A woman who was arrested for murdering her infant daughter more than a year ago appeared in Gallatin County District Court to answer to a charge of deliberate homicide Friday.

Shanara Anderson, 22, clad in red jail scrubs, said nothing during the brief court appearance before Judge Holly Brown. Her attorney, public defender Peter Ohman, entered a plea of not guilty to the charge of deliberate homicide.

County Attorney Todd Whipple said he will not seek the death penalty.

The incident dates back more than a year when Anderson called 911 on the morning of Jan. 10, 2008 to report her 3 ½-month-old daughter was not breathing. Emergency crews responded and the baby was pronounced dead at Bozeman Deaconess Hospital a short time later.

Court records indicate that Anderson is originally from Glendive but moved to Bozeman the day before her daughter's death.

An autopsy could not pinpoint the baby girl's cause of death, however the state medical examiner reportedly found the infant had suffered numerous factures to her head and ribs.  

A leather jacket had been thrown over the infant's bassinet the night she died, but Anderson denied knowing how it got there, saying she thought her two-year-old daughter may have done it, according to police documents.

Brown set Anderson's bail at $500,000. She is being held in the Gallatin County Detention Center.

Judge John Brown will now be handling the case.