news-record.com

Judge is vindicated for a controversial call

In November 2007, a Guilford County jury found Mary Elizabeth Roach guilty of felony child abuse inflicting serious bodily injury and first-degree murder.

Roach had been baby-sitting 3-year-old Hailey Rae Resch two years earlier when the child stopped breathing. Paramedics were unable to revive her.

 An autopsy by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner found an array of injuries: five subgaleal hematomas; bilateral ubdural neomembranes; contusions on the head, torso, and extremities; and bilateral retinal hemorrhages. Medical experts later testified that Hailey had experienced a subdural hematoma sometime in the weeks preceding her death.

Suspicion focused on Roach, who was indicted, prosecuted and convicted -- at which point her attorneys asked the judge, John O. Craig III, to set aside the verdict.

Craig did exactly that, citing insufficient evidence to substantiate the jury's verdict.

The unusual action stunned prosecutors, the victim's family and courtroom observers.

The state appealed.

Yesterday, a three-judge panel of the N.C. Court of Appeals backed Craig's decision in a unanimous ruling.

In an opinion written by Judge Ann Marie Calabria and joined by the two Bob Hunters, the court said there was no evidence presented at Roach's trial to indicate when Hailey sustained her injuries.

The fact that she was in Roach's care when she died did not prove she was in Roach's care when the injuries occurred.

"The evidence clearly shows that Hailey suffered a closed head injury," Calabria wrote. "Considering the evidence in the light most favorable to the State, the evidence is insufficient to establish that defendant was responsible for inflicting the injury ... the  jury could not determine whether the injury was inflicted while Hailey was under defendant’s exclusive care, or at some other earlier time."

The ruling does not say Roach is innocent. It doesn't direct blame at anyone else. It says, based on the lack of evidence showing Roach's guilt, that the jury should not have convicted her.

Craig made a gutsy decision to overturn a jury's verdict. The safe thing for him to do would have been to let the jury speak, then pronounce sentence, especially given the high visibility of this case in High Point, where it took place.

For a judge to recognize that a jury made a mistake, and to correct the error, shows a commitment to justice over expediency. In a sense, the appeal put Craig on trial. He was vindicated by yesterday's ruling.