BEAR, Del. (WKRC) - A Supreme Court upheld the sentence of a daycare worker who pleaded guilty to murdering a four-month-old.

DeJoynay Ferguson was arrested in 2019 and pleaded guilty in 2021. Ferguson appealed, saying that her life sentence was unfair, according to the Delaware Supreme Court.

Ferguson contended that the judge sentenced her unfairly and “with a closed mind; that he was unwilling to consider the mitigation evidence and arguments she presented; and that her sentence violates her right to due process.”

The state Supreme Court disagreed with the complaints and upheld her sentence.

The panel of three judges explained that Ferguson began working at the Little People Child Development Center in Bear, Delaware, was originally hired as a teacher’s aide in the infant room. The lead teacher was let go from that job and Ferguson was left in charge of the infant room.

The court wrote that “turned to abuse to maintain control of the infant room,” saying that surveillance footage captured her smothering three children on 28 different days and abused two other children.

On September 5, 2019, she suffocated the four-month-old to death, which was also captured on camera, three hours after the child’s mother dropped her off.

According to the court, Ferguson said that the sound of the crying babies stressed her out. After she put the infant back in the crib, Ferguson felt, “more relaxed . . . because she had been able to release her anger and resolve the source of stress,” the defendant said to a forensic psychologist.

Ferguson pleaded guilty to one count of murder by abuse or neglect in the first degree, six counts of child abuse in the first degree, and two counts of child abuse in the second degree. The court sentenced her to maximum possible sentence, which was life in prison.

Ferguson’s attorney contended that Ferguson was an immature teenager who suffered from undiagnosed mental health issues.

The state supreme court said that the only issue with was deciding whether the judge who sentenced Ferguson made his decision based on “a closed mind, vindictiveness, or bias,” but the court said those issues did not happen in this case.

“While it is clear that the judge was not persuaded by Ferguson’s mitigation evidence, on this record we cannot conclude that the judge ignored, or failed to consider, the mitigation evidence and argument she offered, or sentenced her with a closed, vindictive, or biased mind,” the court panel wrote.