Fifteen-month-old Kamaya Flores died from a drug overdose in 2013 while in the care of her father, Darian Lee McWoods. The Oregon State Medical Examiner’s Office found methamphetamine in her bloodstream and evidence of physical abuse, including unilateral broken ribs with a laceration of the liver, facial bruising, and facial petechial hemorrhages, on her body.
It took over four years to get McWoods in front of a jury to answer for the charges against him, which included two counts of murder by abuse, three counts of manslaughter in the first degree, and one count each of criminally negligent homicide, criminal mistreatment in the first degree, and tampering with a witness. During the trial, the state’s expert witness testified that his daughter had injuries consistent with inflicted child abuse and compression asphyxia.
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McWoods was eventually convicted of all charges on June 5, 2018, and was sentenced to life in prison. In a healthy society, this would be the end of the story. A father violently abused his daughter and left drugs out that led to her murder. But, unfortunately, the American justice system has been tainted by left-wing activist attorneys and judges who use race as a reason to give men like McWoods lighter sentences. (Sign up for Mary Rooke’s weekly newsletter here!)
The Oregon Court of Appeals presiding Judge Josephine Mooney overturned the jury’s decision. Mooney felt that there was a so-called “racial bias” in the jury selection because two black jurors were removed from the selection. Instead of trying McWoods again, prosecutors worked to give McWoods a plea deal that allowed him to serve just 10 years for murdering his daughter.
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During an interview with the International Association of LGBTQ+ Judges, Mooney confirms that she doesn’t look at each case based on true justice but rather through the liberal ideology of social justice, which puts race at the forefront.
“I’m firmly committed to following the rule of law in a way that supports a diverse and open society. And when I say that, and when I use those words that are sometimes buzz words that start to lose their meaning over time, when I use the words ‘diverse’ and ‘open,’ I mean genuinely and honestly diverse and open,” Mooney said.
She goes on to say, “And I think that the role that the law plays in the society, if it’s enforced equitably, fairly, impartially, I think you can get there. But it requires each one of us to look deep inside and make a conscious effort to see things from another person’s perspective.”
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At the root of this case is a federal judge espousing left-wing fantasies about race, giving a man convicted of violently murdering his toddler daughter a lighter sentence because she seemingly believes that since two black jurors were removed from service the white jury would not be able to look past their inherent bias in order to give him a fair sentence.
But Mooney and others like here aren’t basing their thoughts on reality. Several studies have shown that American jurors are unlikely to have racial bias affect their decisions, including one from 2024 conducted by Baylor University, Texas A&M University, and Hitotsubashi University.
“Results from three different approaches all indicate the absence of racial bias against defendants perceived to be Black. This includes a comparison of true bill rates of Black defendants with White vs. Black names, an outcome-based test that compares the conviction rates of marginal Black defendants with White vs. Black names, and the disparate impact analysis that uses the blinded/unblinded comparisons to isolate the racial bias component of disparate impact,” the study found.
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The tragic state of our judicial system means that the culprit for the murder of 15-month-old Kamaya Flores gets a lighter sentence based on the color of his skin. The left uses this as a get out of jail free card so they can claim to be morally superior to the rest of us. Unfortunately, they don’t want equal justice for little Flores. The price of her death will go unpaid.
* Original Article:
https://dailycaller.com/2025/06/17/rooke-murder-father-daughter-oregon/