Judge’s Reversal of Massip Conviction Will Be Appealed

Charging that a judge had abused his authority, Orange County prosecutors decided Tuesday to appeal his decision to throw out a murder verdict against a woman who claimed that she was suffering from a severe form of the “baby blues” when she killed her 6-week-old son.

On Dec. 23, Superior Court Judge Robert R. Fitzgerald stunned a Santa Ana courtroom by overriding a second-degree murder verdict against Sheryl Lynn Massip of Anaheim. In acquitting Massip on grounds of insanity, Fitzgerald found that the 24-year-old former hairdresser was suffering from postpartum psychosis when she killed her colicky infant by running over him with the family car.

Precedent Setter?

Legal observers said that the judge’s decision to disregard the jury’s verdict and find Massip insane in such a case appeared to be without precedent. Prosecutors charged Tuesday that the ruling was illegal and could send a troubling signal of expanded judicial power.

“If we allow judges to replace a jury’s verdict with their own opinions, the jury becomes nothing more than an advisory board,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Tom Borris maintained in an interview.

Borris, who prosecuted Massip, met Tuesday with fellow Deputy Dist. Attys. Michael Jacobs and Thomas Goethals, who oversee all appellate work in the Orange County district attorney’s office, to discuss how to proceed in the case.

As expected, the prosecutors decided to move ahead with an appeal--”an easy decision,” Borris said. But they also mapped out specific points of attack in the case, and Jacobs, who will handle the appeal, plans to file papers today or Thursday with the 4th District Court of Appeal in Santa Ana.

Believed She Was ‘Bonkers’

In an interview shortly after his ruling, Judge Fitzgerald said he felt justified in his decision because the evidence in Massip’s 2-month trial clearly showed that she was “bonkers.” According to the evidence, Massip first tried to throw her child into oncoming traffic, then hit him over the head with a tool and finally ran over him with the family car on April 29, 1987.

Postpartum psychosis--a more severe and rarer form of the common “baby blues”--is thought to prompt severe anxiety, delusions and even violence in about one to three of every 1,000 new mothers.

Massip, the first woman in Southern California to test the postpartum psychosis defense at trial, said Tuesday: “I figured they would go for an appeal, but I just don’t understand where the D.A.’s office is coming from, why they would take this case to this extreme and just keep beating it and beating it and beating it.”

Of the appeal itself, Massip said, “Whenever your life is on the line, you have to be worried, but I’m just trusting in the judge’s decision.”

Her attorney, Milton C. Grimes of Santa Ana, said that although an appeal had been rumored since Fitzgerald’s decision, he was still somewhat surprised to hear of the prosecutors’ decision.

“I kind of thought that they would look at the big picture. I was just hoping that they would consider everything and look at what Sheryl’s gone through and realize that this whole thing should be over,” Grimes said.

Jury Independence Issue

He discounted suggestions by prosecutors that the independence of juries is at stake in the appeal.

“We have to trust in our judges. Just because Fitzgerald (reversed the conviction) doesn’t mean that we should all get up in arms because judges are now going to arbitrarily do away with the jury system. That’s a false fear that’s being created,” Grimes said. “The courts aren’t going to turn to anarchy because of this case.”

Grimes added: “This appeal is really too bad for Sheryl. I know she and her family really wanted this wrapped up. This will be torture.”

But Borris said, “This now goes beyond Sheryl Massip’s particular case; I’m concerned with the precedent that this whole things sets.”

The main thrust of the appeal will be that, while Fitzgerald could legitimately have granted Massip a new trial if he found fault with the jury’s verdict, he “abused his discretion” by overturning it altogether, Borris said.

“He’s denied the prosecutor a jury trial,” Borris said. “He doesn’t have the authority to do what he did. He can’t just willy-nilly reverse things.”

Alleged Abuse of Power

Borris said he believes that Fitzgerald’s reversal of the jury’s finding that Massip was sane at the time of the killing offers prosecutors their strongest point for an appeal. But the appeal will also maintain that Fitzgerald abused his power by reducing her conviction before he found her not guilty by reason of insanity.

In his decision last month, Fitzgerald first reduced the jury’s verdict of second-degree murder--for which Massip could have faced 25 years to life in state prison--to the lesser offense of voluntary manslaughter. He then vacated that conviction altogether by finding Massip not guilty by reason of insanity, meaning that Massip now faces only the prospect of court-ordered psychiatric care.