A 21-year-old Jacksonville father who must live the remainder of his life knowing he killed his own infant son now must do so for 30 years in prison.
On Dec. 19, Judge London Kite sentenced Justin Golden to the maximum end of his Sept. 3 negotiated guilty plea to aggravated manslaughter of a child.
“What I am left with is a young man that stands before me, and you I believe everything that your family says that you are,” Kite said to him just before announcing her decision. “There appears to be nothing that this court needs to rehabilitate because you are by all accounts an exemplary young man that made a terrible choice about his son that you were entrusted with his care … You violated that trust.”
Golden stood motionless and showed no emotion as the courtroom was basically silent.
The sentencing followed two requested postponements from his attorney, Kenneth Williams, due to out-of-state family members’ work issues and availability to testify.
Golden had written to the judge pleading for her grace for what he repeated was an accident, a mistake that he wishes he could do over or trade places with 8-month-old son Pablo.
On Jan. 25, Golden placed Pablo on a busy road and struck the child as he drove off after the mother got out of their SUV during an argument over baby wipes. He was arrested after leaving the scene on Lenox Avenue while followed by a witness who helped police locate him.
Addressing the court on his own behalf during the sentencing, Golden expressed his remorse.
“I cannot completely tell the court how sorrowful I am for the stupid, criminal conduct that caused me to kill my son Pablo,” he said. “I take full responsibilities for my action. I make no excuses and blame no one else. While I did not intend to kill my son and had no criminal intent, I know that is not enough. I failed as his protector, as his father, and I was the monster who killed him.”
He said he knows he deserves to be punished but wanted to apologize to everyone.
During closing arguments Assistant State Attorney John Kalinowski noted he doesn’t believe Golden intentionally ran over his son. But how much of an accident was it, he questioned. This wasn’t a remote area without traffic where he placed the child on the road, it was a heavily traveled road and it wasn’t dark but in the bright morning light. He placed him not even an arm’s length from the car on the road and peeled off immediately upon closing his door without any caution or care. Kalinowski said the 13-year-minumim guideline wouldn’t be enough and requested 25 years in prison.
Williams had asked the judge to depart from the sentencing guidelines for a lesser punishment considering his remorse and clean record.
What happened to Pablo Golden?
Pablo was 8 months old when his mother and father got into an argument over baby wipes and money while leaving the Walmart on Normandy Boulevard about 10:30 a.m., according to the arrest report.
Golden stated he stopped at the traffic light at McDuff Avenue near Lenox when Shamir Whitby, the 21-year-old mother, said she wanted out of the vehicle. He said she then turned around, grabbed Pablo out of the car seat and placed him on the passenger seat. Golden told investigators he did not want to be responsible for the child and then the next line in the report is redacted.
A witness said she was behind a GMC Terrain and observed a woman get out and walk away before the man placed something on the road and slowly closed the door. She thought it was a bag of trash until he drove over the item and she saw it move, according to the report. She said the driver didn’t speed away but also didn’t stop.
The report said the child was run over by the left rear tire and was taken by rescue personnel to a hospital where he was pronounced deceased.
Whitby told police she wanted out of the vehicle to avoiding further altercation. She stated she did not remove the baby from the car seat and she intended to leave him in the vehicle with his father. When she began walking away, she said she heard screaming and then saw her baby in the roadway and Golden was gone. But she said she didn’t hear tires screeching.
The report concluded that Golden’s actions of leaving the child on the roadway near a major intersection “demonstrated reckless and a willful and wanton disregard for the safety of the child.”
What did witnesses testify to at Justin Golden’s sentencing?
At a Nov. 13 sentencing hearing, Kalinowski called the lead detective in the case as a witness and read two victim impact statements from family. Williams called Golden’s mother, two sisters and his pastor.
Kalinowski noted that the autopsy determined Pablo’s skull was crushed. He also showed a video from a nearby business at the scene that captured what happened. It shows the driver’s door open up when the child is placed on the ground and then the door shuts, and the driver leaves. The mother and others then rush to try to render aid.
Detective Justin Brown of the Sheriff’s Office said he Golden advised that Whitby wanted to get out of the car, so he put Pablo on the ground because he didn’t want to be responsible for him or be accused of anything by her.
When he was told his son was dead, “he became very animated and several times he asked ‘am I going to get in trouble for this?’”
During cross-examination, Brown said Golden was crying a lot when told about his son.
Williams asked if Golden knew he had run over the child.
“We believe that he didn’t,” Brown said. “He stated that he had no idea he had been involved in that. We don’t know if he was actually trying to flee the scene or not.”
Kalinowski next read a statement from Whitby. Here are some excerpts:
“This year I have experienced the most traumatic event that a human being could ever experience. … It’s just hard knowing that I’m not going to see my precious little Pablo Kye Golden, knowing I’m not going to be able to wake up to make his 8-ounce bottles, knowing I’m not going to be able to teach him how to walk, talk, just a lot of things he didn’t learn. I’m not going to be able to hear that little cry, yelling at me to make those 8-ounce bottles. I can’t feel any more of his kisses and his little hand taps on my face.”
She said she’s more hurt for their oldest son.
“I’m not going to fully understand how to tell my son that this event happened,” Whitby wrote. “… Now I have to grow a whole new bond with my 2-year-old son at a time when one life has been broken into a puzzle and I have to be the one to put it back together. My heart has been broken into pieces, and now I have to learn how to grow to be a person, an adult, to better myself for my son and future relationships. In all, I have to say that I’ve learned a lot from this: No matter how bad a situation gets, never get so angry to where I’m ever going to hurt my kid.”
Williams’ first witness was Golden’s mother, Rose Marie Harden-Brown.
She described him as a hard-working, loyal, stubborn and caring person. She said he also helped care for two nephews and a niece.
Asked what kind of parent he was, Harden-Brown responded: “I witnessed my son being in an argument every day because he wanted his sons around him, so he had his sons. I witnessed my son go days without eating because he was worried about his boys. … I witnessed my son go to work and come home, take me to my doctor’s appointment and still make time to be there for his boys.”
She said she’s had lupus, a chronic autoimmune disease, the last 15 years.
“Justin overheard a conversation where they gave me six months to a year to live, so Justin was very adamant at making sure that my medication was taken. Justin was very adamant at being on phone calls to hear what the doctor ordered and what the doctor wanted. … Justin did basically everything for me because there are times that I can’t move or do things. So him being the youngest, he was home and he felt it was easier because I could help out with the boys as well.”
Williams asked her was Golden told her about what happened.
“He thought with her [Whitby] standing right there, he assumed that she would get him,” Harden-Brown said. “He didn’t even know he ran him over. All he was trying to do, like she was trying to get away from the argument, he was trying to get away from the argument. But he’s so used to, and I’m speaking from what he’s told me and what I have witnessed, he’s so used to her calling the police or saying that he did something, so to keep confusion down, he didn’t run off with the baby.”
She said every day she has a conversation with him, he tells me, “Momma, I’m sorry.”
What did Justin Golden say in his letter to the judge?
Golden submitted the following two-page handwritten letter dated Oct. 26 to the judge.
The tragic incident that happened in January with my son was an accident. Never in life I would’ve ever expected that I was going to take my own son’s life. I still can’t believe it. The harsh reality that I won’t get to hold him, kiss him, play with him, or even watch him grow up makes me wish I could change places with him. I wish I could go back to that day and do it different. People have passed judgment on me, not knowing what the circumstance were. Either way, they don’t know the burden that I carry each and every day that resides on my soul. I wouldn’t wish this on no one. The only person who’s really in my corner is my mother. Even then, her sorrow reflects how much pain this loss has cast upon us all. I know how my child’s mother feels. The same way she might not ever accept this, I won’t accept it either. I just pray and ask for forgiveness from her. Only me and God knows that I’m truly sorry. I believe we both made a mistake that day. What I won’t accept is people believing we both failed as parents. I know now the responsibility that comes with being a parent. Not only do I have a duty to my children, I have a duty to protect everyone else’s children from unexpected dangers that’s preventable.
Your honor, the last time I wrote a letter to you I mentioned some of my mom’s struggles. As my mother’s last born child, I have to admit that I hate knowing that mother’s struggles are only becoming worse. As a black woman, especially being a middle age woman, she has tried all her life to do the right thing. All the hardship that is being cast upon her is something that she doesn’t deserve. She needs as much help as she can get. I’m one of the people who made sure, no matter what. That’s something that I know she’d do for me. My mother needs me, needs me more than ever right now. Not only that, I don’t want to go to prison. I never been in trouble a day in my life. Prison is for hardened criminals who know that their intent is to commit a crime. If l’m guilty of anything ma’am, I’d be guilty of an accident, that was caused by a mistake that I made. I feel putting me in prison is only going to endanger my life more, being that my case is globally known around the world. If I can ask you for anything, it would be me asking you for help. I know that I’m still young and I don’t wan’t to spend the next chapter of my life in a system, that my mother has fought hard to keep me away from. I know my life hangs in the balance of your hands. I’m asking you to hep me. Help me succeed in life. If I war your son, and you were my mother, I’d want to be successful just like you.
(This story has been updated with a new quote.)
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Baby’s father learns sentence, ‘I was the monster who killed him’
Reporting by Scott Butler, Jacksonville Florida Times-Union / Florida Times-Union
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