By Cynthia Grau/WJEZ News
A Livingston County woman who is serving life in prison for her foster child’s death has had her sentence reduced.
Thirty-four year old Heather Lamie was re-sentenced Tuesday to 38 years in prison after the Illinois Supreme Court ruled the mandatory life sentence was unconstitutional.
Livingston County State’s Attorney Randy Yedinak said the re-sentencing came about after they found a case from more than a decade ago that made her original sentencing unconstitutional after all.
“What happened was, originally when she was sentenced, at the time, it was believed by the state’s attorney at the time, it was a mandatory life in prison sentence. And the defense attorney believed that, as well. The judge didn’t question it, because both sides agreed on it. Unfortunately, the statute they relied on for that to make it mandatory life had been found unconstitutional ten or fifteen years before that. So, now that she basically was improperly sentenced – she was a life sentence when it shouldn’t have been a life sentence – so that’s why it got sent back for a re-sentencing hearing under the appropriate guidelines, which was 20 to 60 years,” Yedinak said.
Yedinak argued for a 60-year sentence for Lamie, the maximum for the charge, while the defense asked for 20 years.
“That was our recommendation. That was my recommendation to the judge. I thought she deserved a life in prison sentence, but, unfortunately, we couldn’t do that, so my next step was to recommend the maximum, which was 60 years. They recommended 20 years. When the judge came back with 28, I’m not going to say I necessarily agree with that, but I respect what the judge did with the case. Obviously when I asked for 60, I believe she deserved 60. It’s a shock. It’s a shock to all of us. It’s a shock to the family, but everybody in the criminal justice system has to look at things from different perspectives. My job is to make sure people are held accountable for their actions and punished in a fashion that I think she should be punished, so that’s where my recommendation came from,” Yedinak said.
Lamie was convicted two years ago for the 2011 death of 4-year-old Kianna Rudesill at Lamie’s home in Cullom.
WJBC’s Eric Stock contributed to this story.
