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UW Innocence Project client hits legal roadblock

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by Courtney Johnson

Friday, March 30, 2007

A Waunakee babysitter seeking a new trial more than 10 years after being convicted of killing an infant will not receive it after a Dane County judge rejected her request Thursday.

Audrey Edmunds, 45, was sentenced to 18 years in prison in 1996 for first-degree reckless homicide in what appeared to be a case of shaken baby syndrome at the time.

According to court documents, medical experts testified 7-month-old Natalie Beard likely died from "a cerebral hemorrhage probably caused by violent shaking or hitting within the preceding 24 hours," meaning the child would have likely been injured while in Edmunds' care.

However, since the original trial, those same medical experts, including Robert Huntington III, have said they can no longer stand by that timeline for when the trauma occurred.

"[Huntington] testified that he wasn't comfortable with his trial testimony, and that he could no longer say with any certainty when the baby died," said Keith Findley, University of Wisconsin clinical law professor and head of UW's Innocence Project, which has been helping Edmunds in her attempts for a new trial. "That apparently wasn't enough to satisfy the trial court that a new trial was warranted."

The Innocence Project is comprised of attorney-supervised law students who give free legal help to prison inmates like Edmunds who have always maintained their innocence and believe they can prove they were wrongly convicted.

The project works with the UW Law School and the Frank J. Remington Center, another clinical program that gives law students real-life legal experience.

Huntington testified earlier this year that an infant's lucid interval after experiencing head trauma could last for as long as three days.

This new medical testimony raised doubt as to whether the baby was injured while in Edmunds' care, particularly since Edmunds claimed during her original trial the head trauma likely occurred the night before she watched Beard — when the child was alone with her father for 45 minutes.

Edmunds said the infant's crying often bothered the father, who allegedly suffered from migraine headaches.

Although the denial for a new trial is a setback, Findley said he and the Innocence Project are not finished assisting Edmunds.

"It's not over — there's more work to be done," Findley said. "The students and I will continue, and we will be filing an appeal and writing the appellate brief."

Due to its small size and funding, the Innocence Project usually only takes on those cases where new physical evidence has been found that may point to the inmate's innocence. The inmate must have also exhausted all appeals before the project will offer representation.

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Sheila Berry (March 31, 2007 @ 7:38am):

This decison offends both common sense and justice.

josie gundlach (April 1, 2007 @ 12:10pm):

This is an abomination. Whatever happened to reasonable doubt. There was not only reasonable doubt in the first trial, but there is even more reasonable dount now. I hope the judge and the D.A. can sleep at night knowing they have destroyed a woman's life and destroyed her family. The judge is too egocentric to admit a horrific mistake was made in the first trial. Shame on him and shame on the legal system that keeps this INNOCENT woman behind bars.

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