Carisa Ashe is an Atlanta-area

Atlanta, Georgia

Atlanta is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia. According to the 2010 census, Atlanta's population is 420,003. Atlanta is the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, which is home to 5,268,860 people and is the ninth largest metropolitan area in...

 woman whose story briefly became a media sensation in 2005. She had been charged with the 16 December 1998 beating death of her five-month-old daughter Destiny Ashe.

However, a plea bargain

Plea bargain

A plea bargain is an agreement in a criminal case whereby the prosecutor offers the defendant the opportunity to plead guilty, usually to a lesser charge or to the original criminal charge with a recommendation of a lighter than the maximum sentence.A plea bargain allows criminal defendants to...

 was reached, which did not require her to serve any prison

Prison

A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime...

 time but did include mandatory sterilization. The alleged leniency of this agreement, as well as the sterilization requirement, aroused great controversy.

Carisa Ashe is an unmarried mother of eight children, including the one who was murdered. Of the other children, one is missing, two are living with Carisa's parents, and the remaining four were taken by the state.

External links

• Information about the recall effort to remove the district attorney who chose to not prosecute Ms. Ashe