10-23-2014, 12:59 PM
Oct 15 court date
Prosecutors have cleared a key hurdle in their case against Lacey Spears, the former Chestnut Ridge mother accused of fatally poisoning her 5-year-old son with salt, convincing a judge they legally obtained evidence, such as feeding tube bags with high concentrations of sodium.
In a written decision issued before Wednesday's court hearing, Westchester County Judge Robert Neary ruled against nearly all of the defense motions, notably deciding all of the search warrants in the case were in order and opening the door for prosecutors to submit to the trial judge some of their most damning evidence.
Neary also denied a defense motion to dismiss the indictment against Spears and declared the case, which is under intense scrutiny and has gained national attention, ready for trial. The case is expected to be assigned to a trial judge on Oct. 23.
"The most important thing today is we have a court date," defense lawyer Stephen Riebling said. "We're moving forward."
Spears attended the hearing but did not speak, other than nodding as her lawyers whispered in her ear. Her eyes, which appeared puffy as if she was tired or had been crying, darted around the courtroom as she appeared in front of Neary, her every step recorded by half-a-dozen news media outlets who had been allowed to film in the courtroom.
![[Image: 635489694092959984-fb101514spears01-1-.jpg]](http://www.gannett-cdn.com/-mm-/9f189f56e72e509d49136a687c8c1137a87ecf8a/c=326-0-5433-3840&r=x383&c=540x380/local/-/media/Westchester/None/2014/10/15/635489694092959984-fb101514spears01-1-.jpg)
Garnett Spears died as a result of salt poisoning, which prosecutors charge was poured down a gastrointestinal tube that was surgically placed into the boy's stomach when he was an infant.
One of the seized feeding tube bags was turned over to investigators by a friend of Lacey Spears who told them Spears instructed her to remove the bag from Spears' home and dispose of it.
Other seized evidence includes a laptop and cellphone Spears used to post thousands of social media updates charting the life and death of Garnett and to perform Internet searches on the dangers of high sodium in children, prosecutors said.
While Neary ruled all of the evidence was constitutionally obtained, the trial judge will still have to decide whether evidence is relevant to the case, isn't overly prejudicial and meets other standards of trial evidence, legal analysts said.
Investigators said they believe Spears suffers from Munchausen by proxy, a psychiatric condition in which someone harms someone in their care to garner sympathy and attention. Spears' lawyers had sought to preclude prosecutors from bringing up the disorder, saying they have not raised it as a defense and she has not been officially diagnosed.
But Neary declined to rule on the matter, in addition to whether Garnett's medical records from more than 40 different hospitals, pharmacies, doctors offices and other health care practitioners the boy saw over his lifetime are admissible. Defense lawyers will also have to bring those objections to the trial judge. Neary postponed to a pretrial hearing a decision regarding statements Spears made to law enforcement authorities.
"He's punting — for a lack of a better word — to the trial judge," said Larry Cunningham, associate academic dean at St. John's School of Law. "It's better that person makes the decision on evidentiary questions."
Cunningham said that while defense lawyers are usually the ones who bring up psychiatric issues — such as Munchausen — prosecutors may be introducing the concept to establish motive. But doing that also has its pitfalls, he said.
"It's a little bit of a chicken-and-egg problem in a sense," Cunningham said. "In order to establish that this is murder ... they have to establish that all of these (doctor and hospital) visits were not for a legitimate medical reason."
The case is perhaps one of the first in Westchester or Rockland counties to involve Munchausen, said many legal observers, including Ted Brundage, a former prosecutor and Harrison defense lawyer not involved in the case.
"I never even heard about Munchausen," said Brundage, who has been practicing for 30 years. "It's fascinating but for the fact that a child has died."
Prosecutors have cleared a key hurdle in their case against Lacey Spears, the former Chestnut Ridge mother accused of fatally poisoning her 5-year-old son with salt, convincing a judge they legally obtained evidence, such as feeding tube bags with high concentrations of sodium.
In a written decision issued before Wednesday's court hearing, Westchester County Judge Robert Neary ruled against nearly all of the defense motions, notably deciding all of the search warrants in the case were in order and opening the door for prosecutors to submit to the trial judge some of their most damning evidence.
Neary also denied a defense motion to dismiss the indictment against Spears and declared the case, which is under intense scrutiny and has gained national attention, ready for trial. The case is expected to be assigned to a trial judge on Oct. 23.
"The most important thing today is we have a court date," defense lawyer Stephen Riebling said. "We're moving forward."
Spears attended the hearing but did not speak, other than nodding as her lawyers whispered in her ear. Her eyes, which appeared puffy as if she was tired or had been crying, darted around the courtroom as she appeared in front of Neary, her every step recorded by half-a-dozen news media outlets who had been allowed to film in the courtroom.
Garnett Spears died as a result of salt poisoning, which prosecutors charge was poured down a gastrointestinal tube that was surgically placed into the boy's stomach when he was an infant.
One of the seized feeding tube bags was turned over to investigators by a friend of Lacey Spears who told them Spears instructed her to remove the bag from Spears' home and dispose of it.
Other seized evidence includes a laptop and cellphone Spears used to post thousands of social media updates charting the life and death of Garnett and to perform Internet searches on the dangers of high sodium in children, prosecutors said.
While Neary ruled all of the evidence was constitutionally obtained, the trial judge will still have to decide whether evidence is relevant to the case, isn't overly prejudicial and meets other standards of trial evidence, legal analysts said.
Investigators said they believe Spears suffers from Munchausen by proxy, a psychiatric condition in which someone harms someone in their care to garner sympathy and attention. Spears' lawyers had sought to preclude prosecutors from bringing up the disorder, saying they have not raised it as a defense and she has not been officially diagnosed.
But Neary declined to rule on the matter, in addition to whether Garnett's medical records from more than 40 different hospitals, pharmacies, doctors offices and other health care practitioners the boy saw over his lifetime are admissible. Defense lawyers will also have to bring those objections to the trial judge. Neary postponed to a pretrial hearing a decision regarding statements Spears made to law enforcement authorities.
"He's punting — for a lack of a better word — to the trial judge," said Larry Cunningham, associate academic dean at St. John's School of Law. "It's better that person makes the decision on evidentiary questions."
Cunningham said that while defense lawyers are usually the ones who bring up psychiatric issues — such as Munchausen — prosecutors may be introducing the concept to establish motive. But doing that also has its pitfalls, he said.
"It's a little bit of a chicken-and-egg problem in a sense," Cunningham said. "In order to establish that this is murder ... they have to establish that all of these (doctor and hospital) visits were not for a legitimate medical reason."
The case is perhaps one of the first in Westchester or Rockland counties to involve Munchausen, said many legal observers, including Ted Brundage, a former prosecutor and Harrison defense lawyer not involved in the case.
"I never even heard about Munchausen," said Brundage, who has been practicing for 30 years. "It's fascinating but for the fact that a child has died."