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 His daughter Ana's foster mother fought back tears as she detailed how after being injured, the girl's left hand was so burned that there was no skin, no muscle, no fat, only tendon and bone.
Ana suffered second- and third-degree burns to her left ear, cheek, hand and shoulder and has required several skin grafts. Part of her left ear had to be amputated.
Her foster mother, Heather Croxton, testified about Ana's screams as she's undergone painful surgeries and physical therapy that will continue for years.
"There is no excuse for your actions and I hate that one day you will be set free and allowed to move on with your life while Ana continues to pay for your actions," she told Mauldin during her emotional victim impact statement Wednesday.
Mauldin, 20, was sentenced after jurors deliberated for 6 1/2 hours over two days. They also fined him $10,000.
Jurors had rejected Mauldin's claim he was insane at the time he put his then-2-month-old daughter in a Galveston hotel-room microwave and turned it on for 10 to 20 seconds. They convicted him Tuesday of felony injury to a child.
Just before putting her in the microwave in May 2007, Mauldin had punched Ana and placed her in the room's safe and refrigerator.
Prosecutors had wanted Mauldin to be sentenced to the maximum of life in prison.
But Galveston County prosecutor Xochitl Vandiver said she was satisfied with the decision. Mauldin has to serve at least half his sentence before being eligible for parole.
"I feel Ana will be well into adulthood when her father (is paroled) and that in and of itself is a great thing," she said.
Sam Cammack III, Mauldin's attorney, had asked jurors to consider his client's long history of mental illness and sentence him to probation so he could be treated at a hospital.
Cammack expressed disappointment in the sentence. "He still doesn't get the treatment for mental illness that he needs," Cammack said. "He's not going to get that in prison."
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 Jurors did not wish to comment after the trial concluded.
Prosecutors said Mauldin hurt his daughter because he was angry that he was in a loveless marriage and he didn't want to take care of the infant. They also said Mauldin had a history of violence and of lying about being mentally ill to get out of trouble.
Cammack said Mauldin has been wracked by mental illness since he was 10. Mauldin claimed he started hallucinating when he was left alone in the hotel room with his daughter, feeling like mud was running up his body and consuming him.
Mauldin at first told police his daughter had been severely sunburned, later changing his story and saying he had accidentally spilled hot water on her while making coffee.
After the sentence was handed down, Joanie Mauldin still insisted her son was insane. She blamed herself for not getting her son help and for Ana's injuries.
"I pray he gets help. But I don't see it happening in a penitentiary," she said, insisting her son loved his daughter. "Nobody in their right mind would cook a child."
The girl's mother, Eva Mauldin, refused defense attorneys' requests to testify and lives in Arkansas. A trial to terminate the Mauldins' parental rights is scheduled for April.
[Associated
Press; By JUAN A. LOZANO]
Copyright 2008 The Associated
Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
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