It was the sort of case that prosecutors can't get out of their minds: Adam L. Bartlett, a man who already had one conviction for assaulting his infant son, does it again three years later to the boy's brother. In the second case, the infant dies.

So it was with some dismay yesterday that prosecutors watched as a King County Superior Court judge pronounced Bartlett, 39, a free man. Even though the twice-convicted child beater served only about half his sentence, all the lawyers agreed that the judge had no choice, due to a state Supreme Court decision that invalidated the statute under which Bartlett had been convicted.

As Bartlett was led into the courtroom, 18-year-old Adam Neese glanced up from his wheelchair, squinted slightly, and looked away, returning to his conversation. In this first encounter between the two since Neese was a baby, the teen was calm, despite what Bartlett did nearly 20 years ago.

In 1987, Neese was just 2 months old when Bartlett punched him in the head when he wouldn't stop crying, according to charging papers. Two days later, Bartlett squeezed little Adam's head for 15 minutes when he wouldn't lie still. When Bartlett and his wife, Theresa, took the baby to the hospital, he was bleeding inside his brain and had various other injuries.

He developed cerebral palsy and learning disabilities as a result of the assault, said his great grandmother, who adopted him. (When Deloris Neese adopted Adam, she changed his last name from Bartlett to Neese.)

Bartlett was convicted of assault and sentenced to nine months in jail for that crime.

In 1990, Bartlett and Theresa had another child, Brandon. One evening, while Theresa was working the night shift at a convenience store, Bartlett assaulted the 3-week-old boy, putting him into a coma. He never recovered, dying five months later.

Bartlett was convicted of second-degree felony murder and sentenced to 36 years in prison, a sentence about twice the standard range.

"He was put on notice" after the first assault, which showed him the damage caused by shaking a baby, said John Castleton, the prosecutor who handled yesterday's case.

Bartlett's case was among hundreds called into question after a 2002 Supreme Court decision that threw out the second-degree felony murder statute, which had been used for homicide cases in which death was the result of an assault such as Brandon's. The court ruled that an assault that leads to an unintended death cannot be called a murder. Instead, it's manslaughter, a crime that carries a lesser sentence.

Prosecutors then refiled charges against Bartlett under the manslaughter statute, and he pleaded guilty to that yesterday. At the time of the baby's death, the crime carried a maximum sentence of 10 years. Since Bartlett already has served more than that, the judge had no choice but to sentence him to time already served.

Neese was upset that Bartlett would be released.

"He should have served out the rest of his sentence," the teen said. "What I wanted him to do is suffer for what he did to my baby brother.

"If I was old enough, I would have taken care of my baby brother and he would still be here today."

Life for Neese has been difficult. As a child, he wore leg braces. He can stand now but can't support his weight for long. He had two surgeries to correct problems with his legs.

Nonetheless, Neese graduated from Sumner High School in June after taking special-education classes. His great grandmother hopes he will go on to study electronics, but for now, Neese said he wants to give his brain a rest after all the commotion of the past few years as Bartlett's case was reconsidered.

He tries not to think too much about Bartlett.

"All I've wanted is a nice life," he said.

Maureen O'Hagan: 206-464-2562 or mohagan@seattletimes.com