this post was submitted on 14 Dec 2023

108 points (96.6% liked)

News

22595 readers

4111 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil

Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.

2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.

Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.

3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.

Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.

4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.

Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.

5. Only recent news is allowed.

Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.

6. All posts must be news articles.

No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.

7. No duplicate posts.

If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.

8. Misinformation is prohibited.

Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.

9. No link shorteners.

The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.

10. Don't copy entire article in your post body

For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

108

Australian woman jailed for 20 years for death of her four children has conviction quashed (www.reuters.com)

submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

20 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Kathleen Folbigg was convicted in 2003 of murdering three of her children, and of manslaughter in the death of her fourth. Folbigg maintained her innocence and said the children had died of natural causes over a decade, from 1989-1999.

In 2019, an initial inquiry into the case reaffirmed Folbigg's guilt. But in 2022, a second inquiry led by a former chief justice found new evidence suggested two of the children had a genetic mutation that may have caused their deaths.

Folbigg was released from prison in June this year after being pardoned.

"I am grateful that updated science and genetics has given me answers as to how my children died," an emotional Folbigg told reporters outside a criminal appeals court in Sydney.

"However, even in 1999, we had legal answers to prove my innocence. They were ignored. And dismissed," she said. "The system preferred to blame me rather than accept that sometimes, children can and do die suddenly, unexpectedly, and heartbreakingly."

top 20 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] [email protected] 54 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Bit of a useless article. Other than some basics it doesn't even include what her children died of or what evidence they used to convict her. Kinda important since the whole point is the wrongful conviction and how it's now overturned.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 8 months ago (2 children)

More details here.

Basically she had written in her diary about her enduring feelings of guilt over the deaths of her children, which is what formed the base of the original case against her. Prosecutors argued that the children were probably smothered, despite there being no physical evidence for that.

A recent enquiry heard new evidence that at least 2 of her children carried a genetic defect that could potentially have caused their deaths, which coupled with the circumstancial nature of the evidence used in the original conviction was enough the NSW governor to pardon her under reasonable doubt. That pardon lead to a trial in the criminal court of appeals which have now acquitted her of the charges.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

What parent DOESNT feel guilty over the death of their children?

They are always going to be plagued by doubt, what if, etc etc.

Hell, my grandmother lost an adult son to cancer like 20 years ago and she still gets hit by episodes of guilt over not magically noticing/doing something different/outliving him/etc.

What a fucking ridiculous bullshit reason to convict her.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

The legal system does shit like that all the time.

Lie detectors are fake yet used to get false confessions. Eyewitness testimony is one of the highest forms of evidence yet humans are noticeably terrible at remembering details especially in traumatic events. Word choice matters to the point of one misspoken word could cast doubt yet most people aren't deliberately thinking about their word choice.

The legal system expects people to operate like they've been in the legal system for years and that's just not how it works.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Thank you.

Edit: That's a much better article.

[–] ArbitraryValue 9 points 8 months ago (1 children)

It says she was pardoned - at least in the US, that's different from having a conviction overturned.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 8 months ago

She was pardoned in June and has subsequently has been acquitted in the criminal court of appeals.

[+] [email protected] -26 points 8 months ago (3 children)

I am of the firm belief she killed her children and she has taken advantage of people close in her life to advocate for her freedom.

Her ex-husband, the father of the children who died, doesn’t believe she is innocent either.

I’d encourage anyone to read her diaries and conclude they were the reflections of a healthy individual.

My opinion isn’t popular but I’ll die on this hill.

[–] [email protected] 45 points 8 months ago (1 children)

How could anyone be healthy after having four of their children die?!

There is reasonable doubt that she killed the children based on the available evidence as determined by legal and medical experts.

Your opinion doesn’t matter at all.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 8 months ago

I hadn’t heard of this case but I googled the diary entries and at first pass they do seem very damming - no unlike Lucy lettsby’s notes. But the testimony from multiple experts is pretty clear that they are not confessions but the tangled thoughts of someone suffering from multiple child bereavements. Of course she wasn’t in her right mind, but that doesn’t mean she killed them.

Joanna Garstang, a consultant community paediatrician and designated doctor on a child death review panel in Birmingham, reviewed Folbigg’s diaries and submitted an expert witness report to the inquiry, released publicly on Tuesday.

“Much of my clinical work involves the investigation of unexpected child deaths, regularly working alongside police,” Garstang wrote. “In my opinion, the expressions of self-blame and guilt in Ms Folbigg’s diary fit with those described in the literature or that I have witnessed in my clinical and research practice. I do not consider them true confessions of guilt.”

Garstang said each of those comments was an “expression of self-blame in keeping with published literature” about bereaved parents. “Ms Folbigg is blaming herself for the deaths, she may be considering that her stress caused the deaths. This is in keeping with published literature and not of concern.”

Counsel assisting the inquiry, Sophie Callan, SC, foreshadowed last week that two psychiatrists and a psychologist would also give evidence this week about Folbigg’s diaries, none of whom was expected to say the diaries contained expressions of criminal guilt.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Being unhealthy is neither a crime nor evidence of a crime.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago

Slightly related; I’ve always loved this quote from Aneurin Bevan, former health minister who established the NHS in the UK:

“Illness is neither an indulgence for which people have to pay, nor an offence for which they should be penalised, but a misfortune the cost of which should be shared by the community.”