Appeal: Folbigg's lawyers argue her sentence is barbaric.But is she guilty? When she has maintains her innocence? And what about "Meadows law"?The Court of Criminal Appeal in New South Wales has been told the 40 year jail sentence for a Hunter Valley woman who killed her four children was barbaric.
Kathleen Folbigg is appealing against her sentence and convictions.
Folbigg was sentenced to 40 years in jail in 2003 after being found guilty of the murder of three of her children and the manslaughter of a fourth?
The deaths of the babies, who were aged between 19-days-old and 19-months-old, occurred over 10 years from 1989.
In appealing against the convictions and sentence today, Folbigg's barrister David Jackson QC told the Court of Criminal Appeal that the guilty verdicts were unreasonable because the deaths of each child should have been tried before separate juries.
He also told the court the overall sentence of 40 years was extraordinary and barbaric.
The Court of Criminal Appeal reserved its decision but don't hold your breath.
David Jackson QC argued gainst "Meadows law".
Disturbing similarities between the case of Kathleen Folbigg and that of Sally Clark (nb. Other Meadows cases Trupti Patel, Angela Cannings, Donna Anthony, Margaret Smith, Julie Ferris, Maxine Robinson) using "Meadows law" one cot death is tragic, two suspicious, three murder." The Attorney-General in England is reviewing more than 250 cases where a parent may have been wrongly convicted. In other words, Professor Meadows evidence has been totally discredited. There is a furore in England, but no mention in Australian press?
Mrs Cannings was freed when her conviction for murdering her two babies was quashed because the judges came to doubt the medical evidence on which it was based.
Specifically, they were concerned about the approach adopted by the prosecution expert, Sir Roy Meadow, a retired paediatrician whose rule of thumb was: unless proven otherwise, one cot death is tragedy, two is suspicious, and three is murder.
By Just Us 26 November 04
Related:
Sudden Infant Death Syndrome! & The Kathleen Folbigg Case
Kathleen Megan Folbigg, 37, is either Australia's worst female serial killer or her case is a serious miscarriage of justice in which an innocent mother has been wrongfully convicted of infanticide.
Experts in child abuse cases face inquiry
UK: The government launched an official inquiry into the quality of expert medical evidence in child abuse cases last Thursday, as the implications of the miscarriage of justice in the Angela Cannings case continued to perplex ministers.
Folbigg, convicted until proven innocent
Convicted August 2003 for the manslaughter of her eldest child Caleb, and the murder of her next three children, Patrick, Sarah and Laura. Disturbing similarities between the case of Kathleen Folbigg and that of Sally Clark (nb. Other Meadows cases Trupti Patel, Angela Cannings, Donna Anthony, Margaret Smith, Julie Ferris, Maxine Robinson) using "Meadows law" one cot death is tragic, two suspicious, three murder." The Attorney-General in England is reviewing more than 250 cases where a parent may have been wrongly convicted. In other words, Professor Meadows evidence has been totally discredited. There is a furore in England, but no mention in Australian press?
2nd Renaissance -36 Let The Girls Go! [263]
During 2003 an Australian woman, Kathleen Folbigg, was sentenced to 40 years in prison, with a non-parole period of 30 years. Her crime, which she continues to deny, was to consecutively smother her four children when they were aged between 8 and 19 months. She was largely convicted on the basis of entries in her private diary, although these did not specifically refer to her having killed her two sons and two daughters; only that she was her father's daughter. Her lawyers are appealing her conviction.
