First District Judge Gordon Low suspended a zero-to-five-year prison sentence. He ordered Gularte III to 15 months in jail. The judge gave him credit for time served, and Gularte was released.

At the heart of this emotional subject is the will and the philosophy of prosecutors rooting out truth and justice for these children.

Wasatch Front county attorneys' offices differ in the way they prosecute child abuse-related homicide. Weber County takes a hard line, but Salt Lake County doesn't appear as tough. Utah and Davis counties have few cases. There are even fewer in rural counties.

"I'm rather cynical about any prosecutions in child deaths," Grey said.

The Salt Lake County District Attorney's Office relies heavily on the child abuse homicide statute, which does not rise to the same degree of severity and penalty as murder, which is a legal term. Though it might be easier to get a conviction — prosecutors reason that some jail time is better than no jail time, but that does not always spell justice.

In the late 1990s, Rob Parrish, who was part of the Children's Justice Division of the state Attorney General's Office, questioned what he saw as a disturbing pattern in the Salt Lake County District Attorney's Office of reducing child abuse-related homicides to third-degree felonies, which carry no more than five years in prison.

Parrish, an expert in child abuse investigations and prosecutions who conducts training seminars across the country, said he could have helped prove murder in nine cases. But he wasn't asked.

"My concern is that children who die from abuse should at least be granted justice," Parrish, who now works as a guardian ad litem in Davis County, wrote in a 1998 memo.

If adults were the victims of the type of fatal assaults committed on children, "there's little doubt" the result would be a murder or manslaughter conviction and at least 15 years in prison.

"It is not justice when the most any child murderer faces is zero to five years in prison," he said.

"When you cause death to a child and get nine months in jail and probation, I have a hard time with that."

Salt Lake Deputy District Attorney Cope said what happens is that neither the defendants nor the prosecutors want to take their chances with a jury. A plea agreement is reached, and the judge issues a prison sentence.

"The guy just doesn't have to stay as long as other people," he said.

From Parrish's vantage point, not much has changed since he tried to bring attention to what he saw as a soft approach in Salt Lake County seven years ago. In fact, he says, it has taken a step in the wrong direction.