Court Agrees to Look at Decision in Murder Case

The state Supreme Court agreed Thursday to review a challenge to a controversial ruling that allowed an Anaheim mother who claimed she suffered from “postpartum psychosis” to escape a murder conviction for driving over her child with the family car.

In a brief order, the court said it would consider an appeal by Orange County prosecutors to a trial judge’s decision to acquit Sheryl Lynn Massip, a 26-year-old woman who had been found guilty of second-degree murder by a jury in the death of her 6-week-old son Michael in April, 1987.

The Massip case was one of four the justices voted unanimously to review, raising the issue of whether a judge may reduce murder charges to voluntary manslaughter on grounds the defendant lacked malice because of mental illness.

The case had drawn widespread attention as one of the first attempts in the nation by an accused woman to contest murder charges on the grounds she was suffering from an extreme form of depression--commonly known as “baby blues”--that caused her to commit the crime.

The rare disorder has been found to cause severe anxiety, delusions and other effects among new mothers. Massip claimed she had heard voices telling her that Michael was in pain and to put him out of his misery. She then placed the child under the tire of her car, drove over him and put the body in a trash can.

At trial, Massip pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, but a jury found her sane and convicted her of second-degree murder. Massip then asked for a retrial but in a ruling that shocked attorneys on both sides, Orange County Superior Judge Robert R. Fitzgerald reduced the verdict to voluntary manslaughter and also found Massip was not guilty by reason of insanity.

Orange County Chief Assistant Dist. Atty. Maurice L. Evans welcomed Thursday’s action, saying he was “very, very pleased” the court agreed to review the issue.

Bryant K. Calloway of Santa Ana, an attorney for Massip, expressed hope the justices would uphold the judge’s action. “Justice was truly done in this case,” Calloway said. “The judge’s ruling was legally and morally correct.”

In another action Thursday, the high court agreed to hear a challenge to an appellate ruling that attorneys said could allow relatives and friends of some 16,000 dead persons to seek damages for the alleged mishandling of remains by a group of crematoriums and mortuaries in the Los Angeles area.