PARIS TALLEY- 28 Days (2OO5) - Dayton OH

Jury convicts Ohio mom in microwave baby case


DAYTON, Ohio – Jurors in an Ohio woman's third trial found her guilty Friday of burning her baby daughter to death in a microwave oven.
China Arnold, 31, was convicted of aggravated murder in the death of 28-day-old Paris Talley in August 2005. Arnold could receive the death penalty. The sentencing phase will begin Monday.
Arnold's first trial ended in a mistrial. She was found guilty in the second trial, but that conviction was reversed last fall. An appeals court found there was misconduct by prosecutors and that the trial court made an error by not allowing a material witness to testify in Arnold's defense.
Prosecutors have said Arnold intentionally put the baby in the microwave after a fight with her boyfriend. The defense had argued that someone else was responsible.
Medical experts testified that the baby died after her temperature reached 107 to 108 degrees Fahrenheit and that she probably was in the microwave for more than two minutes, dying quickly afterward.
"She died because she was overheated," said Dr. Marcella Fierro, retired chief medical examiner for Virginia. "She was cooked.'"
Messages seeking comment from the prosecutor and defense attorney were left at their offices, but a gag order in the case prevents anyone connected to it from commenting outside court.
Assistant Prosecutor Dan Brandt told jurors in court that Arnold's actions were "even more purposeful" than a slaying with a gun or knife, the Dayton Daily News reported.
"Baby Paris is without life, but she's not without a voice," Brandt told jurors in closing arguments. "Please listen to her."
Brandt said that Arnold had to carry the baby over, place her in the microwave, shut the door and press buttons. Then she waited while her child cooked to death, Brandt said.
Defense attorney Jon Paul Rion argued that the evidence pointed as much to Terrell Talley, the baby's father, as it did Arnold.
"This doesn't make sense to you," Rion told jurors. "It doesn't. I've been watching your faces."
The prosecutor cut and fit evidence to show "this loving mother somehow was so evil that she killed her baby in this way," he said.
Rion said Talley's testimony that Arnold said "I killed my baby" left out important context. She only meant that she failed as a mother by allowing the crime to happen and not that she killed her child.
The defense attorney also said that Terrell Talley's sneakers were stained with a bodily substance that should have been tested.
Arnold also was very intoxicated, Rion said.
"No mother is going to do this, in this way," Rion said. "China Arnold is innocent of these charges."
Brandt said that Arnold admitted to police that the baby woke her up and that she was alone, beside her other sleeping children. There also were no signs of a break-in, he said.
"She eliminated everyone else," Brandt said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110513/ap_on_re_us/us_baby_death_microwave

May 23rd, 2011
06:46 PMET


Mom Sentenced to Life in Prison for Putting Baby in Microwave

After deliberating for six hours over the course of two days, an Ohio jury recommended life in prison without parole Friday for a mother convicted of killing her month-old baby in a microwave.

The jury, which had found her guilty of aggravated murder a week earlier, spared 31-year-old China Arnold from the death penalty in her third trial for daughter Paris Talley’s 2005 death.

The sentencing phase of Arnold’s trial had been delayed for a few days earlier in the week so she could undergo a mental exam, but two psychologists testified Thursday that she showed no signs of mental illness. In an effort to avoid a death sentence, the defense told the jury that Arnold was very drunk at the time of the killing and that she had no prior criminal history. Prosecutors argued that there were no mitigating factors that outweighed her crime.

Arnold was accused of putting her baby in a microwave and turning it on after a fight with her boyfriend in August 2005. Medical experts testified at the trial that the girl was likely in the microwave for more than two minutes.

“She was cooked,” one former medical examiner testified, according to WLWT.

Arnold’s supporters gathered for a rally on Wednesday, claiming that her conviction was an unjust result of racism. Even after the sentencing, defense attorney Jon Paul Rion told the Springfield News Sun that, “There are witnesses out there that know China is innocent.”

This was not the first jury to convict Arnold of murder, though. Her first trial ended in a mistrial in 2008 when a boy came forward and claimed he saw another child put Talley in the microwave, but she was found guilty at her second trial later that year. That conviction was eventually overturned, partly due to issues with a former cellmate who changed her testimony between trials.