After more than eight years of twists and turns, the criminal case for a Calumet Township babysitter is over.
After brief oral arguments Thursday, the Indiana Supreme Court declined to hear Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita’s appeal for Trisha Woodworth’s case.
“Trisha’s long, sad legal journey is now over,” her appellate lawyer Mark Bates said Friday. “She is very relieved.”
“I think the court was satisfied with…what the court of appeals did,” he said. “A nine-minute delay (in calling) 911 was not unreasonable.”
A media spokesperson for Rokita was not immediately available.
Now 34, Woodworth was charged in 2017 after 8-month-old Maci Moor, of Hammond, went limp in her care on April 15, 2016. She was watching the girl while the baby’s mom, her friend Megan Garner, was at work.
At Woodworth’s July 2022 trial, medical experts clashed on what happened to the baby. Dr. Jill Glick of the University of Chicago testified the child showed signs of abuse.
Dr. Joseph Scheller, a Baltimore-based pediatric neurologist, testified the girl fell and hit her head earlier in the week, causing a buildup that led to a fatal stroke.
Jurors acquitted Woodworth on aggravated battery and battery charges — i.e. hurting the child. She was convicted of Level 1 felony neglect of a dependent — i.e. for not calling 911 soon enough.
After the verdict, Lake Superior Judge Samuel Cappas set it aside.
“I am left with sentencing a woman to between 20 to 40 years in prison for arguably, at the farthest stretch, a nine-minute delay in calling the ambulance,” he said then in court, according to filings.
Since then, the case has been on appeal.
The State of Indiana argued Cappas “abused (his) discretion” in setting the case aside. Woodworth’s lawyers “cross-appealed” saying there was no evidence to convict.
The Indiana Court of Appeals overturned her conviction in January, though it admonished Cappas for the way he threw out the jury’s verdict.
In Rokita’s petition to the Indiana Supreme Court earlier this year, his office argued there was evidence showing Woodworth may have waited either nine minutes or over an hour and chose the explanation that lined up with her innocence. They asked for a conviction on Level 6 felony neglect.
It was a sign “they did not have the evidence,” Bates said.
mcolias@post-trib.com
