HUTCHINSON, Kan. – A 34-year-old Hutchinson man, already being sentenced multiple times for a 2006 case where he was convicted of abuse of a child and aggravated endangerment of a child, will apparently be sentenced again.
The case involves Aron Pritchard. In an unpublished opinion, the appeals court vacated the sentence and ordered the case back again to District Court. District Attorney Keith Schroeder says the issue is over calculating the time he should get based on the the upward departure sentence handed down originally by the late Judge Richard Rome.
The case has to do with Pritchard placing two kids in a clothes dryer, a three-year-old boy, and a two-year-old girl. The boy sustained second-degree burns on his back, arms and buttocks. The crimes occurred on Nov. 28, 2006.
In November, District Judge Trish Rose sentenced Pritchard to 110 months, down from the 124 months which was the original sentence. Now, the court says that’s even too much. They agree with Pritchard’s attorney, Sarah McKinnon, who argued for a total of 62 months, or just over five years in prison. This decision by the appeals court comes even though the original jury had agreed he had a fiduciary relationship with the kids and that the sentence should be doubled. Last fall, Judge Trish Rose again gave him the double sentence on the first count.
As it stands now, he’s scheduled to be released in August of next year.
When the case will come back to District Court for re-sentencing is unknown.