NOT A JUSTICE SYSTEM–JUST A SYSTEM
Venomous Kate reports,
Remember Louise Woodward, the English nanny convicted for killing a baby in her care by shaking it to death? She’s a lawyer now.
In other news, Martha Stewart today plead “not guilty” to charges of, “deliberately deceiving her own shareholders, and keeping her company’s stock price up, by saying publicly in 2002 that she had done nothing wrong.” She faces 30 years in prison and a $1.25 million fine.
Interesting. In the U.S., I would think that that kind of a crime would prevent her from obtaining a license to practice. In California, and most states, bar applicants have to submit a lengthy “Moral Character” application (about 50 pages), which requires a massive amount of disclosure (this is in a addition to the bar exam). You might get through with manslaughter resulting from, let’s say, a common accident, like a car crash, but a baby murder conviction (later reduced to manslaughter, in this case)? I don’t think so.
The judge in the nanny case reduced her conviction from 2nd degree murder to a lesser charge and released her to time served. I lived in the Boston area while that trial was going on – I don’t believe that she caused the injuries to the baby. At least, in my mind the prosecution didn’t have enough evidence that would have caused me to convict her.
I vaguely remember the case at this point. But a jury did convict her; lessening it to under a year is just bizarre.
Sure the jury convicted her, because they wanted to find someone guilty. Several jurors wanted the option for a lesser charge, if I remember the post-hoopla correctly. They thought she did something but that it wasn’t murder. It was a weird case – personally, I think the judge made the correct decision.
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