Countywide : Judge Denies Retrial in Death of Baby

Ventura County Superior Court Judge Lawrence Storch ruled Wednesday that Francisca Sanchez Jimenez, an illiterate farm worker, will not be retried on charges she killed her newborn baby.

Jimenez, 23, was convicted May 29 of second-degree murder in the death of the infant whose body was found in the waste tank of a portable toilet in Saticoy in July, 1991. Her attorney, Jean L. Farley, had filed a motion for a new trial based on new psychiatric evidence that she suffers from brain damage. Deputy Dist. Atty. Carol Nelson said that the information would not have made a difference in the outcome of the trial.

Jimenez undergoes a sanity trial set to begin today. In May, jurors deadlocked on whether she was sane or insane when the crime occurred. A mistrial was declared.