The state's highest court on Tuesday upheld the reduced conviction and sentence of British au pair Louise Woodward, clearing the way for her to return to England.
"The sentence imposed by the judge is lawful. The conviction of manslaughter, together with the sentence imposed, shall stand," the state's Supreme Judicial Court said in a 4-3 ruling that upheld the decision by Superior Court Judge Hiller Zobel.Woodward, 20, was convicted by a jury of second-degree murder conviction for the death last year of 8-month-old Matthew Eappen, who was in her care. Zobel reduced that to manslaughter and set her free, sentencing her to the 279 days she had already served since her arrest. She was ordered not to leave the state while both sides appealed in the highly publicized case.
Defense attorneys had said the child's injuries were pre-existing. Prosecutors said the injuries were consistent with shaken baby syndrome.
Prosecutors had asked the Supreme Judicial Court in March to reinstate the jury verdict and the mandatory 15-year minimum prison sentence it carries. Defense lawyers had asked the high court to either overturn the conviction or uphold Zobel's ruling so Woodward could go home.
Justice Margaret Marshall, who wrote the 46-page decision, said the trial judge was within the law in exercising a commonly invoked right to reduce a jury verdict and to sentence a defendant to time served.
The dissent in the close ruling claimed Woodward and her attorneys had brought the second-degree murder conviction upon herself by choosing the strategy of not allowing the jury to consider a manslaughter finding.
Woodward's father, Gary, silently departed a home where he and his daughter were staying in Marblehead, embracing a host family member before driving off. Woodward's whereabouts could not be determined.
Matthew's parents, Sunil and Deborah Eappen, could not be reached. But the child's grandmother said she was saddened by the ruling.
"I'm not angry but . . . you lose faith in the justice system, you really do," said Achamma Eappen in a telephone interview from her Chicago home.
Matthew died Feb. 9, 1997, at Children's Hospital - five days after Woodward called an emergency number and said he had stopped breathing.
She was arrested the following day by Newton police who said she told them she might have been "a little rough" with the boy because he was fussy. Police testified at trial that she said she dropped the baby. But Woodward testified that she "popped" the boy on the bed.
A pediatrician and child abuse expert who examined Matthew testified the baby's fatal injuries showed he was violently shaken for an extended period of time shortly before he was hospitalized.