When the question was Shawn Heard's guilt, there was little doubt about the answer, since the Avondale woman had never denied killing her 19-day-old son.
Now that the question has turned to the punishment she should face -- it ranges from a long prison term to a death sentence -- the answer is not as clear.
Prosecutors are urging the jury to elect death, a move that would make Ms. Heard the only woman on Ohio's death row.
But defense attorneys say Ms. Heard should be spared because of her developmental disabilities and her low IQ.
"She's 24 years old chronologically," defense attorney John Keller told jurors Monday, "(but) really, she's functioning at a 12-year-old level. Sometimes a little higher, sometimes a little lower."
Ms. Heard is the first person convicted under a new Ohio law that makes it a death-penalty crime to kill a child. She strangled, struck and shook Brendan Walker, who died Nov. 4.
The same jury that found Ms. Heard guilty of aggravated murder after 80 minutes of deliberation Thursday will begin considering the sentence today.
To recommend death, jurors must find that the aggravating circumstances -- in this case, the age of the victim -- outweigh any mitigating factors. To recommend a sentence less than death, the jury must find that the mitigation is more powerful.
On Monday, jurors heard from a neuropsychologist who recently evaluated Ms. Heard. They also heard from her elementary school teacher, her mother, her sister and a nurse who visited several times to help Ms. Heard care for Brendan.
Before Ms. Heard was 2 years old, it was obvious she was a special-needs child, her mother said.
"She couldn't construct a sentence or anything," Christine Heard said about her younger daughter. "She was actually in school before she could."
Shawn Heard, who was in special education classes her whole life, has an IQ of 68, making her borderline mentally retarded. She reads at a fifth-grade level and has virtually no range of emotions, her mother said.
She also has had difficulty caring for herself, often sweeping trash into the corners of her Avondale apartment instead of taking it out.
Christine Heard said she was concerned about her daughter's ability to care for Brendan. She offered to take the boy and raise him until he was a toddler.
Ms. Heard agreed, "but the (baby's) father threw a fit," Christine Heard said.
At the end of her hourlong testimony, Christine Heard asked jurors to spare her daughter.
"Brendan was a baby, but Shawn is my baby," she cried. "Something went wrong. I just don't want to lose my baby.
Ms. Heard, who has shown little emotion throughout her trial, held tissues to her face, trying to stem her own tears.
