Prosecutor says evidence in murder case withheld

Reveals doctor's report 'had not been made available' to defense
Posted: April 25, 2011 8:53 pm Eastern
By Bob Unruh © 2011 WorldNetDaily

Texas mom Hannah Overton, who began serving a life-without-parole sentence in 2007 after jurors convicted her of killing her 4-year-old foster son by giving him large amounts of salt, may be innocent, according to a prosecutor in the case.

Overton's case gained publicity because of prosecutors' conclusions that Andrew Burd, who was being adopted from a background of drug use and abuse by his birth mother, died because he had ingested too much Zatarain's Cajun Seasoning.

But one of the prosecutors, Anna Maria Jimenez, now has submitted a letter to an appellate court as part of a defense request for a new hearing. Jimenez says defense lawyers did not receive a doctor's report in the case documentation showing Burd did not have high salt levels in his system.

The report was found in the prosecution file by defense attorney Cynthia Orr as part of her appeal preparations. It stated that studies by Dr. Fernandez, a medical examiner, to assess the level of sodium chloride showed "there was an indication that the gastric contents of Andrew Burd did not have a high sodium chloride level."

According to Jimenez, however, the report was missing from the file that the prosecution team had provided to a physician for evaluation before testifying in the case. It also was not given to the defense, which would have been a standard procedure for such exculpatory evidence in criminal cases. FULL STORY

Such as it is for people who think they are CPS's friends. They eat their own.