Melissa Calusinski: Illinois: Bulletin: The former day care worker convicted of the murder of a toddler was back in court today (Friday, September 16) seeking new trial........"Among those who are backing the defense's conclusion — that Benjamin died not by Calusinski's hand but by a previous head injury — is Dr. Nancy Jones, former Cook County chief medical examiner, who consulted on the case early on but did not examine the remains, and reviewed the case again at Rudd's request. A new sworn statement by Jones was entered into the record Friday. In her report to Rudd, Jones wrote that she was in "complete agreement" with him that Benjamin had a previous injury that was missed by examiners and that could have re-bled, causing his death. She also stated that Calusinski's video statement to investigators was "entirely inconsistent" with Benjamin's injuries, because she said she held the boy's face away from her when she hit his head on the floor, but the injuries were near the back of his head. Jones resigned as chief medical examiner for Cook County in 2012, amid claims that the office was mismanaged and criticism from employees that bodies were stacking up in the morgue's cooler. She now works on her own as a consulting forensic pathologist." Reporter Robert McCoppin; Chicago Tribune.
"Melissa Calusinski was back in a Lake County courtroom Friday
as a hearing resumed to determine if her murder conviction in the death
of a toddler will be overturned. Five years after the
Carpentersville woman was found guilty of fatally injuring the boy at a
day care center where she worked, the judge who sentenced her to 31
years in prison agreed to hear what her lawyers say is new evidence that
should clear her. Prosecutors dispute the existence of new evidence and have argued
against a new trial for Calusinski in the death of 16-month-old Benjamin
Kingan, of Deerfield. Calusinski, 29, confessed to slamming
Benjamin's head to the ground while working at the Lincolnshire center
in 2009. But her attorneys have long contended she was coerced. The crux of the case that has attracted national
attention now is whether Benjamin died of a skull fracture caused by
Calusinski, as a jury concluded in 2011, or whether he died of a
previous head injury, as her attorneys argue. They say the pathologists
who conducted the initial autopsy of Benjamin missed evidence that he
had a prior injury and say X-rays found in the Lake County coroner's
office since Calusinski's conviction support that claim. Calusinski's
high-profile defense attorney, Kathleen Zellner, contended Calusinski
was disadvantaged at her trial because her lawyers didn't have access to
these X-rays. "Garbage in, garbage out. The defense was getting garbage," Zellner said. "At a bare minimum, she has to have a new trial." Prosecutors
counter that the X-rays are not new — just a digitally lightened
version of X-rays provided before the trial — and that a prior injury,
if it did exist, doesn't exclude the possibility that Calusinski caused
his death with a new injury. But their discovery led in part to Lake
County Coroner Thomas Rudd's decision last year to reclassify Benjamin's
death from homicide to undetermined. On Friday, a private
software developer testified for Calusinski that the X-rays provided to
the defense were virtually useless because of their lack of clarity. This
prompted Calusinski's father, Paul, to call during a break in testimony
for a federal investigation into what he called a "cover-up" of
evidence in the case. But
prosecutors pointed out in earlier testimony that they received the
same difficult-to-read version of the X-rays as the defense attorneys
and had sought help from the coroner's office before the trial in making
them more legible. The state also has noted that the defense attorneys
had access to the same lightening tool as prosecutors did. Prosecutors
also have noted that jurors at Calusinski's trial heard testimony from a
defense witness who said he believed the boy died of a previous injury,
but those jurors still chose to convict Calusinski......... Among those
who are backing the defense's conclusion — that Benjamin died not by
Calusinski's hand but by a previous head injury — is Dr. Nancy Jones,
former Cook County chief medical examiner, who consulted on the case
early on but did not examine the remains, and reviewed the case again at
Rudd's request. A new sworn statement by Jones was entered into the
record Friday. In her report to Rudd, Jones wrote that she was in
"complete agreement" with him that Benjamin had a previous injury that
was missed by examiners and that could have re-bled, causing his death. She
also stated that Calusinski's video statement to investigators was
"entirely inconsistent" with Benjamin's injuries, because she said she
held the boy's face away from her when she hit his head on the floor,
but the injuries were near the back of his head. Jones resigned as
chief medical examiner for Cook County in 2012, amid claims that the
office was mismanaged and criticism from employees that bodies were
stacking up in the morgue's cooler. She now works on her own as a
consulting forensic pathologist.........Lake County Judge Daniel Shanes said he will announce his ruling on Sept. 23."