Reply #15: Louise Woodward

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Woodward's legal team filed post-conviction motions to the trial court, and the hearing opened on 4 November. In the days following the verdict it emerged that the jury had been split about the murder charge, but those who had favoured an acquittal were persuaded to accept a conviction. This fact was of no legal consequence, however. None of the jury "thought she tried to murder him," one member said.

On 10 November, at a post-conviction relief hearing, Judge Hiller B. Zobel reduced the conviction to involuntary manslaughter, stating that "the circumstances in which the defendant acted were characterised by confusion, inexperience, frustration, immaturity and some anger, but not malice in the legal sense supporting a conviction for second-degree murder," adding: "I am morally certain that allowing this defendant on this evidence to remain convicted of second-degree murder would be a miscarriage of justice".<2><3>

Judge Zobel's decision to release his findings simultaneously online and in print was widely misinterpreted as an Internet first. He made history for the wrong reason when a power outage delayed the e-mailing of his judgment to the media.

Woodward's sentence was reduced to time served (279 days) and she was freed. Assistant District Attorney Gerald Leone then appealed the judge's decision to the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. Woodward's lawyers also asked the court to throw out her manslaughter conviction. The court affirmed the guilty verdict and the reduction in conviction to involuntary manslaughter by a 7-0 vote. In a close, 4-3 split decision the court rejected the prosecution's appeal against the reduction of the conviction to involuntary manslaughter, and the sentence 16 June 1998. Woodward then returned to the United Kingdom.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louise_Woodward