PORTLAND – Maine’s highest court has upheld the conviction of Sarah Allen who was convicted last year in the shaken-baby death of her adopted 21-month-old son.
Allen appealed to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court after a jury found her guilty of manslaughter. Her first trial in 2004 ended when that jury deadlocked.
The high court also upheld the assault conviction of her husband, Jeremy.
The court ruled on March 2. The Lisbon couple had been free pending appeal.
Lawyers for the Allens said they were advised this week to report to the Department of Corrections to start serving their sentences. Sarah Allen was sentenced to eight years with all but three-and- a-half suspended. Jeremy Allen is expected to serve up to six months for spanking their baby with a wooden spoon.
Sarah Allen’s conviction stems from events on Feb. 14, 2003. She placed a frantic 911 call at 10 p.m. reporting that her son, Nathaniel, was unconscious.
Paramedics said they arrived to find him unresponsive, his breathing labored. He underwent neurosurgery at Maine Medical Center where he was diagnosed with severe head trauma. He died the next day.
A pediatrician and child- abuse expert examined the boy, concluded his injuries were consistent with shaking or jerking and later testified against Sarah Allen at her trial.
Allen claimed her son fell in the bathtub and fell several times on his carpeted bedroom floor, hitting his head repeatedly.
At the end of her second trial, her lawyer, Verne Paradie Jr. of Auburn, said he had discovered evidence too late to introduce at trial that would show Nathaniel likely died because of a genetic metabolic defect. Paradie said Monday he had hoped to gather enough new evidence and expert testimony to call for a new trial.
Paradie said Sarah Allen was “very disappointed” by the high court’s decision. She maintains her innocence, having turned down plea bargain offers by prosecutors, he said. She refused to admit any guilt in the case.
In her appeal, she argued that Androscoggin County Superior Court Justice Ellen Gorman should have allowed an expert witness to testify on her behalf about brain test results. She also argued that the court erred when it allowed the state to introduce evidence of her husband’s spanking the child.
Jeremy Allen, who had been away at a trade show the night his wife called 911, told police he had spanked Nathaniel the day before. His son had thrown a temper tantrum, so he swatted the toddler three times with a wooden spoon, first with a diaper on, then on his bare buttocks.
Jeremy Allen argued that the lower court judge shouldn’t have allowed the jury to hear statements his wife made at the scene to an EMT nor to see a full-body photograph of their son in the hospital.
He also told the high court the prosecutor’s conduct and statements “amounted to prosecutorial misconduct,” according to court records.
His lawyer, Wendy Moulton Starkey of York, said her client also was offered a plea agreement, but declined, maintaining he did nothing wrong.
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