Corrections Case Study of the Case Study

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Louise Woodward, 2008).

Woodward's legal team filed motions after her conviction to the trial court for which a hearing began on November 4th. In the days following the verdict it came out that the jury had been split about the murder charge, but those who had favored an acquittal were persuaded to accept a conviction. This fact was of no legal consequence, however. On November 10th, at a post-conviction relief hearing, Judge Hiller B. Zobel reduced the conviction to involuntary manslaughter, saying that the circumstances in which the defendant acted were characterized by confusion, inexperience, frustration, immaturity and some anger, but not malice in the legal sense supporting a conviction for second-degree murder. He also said that he thought that allowing this defendant on this evidence to remain convicted of second-degree murder would be a miscarriage of justice (Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. Louise Woodward, 2008).

Woodward's sentence was reduced to time served. In the area of criminal law, time served is a sentence where the defendant is credited immediately after the guilty verdict with the time spent awaiting trial. The time is generally taken away from the sentence, with only the balance being served after the verdict. She served a total of 279 days and was freed. The Assistant District Attorney then appealed the judge's decision to the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. Woodward's lawyers also appealed to the court to throw out her manslaughter conviction. The court confirmed the guilty verdict and the reduction in conviction to involuntary manslaughter by a 7-0 vote. In a 4-3 split decision the court discarded the prosecution's appeal against the reduction of the conviction to involuntary manslaughter, and the sentence 16 June 1998 (Louise Woodward, 2009).

After all seven justices rejected the Commonwealth's claim that the trial judge did not have the authority to reduce the verdict to manslaughter and the time-served sentence was upheld by a 4-3 vote, Louise Woodward returned to her home in England.

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"She is now studying law in London, having become convinced, by her own trial, on the critical importance of fair legal procedures to safeguard liberty and justice" (Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. Louise Woodward, 2008).

This case seemed to have a lot of issues right from the beginning. With the trial judge erring by not instructing the jury to consider the lesser charge of manslaughter as the prosecution had requested justice was not served as it should have been. Unless both sides are permitted to exercise their rights to the fullest extent provided by law then true justice can not be had. The rules have been set down in our justice system in order to protect the rights of both sides and to make sure that the best possible outcome is obtained. In this case that did not happen.

A little boy died and not matter how much arguing was done back and forth between the prosecution and the defense he will not be brought back to life. The best possible outcome that can happen from that point forward is that it be determined who was responsible for his death and the appropriate punishment be handed down. In this case the jury had originally convicted Louise Woodward of second degree murder. This would lead a reasonable person to conclude that there was indeed enough evidence to say that Louise Woodward was responsible for the death of Matthew Eappen. Having the second degree murder conviction reduced to involuntary manslaughter can be seen as appropriate since this was something that the prosecution had originally to be considered, but reducing her sentence down to time served does not seem to promote the idea that justice was indeed served in this case.

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