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WILKES-BARRE &mdash; Luzerne County prosecutors said 8-year-old Sincere Butler never had a chance after suffering severe and permanent brain injuries when violently shaken allegedly by his father, Kashawn Butler, on Dec. 4, 2011.
				The child lived in a vegetative state and kept alive by tracheotomy and feeding tube machines until he died at UPMC Children&rsquo;s Hospital of Pittsburgh in June 2019, prosecutors say.
				Butler, 27, who served nearly six years of a five-to-10 year sentence after pleading no contest to aggravated assault and child endangerment charges related to the child&rsquo;s injuries stands accused with an open count of criminal homicide.
				District Judge Rick Cronauer in Wilkes-Barre forwarded the criminal homicide charge to Luzerne County Court after a preliminary hearing Friday morning.
				Butler sat motionless next to his attorney, William Stevens, as Luzerne County assistant district attorneys Jarrett J. Ferentino and Shana Messinger presented pictures of Sincere Butler&rsquo;s autopsy conducted by Dr. Abdulrezak Shakir, a forensic pathologist with the Allegheny County Medical Examiner&rsquo;s Office.
				Shakir testified Sincere Butler died as a result of pneumonia and seizure disorder due to complications of traumatic brain injury. He explained Sincere Butler&rsquo;s brain was one-third the size of a normal 7-year-old child and could not properly function due to injuries caused on Dec. 4, 2011.
				Sincere Butler&rsquo;s death was ruled a homicide by Shakir.
				Shakir said Sincere Butler could not have survived the eight years he lived without the use of a tracheotomy respirator tube inserted in the throat, a feeding tube and a tube to discharge urine.
				Ferentino argued Sincere Butler&rsquo;s brain became detached from the spinal cord leaving the child blind and in a vegetative state during his lifetime. The assistant district attorney also noted Sincere Butler was baptized just hours before sustaining the permanent brain injuries.
				Brent Sevinson, a city police detective who investigated the incident inside an apartment on Old River Road and has since retired, testified Kashawn Butler during an interview on Dec. 9, 2011, admitted to shaking the baby after the infant spit up on him after a feeding.
				Sevinson described the injuries as &ldquo;extremely serious&rdquo; and doubted the child would survive.
				Stevens in his defense of Kashawn Butler argued the injuries occurred before the baby was picked up and given a bottle.
				The infant&rsquo;s mother and grandmother were with the infant before leaving the baby alone with Kashawn Butler, Stevens noted.
				Ferentino countered that Kashawn Butler admitted to shaking the baby.
				&ldquo;He got upset because the baby spit up on him,&rdquo; Ferentino noted.
				Kashawn Butler remains jailed at the county correctional facility without bail.

Medical examiner: ‘Child’s brain was one-third size of a normal 7-year-old’