TALLAHASSEE, FL (WTXL) - The Florida State Attorney's Office has filed a motion to seek the death penalty in the case against Dajuan Barnes for the murder of a 10-month-old child.
In a court document filed, the State of Florida issued a notice of intent to seek the death penalty in the first-degree murder case, citing aggravating circumstances. These circumstances include a reason to believe the capital felony "was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel" and the victim "was a person of less than 12 years of age".
The notice comes a month after 10-month-old Jeffery Phillips III, nicknamed "Baby J", was pronounced dead due to a broken spinal cord.
Police first came in contact with Baby J after receiving a report of a baby who was not breathing. According to the official report, police say the child had been sick and running a fever when his mother left him with Barnes while she went to get medicine. Barnes called 911 and the child was taken to the hospital where he later died.
Barnes was charged with the murder of the infant after medical examiners cited "an extremely hard blow to the body of the infant" as the cause of death. Statements in the probable cause document filed on the case say that the baby was slammed against another object so forcefully that it broke the baby's back and caused the baby to bleed to death.
Last month Barnes pleaded not guilty to the first-degree murder.
