FREEHOLD, N.J. – A New Jersey appeals court has upheld the life sentence of a man who threw his 2-year-old daughter into a creek while she was strapped into her car seat and weighed down by a tire jack.
A two-judge panel ruled Wednesday that 32-year-old Arthur Morgan III did not receive an excessive sentence and doesn't deserve a new trial.
Morgan was convicted in 2014 of murdering Tierra Morgan-Glover by tossing her into the creek in 2011.
Superior Court Judge Anthony Mellaci, who sentenced Morgan, called him "candidate No. 1" for the death penalty if the state still executed convicts.
Morgan's defense was that he put his daughter in the water to let God decide her fate because of a dispute with the girl's mother.
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