"Jurors have headed home for the night
without reaching a verdict in the case of a Battle Creek man accused of
murdering a three-year-old girl. Newschannel 3 has been keeping a close eye on the retrial of 30-year-old Leo Ackley. We
spoke briefly with Ackley’s attorney, who while he didn’t represent
Ackley in the first trial, says that in 2012, those jurors came back
with a verdict in about an hour. This current jury is now about six
hours into deliberations, and no verdict. The focus of the trial is three-year-old Baylee Stenman, who died in 2011 of a subdural hematoma, caused by head trauma. Prosecutors
argue that the young girl died at the hands of her mother’s then
live-in boyfriend, Ackley. However Ackley and his attorney say that
Baylee’s death was an accident, not a case of child abuse. In
Ackley’s first trial in 2012 he was convicted of first degree murder
and first degree child abuse. The prosecution called multiple witnesses
who testified that Baylee died as a result of a head injury that was
caused intentionally on July 28, 2011, but his defense attorney never
called an experts. In 2015, the Michigan Supreme Court
granted Ackley a new trial, citing ineffective council. This week,
Ackley’s new attorney brought in an expert who said not enough evidence
was taken during Baylee’s autopsy to conclude exactly when the injury
occurred.
http://wwmt.com/news/local/jurors-head-home-without-reaching-verdict-in-leo-ackley-trial
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