Former EMSH worker acquitted
of felony abuse
By By Suzanne Monk / managing editor
August 25, 2004
Only two people were on duty in the "seven-bed unit" at East Mississippi State Hospital the night patient Agnes Renee Adams' eye was bruised supervisor Sue Holley McLemore, a registered nurse, and Linda Roberts, a direct care worker.
The two women told such different stories on the stand about how the injury apparently occurred that it's difficult to believe they were in the same room.
Roberts stood trial this week in Lauderdale County Circuit Court for felony abuse of a vulnerable adult, or willfully hurting a patient, a crime punishable by up to 20 years in prison. She was represented by Meridian attorney Robert Bresnahan.
The case was prosecuted by Special Assistant Attorneys General Scott Johnson and Camala Wyatt two members of a three-person team with an 87 percent conviction rate last fiscal year and 93 percent the year before.
This verdict in this trial, however, was "not guilty."
While it's impossible to know what factors influenced the jurors' decision, it's easy to believe that the extreme variance in the two women's testimony created reasonable doubt in their minds.
Reasonable doubt, juries are instructed, can arise from a conflict in the evidence.
Sue McLemore's testimony
The events leading up to Adams' injury occurred in the middle of the night on EMSH's seven-bed unit an infirmary for patients too ill to be left alone but not sick enough to be taken to a hospital.
On April 7, 2003, Adams had been in the seven-bed unit about a month. She was admitted with severe brain damage from an earlier near-fatal asphyxiation, which left her with serious medical conditions and a destructive personality change. Adams had also been diagnosed with several mental illnesses and had a history of substance abuse.
Because of her condition, she was verbally abusive and physically combative.
McLemore was the prosecution's only eyewitness and testified about what happened that night. Here is the substance of what she said:
She was in the nurse's station when she heard Adams, who is white, shout a racial slur at Roberts, who is black. McLemore went to the patient's room, where she found Adams sitting on the edge of the bed. Roberts was holding her head down and hitting her on the back. Next, McLemore said, Roberts grabbed her by the hair and threw her to the floor.
McLemore testified that she was shocked and frightened by what she had seen, but didn't want to get Roberts in trouble. She didn't tell anyone about the incident that night. The hourly notations she made on Adams' chart made no mention of it.
The next morning, McLemore told her supervisor. Roberts lost her job and was subsequently indicted.
Linda Roberts' testimony
Roberts testified in her own defense.
She said Adams didn't want to go to bed and that was OK as long as she was quiet. Adams got her purse, lipstick and comb and was sitting in a chair playing with them. But then, Roberts said, she got loud.
She said she called McLemore to the door and explained what was going on. They entered the room together, went over to the chair where Adams was sitting, and told her she had to go to bed.
Roberts took the purse. She and McLemore got on each side of Adams and escorted her to the bed, but she wouldn't lay down. Then, Roberts said, Adams kicked her in the stomach several times. Roberts grabbed her feet and put them on the floor.
Adams got off the bed, Roberts said, and came at her apparently trying to get the purse back. Roberts had to "take her down," which means she physically restrained Adams and pinned her on the floor.
Roberts let her up when she promised to be good.
Reasonable doubt
If reasonable doubt can arise from an unresolved conflict in the evidence, it's hard to imagine two stories more different.
Even in the small details, the testimony of the two women disagreed. For instance, McLemore said she gave Adams a late-night snack and it was peanut butter and crackers. Roberts said she gave Adams her late-night snack and it was a fishburger and grape juice.
In his closing statement to the jury, Bresnahan also argued that no prosecution witness had testified about how Adams' eye was bruised. There had been contested testimony that Roberts hit her on the back, Bresnahan said, and pulled her by the hair but nobody could explain the eye injury central to the state's case.
The prosecution said the jury should use its common sense; it must have occurred during the "take down" because it couldn't have happened any other time.
Bresnahan told jurors they weren't allowed to make that assumption, "You can't use speculation, guesswork or conjecture to decide that Linda Roberts hit her in the eye because there's been no testimony of that."
His point: The jury had also been instructed that lack of evidence can give rise to reasonable doubt.
Finally, Bresnahan told jurors that to convict, they would have to believe Roberts hurt her patient on purpose.
The jury's deliberations did not take long. The panel returned a verdict of "not guilty" in 33 minutes.
