Re-sentencing set in baby killing on Erie campus

ERIE, Pa. (AP) — A re-sentencing is set for a former Mercyhurst College student who smothered her newborn daughter in her Erie campus apartment.

Twenty-two-year-old Teri Rhodes is scheduled for court Friday. She has pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and was sentenced to at least nine years in prison, but never began serving her time before the sentence was overturned on appeal in December.

Rhodes, of Commerce Township, Mich., was a volleyball player when she hid her pregnancy and even passed a team physical shortly before killing the baby immediately after birth in August 2007.

A Superior Court panel found Erie County Judge William Cunningham abused his discretion when he imposed the unusually severe sentence. A different judge will re-sentence Rhodes. State guidelines call for a minimum sentence of three to four-and-a-half years in prison, though her attorney is asking for leniency.