Louise Woodward Trial: 1997

At this point the prosecution requested that the jury be allowed to consider alternative charges of voluntary and involuntary manslaughter, as well as murder, a move rigorously opposed by the defense. So far as they were concerned, it was murder or nothing. In the end Judge Zobel agreed with the defense; the jury could consider only first-or second-degree murder.

On October 30, after deliberating for 30 hours, the jury convicted Wood-ward of second-degree murder. The next day she was sentenced to life impris-onment.

But that was not the end of the story. On November 7, Judge Zobel heard a three-part defense motion: first, asking that the verdict be set aside and the case dismissed; second, setting aside the verdict and holding a new trial; or third, reducing the charge to manslaughter.

In light of the intense media interest, Judge Zobel took the unusual step of announcing that his ruling would be released on the Internet on November 10.

When it came, his decision was explosive. Not only did Judge Zobel reduce Louise's conviction to involuntary manslaughter, but he reduced the sentence to time served, which meant immediate freedom for the British teenager. She had spent just 279 days behind bars.

On June 16, 1998, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court upheld Louise's reduced conviction of involuntary manslaughter and she returned to England, where she began studies as a law student.

A subsequent wrongful-death suit brought by the Eappens against Louise was settled out of court. Details of the settlement were not released to the public.

Throughout the trial, Louise's supporters in England maintained a vocal and publicly organized belief in her innocence that owed more to emotion than it did to evidence, prompting suspicions that, in this case at least, sympathy for a young woman in jeopardy appeared to outweigh concern for a child that lay dead.