The attempted murder case of a Jacksonville teenager accused of abandoning her newborn baby in a dumpster could be over by the end of this month.
The defendant, who is now 18 years old, was arrested in September 2014 after the baby was found alive in a dumpster on West Lafayette in Jacksonville.
Morgan County Assistant State’s Attorney Chad Turner says the case is now set for a “402 conference”, which is held to determine what kind of sentence a judge might hand down for an open plea. The judge in this case is Associate Judge Jeffery Tobin.
The defendant was 17 at the time of her arrest and is being prosecuted in an extended juvenile jurisdiction, which means if she went to trial and was found guilty, she’d be given a juvenile and adult sentence at the same time and could spend up to 30 years in prison as a result.
The last update in the case came in March, when the case was continued to allow for a mental evaluation of the defendant.
The 402 conference is set for June 30th at 3:30 in Morgan County Court.