November 01, 1997, Saturday

Au Pair Gets Life Term; Teenager Must Serve at Least 15 Years

Pamela Ferdinand, Special to The Washington Post

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Oct. 31

The English au pair convicted of murdering a nearly 9-month-old baby boy in her care was sentenced to life in prison today, as her lawyers fended off criticism that they had gambled with her fate by not accepting a plea agreement or letting the jury consider the less-severe charge of involuntary manslaughter.

Louise Woodward, 19, who broke down in hysterical tears Thursday night when a jury pronounced her guilty, today softly protested her innocence before the judge, her parents and the baby's parents, before she was sentenced to a mandatory term of life in prison. She will be eligible for parole in 15 years, pending an appeal.

On Tuesday, Middlesex County Superior Court Judge Hiller Zobel will consider possible defense motions to set aside the jury's guilty verdict, order a new trial or reduce the charge.

Legal sources close to the defense said Woodward and her attorneys were so confident of her innocence and her ability to win over the jury that they rejected prosecution offers of a plea bargain of manslaughter with time served -- Woodward has been in state prison for more than 230 days already -- even though it meant she could have immediately returned home.

"Over time, there were a number of overtures about pleading this case out, and she unequivocally and consistently said, 'No,' " said Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz, who discussed the case as it was ongoing with members of the defense team. "It was a terrible miscarriage of justice. . . . What this jury did is it tried to play Sherlock Holmes and solve the crime."

Defense lawyer Barry Scheck today stood by his strategy, and prosecutors denied a plea bargain had been offered this week. "There are risks in everything you do," said Scheck, who was part of O.J. Simpson's defense team. "You can second-guess yourself to death." He added that Woodward made the final decision to ask that the jury not be given a fallback option and only consider murder or acquittal.

In court today the round-faced teenager, her shoulders slightly slumping and her voice beginning to quaver, said: "I'd just like to maintain my innocence. I don't know what happened to Mattie. I'm not responsible for his death." Her parents watched from seats behind her as they have throughout the trial.

Deborah and Sunil Eappen, who had watched the verdict from home on Thursday night, today offered courtroom eulogies of their youngest son that moved many in the stark beige and wood-paneled room to tears and expressed the hopes and fears working parents everywhere have for their children. Under Massachusetts law, victims are entitled to address the court before sentencing.

Wearing a royal blue dress with a caterpillar-shaped pin in memory of Matthew's favorite musical toy, a composed Deborah Eappen recalled how her sons -- the couple also have a 3-year-old -- loved to play "two boys" by sitting on each side of her lap and how her youngest always looked like a "little prince."

"We felt that life was good. Things had fallen into place after medical school, residencies and settling into our new jobs," she said in a calm voice, without a glance sideways across the room to Woodward. "She didn't look scary to me. She didn't look like a child abuser, a monster or a murderer. She didn't look like anyone who would hurt our kids."

Choking back tears, Matthew's father said that despite the "disdain" he feels for Woodward, "I really, truly hope that she can face up to what she has done and gain forgiveness."

The so-called Nanny Murder Trial, which was televised daily on Court TV, drew international attention and reignited the national debate over the child-care difficulties faced by dual-career families and their children. It drew a spotlight to the federally approved au pair program, which brings thousands of young Europeans to this country each year, to baby-sit for up to 45 hours a week. Many of them are like Woodward only 19 or 20 years old and with little experience in child-care.

The case also polarized an American public skeptical of a working-class English girl who showed little emotion and an English public suspicious of a U.S. justice system that creates courtroom celebrity and set Simpson free.

Prosecutors portrayed Woodward as an impertinent teenager more interested in Boston nightlife than in caring for the Eappen boys. They accused Woodward, who had had run-ins with the Eappens over telephone usage and late nights, of shaking Matthew on the afternoon of Feb. 4 and then slamming his head on a hard surface. The baby, with his skull fractured, died five days later when his parents cut off life support.

Defense attorneys, however, depicted Woodward as an innocent abroad who may have chafed at her employers' rules, but would never have harmed her young charges. Their witnesses contended Matthew's injuries were weeks old and went undetected by his parents, both of whom are doctors.

So certain were defense attorneys of their case that they, with Woodward's approval, persuaded the judge to allow the jury only to consider murder charges against their client, eliminating options other than acquittal. The prosecution had argued that the jury should have been allowed to consider the lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter, which might have provided the jury with a fallback compromise. Manslaughter, which involves extreme and unprovoked reckless conduct, carries a maximum penalty of 20 years but no minimum.

"The prosecution should never have charged her with murder in the first place, but if they offered her time served, shame on the lawyers," said Robert L. Jubinville, a Boston criminal defense attorney who has followed the trial. "If you put your fate in the hands of a jury, you can get hurt."

One juror, in a brief telephone interview, said the panel had made its decision based on what doctors had said about the injury and Matthew's death. "The medical evidence was primary," the juror, who asked not to be identified, said.

Legal experts today said that it is highly unlikely the panel of nine woman and three men could fully grasp the intricacies of complex and often conflicting medical and scientific evidence. Jurors heard testimony from dozens of witnesses, ranging from neuropathologists to paramedics, and viewed more than 100 exhibits.

Alternate juror Robert Manfold, who listened to the jury deliberations but was not allowed to speak, said the guilty verdict made him heartsick. He and other alternates "kind of got a feeling totally through eye contact as to what was happening, and the anger set in," he said in a radio interview broadcast here. "I was wondering if these people were sitting in the same courtroom as I was in the last three weeks."

While it is very unusual for a judge to set aside or change a jury's verdict, Zobel has done that in a few cases. He threw out the 1984 second-degree murder conviction of a former police officer found guilty of killing a friend on grounds it was the result of compromise negotiations to avoid the more serious charge.

A case similar to the Woodward trial nearly two years ago in Loudoun County, involving a Dutch au pair charged with shaking to death an infant ended in mistrial when the jury failed to agree on a verdict.

I n an interview broadcast today with British television, Woodward's parents vowed to fight on. "She can't be buried in an American prison for something she didn't do," Susan Woodward said.