The Cowlitz County Prosecutor’s Office asked that convicted child killer Benjamin Pingle be sent to prison Thursday morning, but a Superior Court judge delayed his decision because Pingle’s attorney wasn’t in court.

Pingle, who was convicted of manslaughter last year for shaking his 12-week-old daughter to death, had been free on an appeal bond when he fled Cowlitz County in May. U.S. Marshals arrested him in Eueless, Texas July 30, and Longview police detectives returned him to the Cowlitz County jail Wednesday.

During Pingle’s first court appearance since he was returned to Cowlitz County, deputy prosecutor James Smith asked that he “be remanded to the Department of Corrections as soon as practicable to begin serving his (10-year) sentence.”

But attorney Dan Morgan asked that the matter be delayed a day because his father, Pingle’s attorney James Morgan, was not in court. The elder Morgan “had no knowledge that this was going to be on this morning,” said Dan Morgan, who practices law with his father.

“I don’t know what more there is to be said on Mr. Pingle’s behalf,” Smith countered.

Pingle, 26, of Castle Rock, stood silently in a court room cell throughout the proceedings.

Prosecutors objected last spring when Judge Jim Warme granted Pingle’s appeals bond. On Thursday, they were clearly eager to get him into the state prison system.

“How is the state prejudiced if I put it out until tomorrow?” Warme asked.

“Because tomorrow’s the chain,” prosecutor Sue Baur said, referring to the weekly transport that takes convicts from county jails to state prisons.

As she spoke, Baur stood near the prosecutor’s table with her arms crossed.

“It’s another week in our jail,” she said.

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