Trial suspended for baby thrown into container in Porto Cristo due to irregularities in expert evidence

PalmThe presiding judge of the Jury Court of the Provincial Court of Palma dissolved the jury in the trial for the death of a baby who was thrown into a dumpster in Portocristo (Mallorca) and decided to suspend the proceedings indefinitely. The decision, according to the High Court of Justice of the Balearic Islands (TSJIB), was made due to doubts raised regarding the competence of an expert witness who testified at the request of the defendants' lawyers. The judge considered that the only piece of evidence presented by the defense, this report, could not be considered valid evidence, given that the Criminal Procedure Law requires that the person preparing the report hold an official qualification. Therefore, she considered that the trial could not continue, as the defense would be left without evidence and the principle of equality of arms, as well as the right to a defense and effective judicial protection guaranteed by the Spanish Constitution, would be violated.

On the other hand, the defense stated that they have been unable to locate the aforementioned expert witness, who testified at the request of the mother's defense and maintained the theory that the baby died from an abortion. During the hearing held this Thursday morning, in which the decision was made to definitively suspend the proceedings and dissolve the jury, the High Court of Justice of the Balearic Islands (TSJIB) indicated that the prosecution requested that charges be brought against the expert witness. The defense did not object, so the judge agreed to open a judicial search for him.

The Palma Provincial Court will have to appoint a new judge to preside over a jury trial and repeat the trial from the beginning.

Life imprisonment with review

The now-suspended trial began on October 27th, and in the dock sat the baby's mother and uncle, who faced a possible life sentence with the possibility of parole for murder, and the mother's sister-in-law, accused of omission and facing a €0.00 fine.

The events occurred on November 3, 2023. According to the prosecution's indictment, the woman, 26 or 27 weeks pregnant, became pregnant inside a vehicle in which her sister and brother-in-law were traveling. After giving birth, and despite being near a hospital, the baby's mother handed the newborn's body to the man so he could throw it in a nearby dumpster and flee the scene. During the first session of the hearing, the prosecutor argued that the baby "was born alive and arrived at the hospital still warm," where it was taken after being found in the dumpster. "The baby was killed because he was thrown into the dumpster and abandoned," the public prosecutor stated in her initial report. The mother's defense attorney, for his part, admitted that what the woman did was "atrocious," but that "she is not a murderer." The lawyer defending the child's uncle argued that the man did not know his sister-in-law was pregnant or that she was throwing the dead baby into the dumpster. "He could never have imagined that he had disposed of a human fetus," she asserted. The doctor on duty in Pediatrics and an emergency room physician at the Hospital de Levante, where the newborn was treated, considered that the child was born alive, although given the circumstances of the delivery and the time elapsed between the rescue from the dumpster and arrival at the hospital, he could have died.