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Tennessee appellate court hears challenge to aggravated-child-neglect conviction over fentanyl ingestion
Summary
In oral argument, defense counsel said the state lacked proof that Jesse Craddock knowingly ingested fentanyl and therefore could not be convicted of aggravated child neglect or felony murder; the state countered with motel video, a fentanyl bindle found in the defendant’s sock and toxicology showing fentanyl and a clinical response to Narcan.
An appellate court in Tennessee heard arguments challenging the sufficiency of evidence behind convictions for aggravated child neglect and felony murder in the death of a five-month-old.
“ I can recognize why a jury convicted Jesse Craddock, and not because of the sufficiency of the evidence, ” defense counsel Stephanie Perera told the justices as she urged reversal on the grounds that the State failed to prove the requisite guilty knowledge or a continuing course of neglect.
Perera said the record shows the infant was healthy before the traumatic injury and argued the neglect cases Tennessee courts have recognized involve a continuing failure to seek care or remedy a known problem. She told the…
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