During the three-day sentencing hearing, friends and neighbors packed the court, often hugging the Merrymans and speaking of their deep faith. In response to the characterizations, Harford County Assistant State's Attorney Diane Adkins-Tobin displayed an autopsy photograph of a skeletal child. Dennis' jawbones and cheekbones jutted from his face, and his ribs protruded from his frail body.
Adkins-Tobin repeatedly asked the character witnesses how anyone could describe parents who so knowingly abused their child as kind and loving.
"The heinousness goes further," Adkins-Tobin said. "They involved other children in it. Not only did they require them to take part in the abuse [by tying up their brother], but they made them play a role in the cover-up. Dennis, by dying, saved the rest of the children."
One of the Merrymans' attorneys, Andrew Alperstein, said grief and the destruction of their family had already punished them.
"Any objective person can see Dennis was in bad physical shape," Alperstein said. "The Merrymans did not set out to kill this child."
Craig Kadish, another defense attorney, said the couple has not yet decided whether to appeal the sentencing. They had pleaded guilty to first-degree child abuse resulting in death, and had charges of second-degree murder and four counts of child abuse dropped.
Prosecutors had asked the judge for the maximum 30-year sentence. But Plitt handed down 22 years, with credit given for the last three years that the Merrymans have been under house arrest.
"I have no sympathy for them at all," said Adkins-Tobin. "They had no sympathy for Dennis. They were cruel and inhuman."
The family's supporters sobbed and formed a prayer circle inside the courtroom after the Merrymans were taken away.
Their former pastor, the Rev. John A. Dekker, said, "They're not criminals. They tried to do certain things for Dennis and it backfired. The judge had no sympathy."
Before announcing his sentence, Plitt read a statement from one of the Merrymans' daughters.
"Children are not made to be abused. My parents ruined and shamed so many lives. ... Dennis deserved to live, not die."
madison.park@baltsun.com
