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Woman found guilty of microwaving her baby to death

I know that there's usually more than meets the eye when it comes to media coverage of most events. Still, I was glad to read that China Arnold was convicted of aggravated murder for putting her three week old baby girl in the microwave during a drunken argument with her boyfriend and turning it on, killing her daughter.

But she was drunk. Doesn't that excuse everything?

Generally not, as anyone who has taken Crim Law knows. However, I'm curious to see when the postpartum depression/psychosis defense is going to rear its ugly head. I'm sure it's just a matter of time...

I may come back and write more later, but I'm exhausted right now so I'll leave you with this article from Fox News. What do you think?

From www.foxnews.com
DAYTON, Ohio ? A woman who shared a jail cell with a mother accused of killing her baby by burning her in a microwave oven told a jury Thursday that the mom confessed to the crime, saying the month-old girl "fit right in" the oven.

Linda Williams testified that she developed a sexual relationship with defendant China Arnold when the two were cellmates in the Montgomery County Jail in March and that Arnold confided in her about what happened to her baby.

She said Arnold feared her boyfriend believed he wasn't the father of the child and was going to leave her.

"She said she put the baby into the microwave and started it and left the house," Williams said.

Williams said she asked Arnold how she got the child into the oven.

"She said she fit right in," Williams said.

"The evidence is going to show that she did not purposely take the life of her own baby," Rion [Jon Paul Rion, Arnold's attorney]said in his opening statement.

Rion said other people had access to the baby, Arnold was intoxicated to the point of blacking out when the child died and people questioned about the case changed their stories. Rion also raised questions about the reliability of the science when it comes to determining the effect of microwaves on humans.

Russell Uptegrove, a forensic pathologist with the Montgomery County coroner's office, said the thermal burns on the baby were different from those that would have been suffered in a fire, an electrical shock or by hot water, an iron or with chemicals. He said it took him awhile to consider that the burns may have come from a microwave oven.

"It was so heinous to think of that, that I couldn't convince myself it was a real possibility," Uptegrove said.

He said DNA recovered from the ceiling of the oven matched that of the baby.

During the opening statement by Assistant Montgomery County Prosecutor Daniel Brandt, a photo of the burned baby was flashed on a screen for the 12-member jury to see. Arnold sat quietly, occasionally jotting notes on a yellow legal pad.

Brandt said Arnold killed the child after arguing with her boyfriend over whether they had been faithful to each other.

When the couple brought the baby to the hospital, Brandt said, Arnold exclaimed: "'I killed my baby. I killed my baby."'

Brandt said Arnold later told police it never would have happened had she not gotten so drunk. He said Arnold, who has been in jail since she was charged in November 2006, told Williams she had killed the baby in the microwave and other inmates that she hadn't meant to do it.

Full post as published by Random Ramblings About Life and Law School on September 02, 2008 (boomark / email).