Outrage Follows Probation Given in Boy’s Shaking Death

Prosecutors say they are outraged over a judge’s decision to put a man on probation after he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the shaking death of his baby son.

Eric J. Coffey, 21, said he shook his 3-month-old son in frustration because the boy would not quit crying.

On Tuesday, state Judge Jack Gant sentenced Coffey to the probation and ordered him to attend classes on anger control and parenting.

The sentence contrasts starkly with Massachusetts’ mandatory life term imposed on British nanny Louise Woodward, who was convicted last week, also of second-degree murder, in the death of 8-month-old Matthew Eappen by a similar injury. She would be eligible for parole in 15 years.

Court officials said Wednesday that the judge in Woodward’s case will not decide whether to overrule the jury’s second-degree murder verdict until Monday at the earliest.

In Missouri, prosecutor Claire McCaskill, who had asked that Coffey be sentenced to 20 years, said: “This is a case where a father has admitted guilt, and he killed a helpless child. If our system is not capable of punishing this man, then our system is failing, and failing dramatically.”

But Gant said he felt Coffey and his family have “had enough tragedy,” and that if the family could forgive him, then “perhaps society should too.”

Coffey pleaded guilty in August to the death Feb. 4 of Dalton T. Coffey.

Gant said his decision to suspend the sentence and issue probation was based on several factors. Among them were Coffey’s remorse, his clean record and testimony from the defendant’s wife, Elizabeth, that Coffey was a “good father.”