TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — Should there be a second chance for a plea deal for a man charged with killing his daughter in a hot car? That’s the new question for Christopher Scholtes, facing first degree murder charges.
The father charged with first degree murder for leaving his two year old daughter in a hot car until she died has already rejected a plea deal in the case but now it looks like he and his lawyer are taking another try to get a reduced charge.
Marana Police body cameras caught Christopher Scholtes as he waited to hear if his daughter would survive. She didn’t. Investigators say she spent almost three and a half hours strapped in a car seat in temperatures well over a hundred degrees; while her father sat in the living room drinking, playing video games and watching pornography.
Text messages from Scholtes’ wife show her reminding him she’d told him many times to stop leaving their children in the car.
In March, Scholtes rejected a chance to plead guilty to second degree murder. That would have avoided a first degree murder trial where a guilty verdict could have led to a life sentence. second degree murder calls for 10 to 25 years.
But now Scholtes’ attorney Marc Adair says he’d like to try for a new plea deal. He says he’s developing new evidence that would argue for lighter punishment.
“We have been working diligently to try to get mitigation evidence put together specifically that pertains to these kinds of cases, specifically deaths for children left in hot cars. We’ve been doing research across the entire country in that regard.”
Prosecutors saw they’ll look at what Scholtes’ defense puts together but they don’t see how it would change what happened and they are not committing to considering a new plea deal.
