Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Move over Matlock

Hailey attorney clears woman of murder charge


By TERRY SMITH
Express Staff Writer

Hailey attorney Doug Nelson explains how he uncovered new forensic evidence recently to clear a woman of a first-degree murder charge in Jerome. Photo by David N. Seelig

Hailey attorney Doug Nelson used his expertise in child head injury cases to clear a woman that he proved was wrongly accused of killing an 11-week-old baby in Jerome last summer.

Like a real-life Matlock, Nelson uncovered forensic evidence that left prosecutors little choice but to drop a first-degree murder charge against Yeimi Lira-Juarez, a 24-year-old Mexican national who spent 220 days in the Jerome County Jail before the charge was dismissed.

"Yeimi should have never been charged," Nelson said. "I think the state should have slowed down and waited for all the evidence to come in."

As it turned out, some of the state's evidence was proven erroneous. The case against Lira-Juarez fell apart when Nelson uncovered his own forensic proof to show that the pathologist who performed the autopsy was wrong about when the child was injured and why she died. Those were key issues in deciding whom the Jerome County Prosecuting Attorney's Office would blame for the baby's death.

The case against Lira-Juarez started Aug. 7, 2005, when she and her husband, Salvador Lopez, took 11-week-old Vianey Lopez to the emergency room at Saint Benedict's Family Medical Center in Jerome. Vianey, the daughter of Salvador's sister, Maria Lopez, was pronounced dead after attempts to revive her failed.

Lira-Juarez had been caring for Vianey since Aug. 2, when Maria Lopez went to California.

Police were called to the hospital because of suspicious circumstances about the baby's death. An investigation was initiated and the body was sent to Boise where an autopsy was started by Dr. Glen Groben, a forensic pathologist with the Ada County Coroner's Office.

Groben's initial findings were that Vianey died of "blunt force trauma" to the head inflicted within four hours of the time she died. Since Lira-Juarez was the person caring for the baby within that time frame, she was arrested and later charged with first-degree murder and felony injury to a child.

A preliminary hearing that lasted two days was started on Aug. 19 before Jerome County Magistrate Judge Thomas H. Borresen, who heard testimony from a dozen witnesses to determine if there was sufficient evidence to order that Lira-Juarez stand trial in district court.

The prosecution's main witness was Groben, who reiterated his findings that the child most likely died within four hours after being struck in the head.

Under cross-examination by Nelson, Groben acknowledged the injury could have been earlier but testified that scenario was unlikely.

Other testimony showed that as many as a dozen adults had taken care of Vianey in the five days after her mother went to California. Nelson contended that Groben was wrong about the time of the injury and that any of the other adults who cared for the infant could have caused it, or that the injury could have been accidental.

But Borresen accepted Groben's time frame for the injury and ordered that Lira-Juarez stand trial.

"It's a musical chair—the last person holding the baby when the baby dies is the one that gets blamed every time," Nelson told the Idaho Mountain Express in an interview last week. "Yeimi's the one who took the infant to the hospital and she's the one who got charged."

Although he lost the preliminary hearing, Nelson said the testimony showed flaws in the prosecution case—flaws he planned to exploit.

His attack was two-pronged. First, he filed a motion to have Borresen's ruling reviewed by a district court judge, and then he contacted one of the nation's leading medical experts on child head injuries to review the case and conduct some tests of his own.

Twin Falls District Court Judge John C. Hohnhorst reviewed and later upheld Borresen's decision. But in his written ruling on the matter, Hohnhorst acknowledged that the prosecution's case against Lira-Juarez was weak.

"If the evidence at trial is no more clear and direct than that set forth in the preliminary hearing transcript, there is a significant likelihood of an outright acquittal based not upon actual demonstrated innocence, but rather, based upon a failure to present proof sufficient to convict," Hohnhorst wrote.

In the meantime, a report arrived from Dr. John Plunkett, a forensic pathologist from Welsh, Minn., who is recognized nationally as a leading expert in child head injuries. His findings were different from those of Groben.

Plunkett, who based his conclusions on positive iron-stain tests, wrote that the infant was injured at least three days before she died. The test is based on the fact that iron separates from decaying blood and can only be detected three or four days after an injury.

Furthermore, he determined that Vianey died from a "crush injury" that could have been caused by someone, perhaps another child, accidentally falling on the baby.

Nelson said Plunkett's findings were consistent with the baby's behavior before she died. For several days she had been lethargic, hadn't eaten well, and cried a lot.

"I knew there was a very good chance that when I got a neutral doctor to review the case that I would come up with a correct answer that the injury occurred several days before the death," Nelson said.

Confronted with this new evidence, the prosecutor's office eventually reached a plea agreement with Nelson that was approved by Hohnhorst in a ruling dated March 17. The first-degree-murder and felony-injury-to-a-child charges were dismissed and Lira-Juarez pleaded guilty to five counts of misdemeanor endangerment to a child.

She was placed on probation and given a jail sentence of time served—220 days—and released.

"This case was a terrible tragedy all the way around," Nelson said. "A baby left by her mother ends up dying, and to make matters worse they wrongfully accuse somebody and make that person wonder if she is ever going to see freedom again."

Nelson, who was once a prosecuting attorney, said the case against Lira-Juarez was weak from the beginning, but police and prosecutors are usually reluctant to admit they might have made a mistake once an arrest is made and someone is charged.

He said it's unlikely prosecutors will further pursue the case. Many of the witnesses are illegal immigrants and no longer in Jerome.

Since her release from jail, Lira-Juarez, herself an illegal immigrant, has returned to Mexico where she is reportedly living with her parents. Her own three children were born in this country and are U.S. citizens. Nelson said he believes the children are with their mother.




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