freddy Mendez beat Victoria 3-year-old daughter Alexis to death

So here’s a reading from Victoria’s testimony during Freddy’s trial when she describes the murder

Freddy is still spanking Alexis and I go get my son

And I come back and he’s sitting there and he pushed and he kicked her across the room

All the way to the window. And he kicked her

Is he saying anything to her?

He’s cussing at himself. He’s getting pissed off and he’s kicking her and he’s hitting on the chest

What’s he saying

He’s… You fucking little bitch

He’s sitting there cussing and kicking her and hitting her

I told him, “you need to calm down” why doesn’t he go outside

My son is trying to cause he can hear Alexis crying and screaming

And he’s trying to look and I’m covering up his eyes

And he’s sitting there kicking her and pushing her around the room

And I’m sitting there yelling at him

And he picks her up after he’s hit her on the chest, kicked her in the stomach

And she’s flinging around the room across the window

And he picked her up and he slammed her

When he picked her up, he picked her up by the throat and her face

And he slammed her on the ground and then he’s like

Get this little bitch and go take care of her

Take care of your daughter

So when Victoria testified in Freddy’s trial, she was already in prison

The plea deal she’d agreed to was for a 35 year sentence for enabling child abuse

When Victoria testified during Freddy’s trial, he caught everybody off guard

We have a girl who’s already made a plea. She’s in the penitentiary

We don’t know anything about her but the circumstances in this case

And she’s the first, the second, third with this

And she gives us a detailed description of what happened and how it happened

And here’s is one of the many stories Victoria told about how Freddy had abused her prior to the incident where Alexis was killed

What happened?

Well, he starts… We start getting in the argument and he starts grabbing me and starts punching me in my face and punching me in my eye

And he shoves me to the pool. I try to get out

And he shoves me back in the pool and starts hitting me and dragging me around

And I’m screaming and crying at this moment

And he tells me to shut up and finally he gets Alexis in

We go inside the house because the baby’s sleeping

Ma’am, is this the first time Mr. Mendez has put his hands on you in a manner like this or has it happened before?

It’s happened before

Did you tell anybody about that?

No. –Why not?

I was already in a domestic abusive relationship and I was embarrassed

I mean, there were tears in the jury from the member of the jury because it’s heart wrenching

She continued relating details of this particular incident

So you told us what he did, what happened next?

Well, I go upstairs and we’re still arguing. And the kids are in the room

He continues to hit me and beat me in the room

What room?

In his bedroom upstairs in the far back

And we’re arguing in the closet

At this time, I have been shoved all the way into the closet because I’m screaming and crying loud

What happened next?

He starts punching me and hitting me, telling me to shut up

And then he demands me to go make him a sandwich

And I’m covered. My clothes are wet at this point

So he sends me downstairs to go make him a sandwich

The DA having heard that, I could see he was being affected by her testimony

We at this point think we have seen it all

But things happen which give you a different perspective on life

And I think what happened with Victoria and would’ve happened to Victoria was something that neither one of us had expected

Even before the jury came back, I went out and I talked to the DA

And I basically told him that I don’t have any authority to do anything at all in this case because its an agreed plea

I said if you can get your office to agree to let me modify this

I will do it. I’ll set this on my docket to modify it

So the prosecutor agreed and a new hearing was called where the judge would be able to change Victoria’s sentence to a length that he thought was more fair

I gave it a lot of thought before I heard anything additional

I knew that a modification was in order

Cause that was what I had suggested.

I just didn’t know how much

And the more I heard, the more I was convinced that she needed to be out

Judge Watson modified Victoria’s sentence from 35 years to the 2 years she had already served

And she was set free

I was also there for this hearing

It felt like there was sort of an audible gasp as I recall

I watched the judge do something that I don’t think they do very often

Which is look at an inmate who’s been sentenced to 35 years in prison and set her free after only 2

I spoke to the district attorney office recently and they were not expecting her to be set free

And that they were under the impression that her sentence would be reduced to 20 years and they seemed okay with that

I don’t think they were pleased with the judge’s decision

When I thought about her spending the next 35 years locked up in all-women’s prison just…

I wanted to know, I wanted to find out what I could do. What I could do to make it better