Major development: Hannah Overton: Texas: Mother of 5 freed pending new trial after spending years in prison for foster son's murder. Convicted in 2007 fter being accused of force-feeding Andrew enough salt to kill him, even though she had no previous problems with the law and was raising four children and was pregnant with a fifth. ABC News.

STORY: "Texas mother of 5 freed after spending years in prison for foster son's murder," by reporters Juju Chang, Shana Druckerman and Jon Meyersohn, published by ABC News on December 16, 2014.

GIST: "Hannah Overton, who has spent seven years in a Texas prison for the murder of a young foster child she says she didn't commit, has finally won her freedom and will be spending this Christmas with her family.........Her release, pending a new trial, comes over two months after the highest appellate court in Texas overturned her murder conviction and life sentence for the death of 4-year-old Andrew Burd, a foster child Overton and her husband, Larry, were in the process of adopting.........Overton, a 37-year-old mother of five from Corpus Christi, Texas, was convicted in 2007 after being accused of force-feeding Andrew enough salt to kill him, even though she had no previous problems with the law and was raising four children and was pregnant with a fifth.........

The original prosecutor in the Overton case, Sandra Eastwood, was terminated for reasons unrelated to this case years after the trial concluded. Overton has accused Eastwood of acting unethically in her case, something Eastwood has denied repeatedly. The appellate court did not rule specifically on Overton's claims of prosecutorial misconduct, saying that she deserved a new trial on claims of ineffective counsel. However, three of the judges issued a concurring opinion saying the proceedings in the case were "problematic from the beginning.""

The entire story can be found at:

http://abcnews.go.com/US/texas-mother-freed-spending-years-prison-foster-sons/story?id=26186920

See Guardian story on Overton's successful appeal: "Before the boy’s death the Overtons had appeared admirable parents to many who knew them. But at Hannah’s trial, which was televised and attracted voracious media interest, she was depicted as a calculating child abuser who punished a naughty boy by force-feeding him with Creole seasoning mixed with water. “This case boils down to a woman who tortured a child, making him sleep on rough plywood, burning sheets, becoming so enraged she forced him to have 23 teaspoons of hot pepper and then watching him die in agony for two-and-a-half hours,” Sandra Eastwood, the lead prosecutor in the trial, told ABC News in 2012. Defence attorneys failed to use testimony from Dr Michael Moritz, a Pittsburgh-based leading expert on salt intoxication. According to court documents they felt that repeated objections from the prosecution cut into his analysis too obtrusively and would have been too difficult to edit in a way that would have been easy for the jury to follow.
However, much of Moritz’s deposition directly refuted the case for murder, including his conclusion that Overton did not poison Andrew, who most likely ate something by himself which caused his illness. Trial testimony suggested the child was a compulsive eater who may have had an undiagnosed eating disorder and would scavenge around for food and put almost anything in his mouth.........Remanding the case for re-trial after seven of nine judges ruled in favour, they wrote in their opinionon Wednesday: “We believe that Dr Moritz’s credibility combined with his testimony would have had a strong impact on the jury and sufficiently undermines the outcome of the trial. But for the defense team’s failure to present Dr Moritz’s testimony to the jury in some way, there is a reasonable probability that the outcome of appellant’s trial would have been different.” They did not address another claim by the defence, who allege that the prosecution withheld evidence that might have helped clear Overton, including test results indicating low stomach sodium levels, which cast doubt on the timing of when the child ingested the lethal quantity of salt, and may show that his foster mother could have done nothing to save him. “Much of this information was hidden from the lawyers and it was through very tenacious inquiry and persistence that I was able to tease out each piece of information. Even when I finally had it all I couldn’t make sense of it until we put it all together, and examined it from all the different sources, and we finally figured out what happened here. All the lawyers were misled,” said Orr."

 http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/18/texas-mother-murder-conviction-overton-salt-poison-overturn

See excellent analysis in Grits for Breakfast post: "The DA may want a second bite at the apple but thanks to developments described well in the Texas Monthly story (a key state witness switched sides), it seems increasingly unlikely that will happen." (Links to the Texas Monthly story and other coverage provided).

 http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.ca/2014/12/liberating-turn-in-coastal-bend-saga.html

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: 

Dear Reader. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog. We are following this case.
 
I have added a search box for content in this blog which now encompasses several thousand posts. The search box is located  near the bottom of the screen just above the list of links. I am confident that this powerful search tool provided by "Blogger" will help our readers and myself get more out of the site.

The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at:

http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith

Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at:
 
http://smithforensic.blogspot.ca/2013/12/the-charles-smith-award-presented-to_28.html
 
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Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog;