Crooked prosecutors and lying witnesses!
An Ohio woman who was convicted of 'cooking' her month old baby to death in a microwave had the ruling dramatically reversed today. China Arnold, was sentenced to life in prison without parole in 2008 for killing 28-day-old Paris Talley in August 2005. But the 2nd District Ohio Court of Appeals in Dayton ruled that the woman should be freed.
Defence attorney Jon Paul Rion said today that he's thrilled with the ruling and said he 'realised from the first day' that Arnold was innocent.
The 30-year-old continued to deny killing her baby after going through two trials in the case. The first ended in a mistrial and she was sentenced following her second trial.
Montgomery County prosecutor's office spokesman Greg Flannagan said prosecutors were reviewing the ruling before commenting.
The conviction was apparently reversed based on prosecution misconduct and claims that they hid witnesses, disobeyed court orders and subverted the judicial process according to Mr Rion.
The state's star witness Linda Williams also recanted her story. After Arnold was convicted, Ms Williams came forward and said that she lied to the jury about the mother confessing that she put her daughter in a microwave oven.
In September 2008, Arnold was spared the death penalty when the jury deadlocked during the sentencing phase after her conviction on aggravated murder.
Arnold had a criminal past and was convicted of abduction in 2000 and forgery in 2002. She had lived with her children and her boyfriend Terrell Talley at the time of the baby's death.
Prosecutors said that Arnold placed Paris into the microwave after an argument with Talley over the baby's paternity. She told investigators that she was intoxicated. Arnold took Paris to the hospital the following day but she succumbed to her injuries.
Arnold was initially arrested but then released due to lack of evidence. She was re-arrested in November 2006.
The death was ruled a homicide caused by hyperthermia, or high body temperature. The absence of external burns ruled out an open flame, scalding water or a heating pad as the cause.
Arnold and the child’s father had apparently gone out for a short time and left Paris with a babysitter, Rion said. The mother didn’t sense anything out of the ordinary until the next morning, when the child was found unconscious.
Mr Talley had later claimed that his son told him he had pulled the baby's lifeless body out of the microwave after a neighbour's boy had put her in there. This claim resulted in a mistrial.
However at the second trial, the mother of the boy in question managed to prove that he was not at the residence when baby Paris died and Arnold was convicted of murder.
Arnold will be back in Montgomery County in a few days and once she returns will be held in Montgomery County jail pending a bail hearing. She is now expected to be granted a new trial.
Original report here
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