A 25-year-old Clinton Township woman who allowed her 5-year-old son to freeze to death outside during the winter avoided any jail time and will serve two years probation.
Derricka Fleming received the sentence Wednesday from Macomb County Circuit Judge Kathryn Viviano after she pleaded no contest to involuntary manslaughter for the January 2023 death of Lamar Mitchell.
“It is absolutely 100% the best sentence she could’ve gotten,” said her attorney, Noel Erinjeri, following the sentencing in the Mount Clemens courthouse.
Erinjeri said he wanted to take the case to trial to seek a not-guilty verdict but Fleming chose to enter a plea to avert forcing Lamar’s father to endure a trial.
“It was a mistake,” he said. “If she could do it over again, she would.”
Fleming said after the hearing she was “satisfied” with the sentence, and blamed herself during the court hearing.
“I was irresponsible with my decisions, and I was childish, and I was naive,” she told the judge. “It took me to lose the most important person in my life for me to have a wake-up call. For that, I want to apologize to everyone here today that my decision hurt.”
She admitted she was “often bitter” about her life situation and “selfish when I shouldn’t have been.”
Fleming looked upward and quietly spoke prayers after learning she would get probation and not be taken to jail.
The probationary term was opposed by Assistant Macomb Prosecutor Stephanie Stager. The sentencing guideline range for the minimum term was 10 to 23 months behind bars. The maximum penalty for manslaughter is 15 years in prison.
“While we respect the court’s decision, our office firmly believed that confinement was warranted in this tragic case,” county Prosecutor Peter Lucido said in a news release. “We requested incarceration to underscore the severity of the crime and to seek justice for the loss of this young life. However, the court has chosen to impose probation instead.”
Stager noted this wasn’t a one-time accident but part of a “pattern” of behavior by Fleming to leave her son alone in their unit.
The circuit court probation department recommended probation.
Viviano called the incident a “horrible tragedy,” adding, “I struggle with this case,” wondering whether Fleming would have been criminally charged if a similar incident occurred at a single-family home.
“I just — like the probation department — don’t see how putting her in jail necessarily provides the punishment,” the judge said.
She noted that Fleming worked, didn’t abuse drugs or alcohol, and cared for Lamar, who was described as “happy and taken care of.”
Fleming could seek to have the conviction expunged after five years.
Lamar was found by a police officer at about 5 a.m. Jan. 23, 2023, in an area near a playground at Clinton Cooperative Apartments, adjacent to Saravilla Apartments off Harper Avenue, where he lived with his mother. Fleming called 911 after discovering Lamar was not at home. Lamar was pronounced dead at McLaren Macomb hospital in Mount Clemens.
Fleming had left her apartment to go to her boyfriend’s unit in the same building shortly before midnight. Video showed Lamar exiting their unit and the exterior door to the apartment building at 12:41 a.m., meaning he was outside for nearly four hours.
Lamar was dressed only in a white T-shirt and a pair of boxer-brief underwear. Temperatures that night were in the 20s.
Fleming in the 20 days prior to the incident often left Lamar alone to visit her boyfriend in the middle of the night, though she said she kept track of him with “face time” activated on a phone left in his room, according to evidence at her preliminary examination in 41B District Court in Clinton Township.
Lamar once during the prior 20 days exited the building’s exterior door and was outside for six to seven minutes before Fleming, who was smoking marijuana with her boyfriend in a parking lot, discovered him missing and retrieved him, evidence showed.
Lamar’s father, Larry Mitchell, tearfully testified at the district court hearing and was too distraught to attend the sentencing, Stager said.
Fleming in her statement further described her love for her son and the agony of the loss. She described her son as “my whole life” and her “best friend” and “greatest accomplishment,” and said she prays for his forgiveness.
“Without a second thought I would lay my life down for my son,” she said. “No one understands how much my soul hurts for my son every day and how much this affected me.”
She was accompanied by a friend with whom she embraced in the courtroom following the hearing.
