CHICAGO (CBS) — Melissa Calusinski’s quest for a new trail in the death of a toddler she was watching at a daycare center in 2009 moved to the Illinois Appellate Court on Wednesday, as her attorneys sought to convince three judges her trial was unfair.
Calusinski’s attorney, Kathleen Zellner, argued prosecutors withheld critical evidence at the trial in the death of 16-month-old Benjamin Kingan.
At a hearing before a panel of three appeals court judges, Zellner said a condensed version of Benjamin’s X-rays made it impossible to see his skull had not been fractured.
Prosecutors argued a preponderance of evidence, including Calusinski’s confession, led to her conviction. They also noted other doctors testified they felt a skull fracture when they examined Benjamin’s body, even if it did not appear on the X-ray.
Defense attorneys have said Calusinski’s confession was coerced.
Calusinski, who has a low verbal IQ, said detectives broke her down after six hours of interrogation and nearly 80 denials, and she only told them what they wanted to hear. She called her interrogation “a nightmare,” and insists she never did anything violent, and never struck Benjamin.
Zellner said the original X-ray files Calusinski’s attorneys received before her 2011 trial were compressed to the point they were not legible, and newly discovered X-ray images showed Benjamin did not have a skull fracture when he died, but instead had a pre-existing head injury.
In July 2015, Lake County Coroner Thomas Rudd changed the official cause of Benjamin’s death from “homicide” to “undetermined,” citing the new X-rays. He said a previous injury caused the boy’s skull to enlarge at an alarming rate. In September 2008, his head size was in the 50th percentile, then the 75th percentile in December 2008 and the day after he died, January 15, 2009, the 95th percentile.
Dr. Eupil Choi, a pathologist who testified at Calusinski’s trial, has admitted he made a mistake, and that he missed a previous head injury during his autopsy on Benjamin.
However, Choi has said he wouldn’t change his mind that Kingan died from a severe head injury caused on the day he died. And prosecutors argued the X-rays cited by Zellner were not new evidence, but images the defense could have enhanced before trial.
Two years ago, the judge who presided over Calusinski’s trial denied a request for a new trial, ruling there was not enough new evidence to overturn her conviction. Judge Daniel Shanes said the defense did not prove there was any new evidence that would require him to throw out the verdict.
The appeals court panel hearing Calusinski’s case will rule on her bid for a new trial at a later date. Calusinski is serving a 31-year prison sentence for murder.
from CBS Chicago https://ift.tt/2qJu4Ec
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