Posted 3:07 pm Friday, May 04, 2012
Send to Kindle
Girlfriend beater gets 40-year prison sentence
Judge Christi Kennedy of the 114th District Court sentenced a man to 40 years in prison this afternoon after a Smith County jury found him guilty of assault/family violence in April.
Jessie Lee Burks, 38, was convicted of hitting his girlfriend in the face, causing her nose and mouth to bleed one year ago.
Burks must serve at least 10 years in prison before he is eligible for parole, prosecutor Whitney Tharpe said after the hearing. He was not assessed a fine.
Burks had faced up to life in prison because of his conviction of the third-degree felony. The charge is enhanced because Burks was convicted of the same charge in 2007 in Dallas County.
The woman's daughter, who was 9 years old at the time, ran for help on the night of May 13 at the apartment complex where she lived with her mother and Burks and asked for help from a neighbor, who called police. The child had awakened to find her mother and Burks arguing and saw that her mother had a bloody nose.
The child's mother, who is not being named because she is a domestic-violence victim, testified that Burks came home on that evening drunk and accused her of cheating on him.
She said she got up from the bed to go to the living room, and Burks followed, screaming at her. "I wanted to get him out of my face, so I pushed him down, and he fell over the glass coffee table," she testified.
As Burks lay on the ground, she kicked him twice in the head, she said, because she was angry at him. He grabbed her foot and she fell, hitting her head on a shelf, and her nose began to bleed.
The 36-year-old victim testified Tuesday that she still loved and wanted to marry the man. The victim testified that she receives disability payments for several mental illnesses, including schizophrenia, and Burks told her she didn't need to take medication because "she was not crazy."
Jessie Lee Burks, 38, was convicted of hitting his girlfriend in the face, causing her nose and mouth to bleed one year ago.
Burks must serve at least 10 years in prison before he is eligible for parole, prosecutor Whitney Tharpe said after the hearing. He was not assessed a fine.
Burks had faced up to life in prison because of his conviction of the third-degree felony. The charge is enhanced because Burks was convicted of the same charge in 2007 in Dallas County.
The woman's daughter, who was 9 years old at the time, ran for help on the night of May 13 at the apartment complex where she lived with her mother and Burks and asked for help from a neighbor, who called police. The child had awakened to find her mother and Burks arguing and saw that her mother had a bloody nose.
The child's mother, who is not being named because she is a domestic-violence victim, testified that Burks came home on that evening drunk and accused her of cheating on him.
She said she got up from the bed to go to the living room, and Burks followed, screaming at her. "I wanted to get him out of my face, so I pushed him down, and he fell over the glass coffee table," she testified.
As Burks lay on the ground, she kicked him twice in the head, she said, because she was angry at him. He grabbed her foot and she fell, hitting her head on a shelf, and her nose began to bleed.
The 36-year-old victim testified Tuesday that she still loved and wanted to marry the man. The victim testified that she receives disability payments for several mental illnesses, including schizophrenia, and Burks told her she didn't need to take medication because "she was not crazy."
