Carri Williams Appeals

Maureen shares an update of the Barbour case, in which Kristen Barbour was sentenced to 6-12 months for pleading no contest to the felony charge of endangering her 2 adopted Ethiopian children.  What I find most surprising is that she will be allowed to go home and take care of her children for 40 hours per week. This is all explained in this article in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette.

Update:  More about the Barbour case in this article: Franklin Park child abuse case draws protest, counter-protest.

She then goes on to tell us about Carri Williams and the 59 page appeal brief she has filed, which she has on her site for us to read.  This is a lot to read, but I’ll try to summarize what I can understand.  They argue that it was not proven that Hana was under 16 nor that Immanuel’s scars were caused by Carri, that the terms “torture” and “extreme indifference to human life” were unconstitutionally vague and that she was deprived of a necessary witness.  They bring up the witness who claimed to be Hana’s uncle and testified to her age being 13 and then fled instead of returning to Ethiopia. It later came out that the State had paid him for his testimony. His testimony was stricken from the case, but the jury had heard it.  They also show where the prosecuting atty gave opinions and was instructed by the judge to stop more than once.  For these reasons, they believe that it should have been ruled a mistrial.

For more on the Williams case, please see my Hana Alemu “Williams” tag.