Family Outraged As Teen Killer Of 16-Year-Old Naima Liggon Takes Plea Deal, Will Serve Six Years In Juvenile Detention

December 6, 2023
The teen pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor manslaughter charge.
The family of 16-year-old Naima Liggon, who was fatally stabbed during a dispute at a Washington, D.C. McDonald’s, is outraged after prosecutor’s struck a deal that will keep her 16-year-old killer from standing trial for a first-degree murder charge.
The teen pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor manslaughter charge and will spend the next five to six years in a juvenile detention center, Fox 5 News reports. The punishment for the first-degree murder charge would have carried a much heftier sentence and would have required that the teen be tried as an adult.
Liggon’s mother, Joy, was irate following the court proceedings and said that though the family had been consulted about the plea deal, she felt that their concerns were not “incorporated into the decision.” The maximum sentence her daughter’s killer can now serve is confinement until her 21st birthday.
“What I can tell you is that it does not feel like justice that the person that took our daughter is going to be—possibly, at the maximum—in a detention center for five and a half years. It seems like it should be more than that,” she said.
Though she expressed her disappointment in the verdict, Joy LIggon was relieved that the case as well as the “sensationalized fiasco” she felt it had become—the incident that led to her daughter’s death was linked to a dispute over sweet-and-sour sauce by media outlets—was now over, The Washington Post reports.
“We would have liked go to trial for first-degree murder. I felt that is what my daughter deserved. But I also understand that a guilty verdict is a guilty verdict,” Liggon said. “It doesn’t look like our child was out in the street fighting over sweet-and-sour sauce. That was never the case.”
At a Dec. 4 hear, prosecutor Crystal Gaines explained that Naima Liggon was breaking up a fight between two other teens when she was fatally wounded. She was rushed to the hospital, where she died.
Judge Andrea L. Hertzfeld denied the defense’s request to have the teen defendant released to her parents while she awaits sentencing but did order her to be psychologically evaluated.
“This young person clearly needs services,” Hertzfeld said. “There are some issues here.”
RELATED CONTENT: 16-Year-Old Black Girl Fatally Stabbed Over McDonald’s Dipping Sauces








Enter your Email Address below to get our fun-filled Newsletter!
© 2023 Black Enterprise. All Rights Reserved.

source