Stepfather convicted in Poutre abuse case
Jury says he failed to protect girl, 11; wife is implicated
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SPRINGFIELD - A jury found Haleigh Poutre's stepfather guilty yesterday of child abuse, three years after the case drew national attention when the state almost took the comatose 11-year-old girl off life support.
Jason Strickland, 34, an auto mechanic who had testified that he did nothing to harm the girl, displayed little visible reaction when the panel announced its verdict of guilty on five of the six counts he faced.
The jury found that Strickland caused Haleigh to suffer a near-fatal brain injury in September 2005, but not that he actually inflicted the trauma. The panel found him guilty of "recklessly permitting" the injury to occur. Jurors apparently concluded that Strickland's late wife, Holli, was the chief abuser and that he stood by without protecting Haleigh.
After Hampden County Judge Judd Carhart revoked bail for Strickland, the defendant was taken out of the courtroom in handcuffs, headed for a county correctional facility. Strickland looked back into the audience at his mother and father, who had come from North Carolina to watch the trial. His father wept openly, while his mother sat with no expression. Later, after she left the courtroom, she began to sob in the arms of one of the defense lawyer's aides.
The judge set sentencing for Dec. 11, when Strickland faces a maximum of about 30 years in prison, with the most serious charge carring a maximum 10-year term. The jury also found him guilty of several counts related to striking Haleigh or watching her being hit in summer 2005, though it found him not guilty of an incident in which his wife allegedly kicked Haleigh while he looked on.
After the verdict, defense attorney Alan Black said he planned to file an appeal and declined to comment further.
Jurors appeared drained when they entered the courtroom with the verdict shortly after 4 p.m., having deliberated for more than 13 hours over three days. The trial lasted about three weeks and included testimony from some three dozen witnesses, including doctors, social workers, forensic scientists, Haleigh's relatives, and family friends.
Haleigh's child abuse case is widely regarded as one of the most mishandled in the annals of the state's child protection agency, and it has sparked broad changes in the way social workers respond to, among other things, families with complex medical and psychological histories.
Haleigh nearly died in January 2006 when the Massachusetts child-protection agency won a four-month legal battle for the right to remove her from life support, citing a medical opinion that the girl was in an irreversible vegetative state. But just when the state's highest court ruled that the agency could end Haleigh's life, its officials announced that the girl had become visibly alert. She began to breathe on her own, follow objects with her eyes, and respond to commands. Now 14, she can feed herself, speak simple sentences, and use an alphabet board to communicate.
The agency now acknowledges that it had, for years, wrongly blamed Haleigh for many of her bruises, burns, and cuts. Over five years, her adoptive mother, Holli Strickland, repeatedly convinced pediatricians and therapists that Haleigh had a mental disorder causing her to hurt herself. State social workers also accepted this explanation when dismissing more than a dozen anonymous complaints from neighbors and teachers who suspected that Haleigh was being abused inside her home on a quiet cul-de-sac in Westfield.
As lawmakers passed sweeping new laws to avoid a repeat of this case, prosecutors in Hampden County sought to convict the stepfather, who they said joined his wife in inflicting horrendous abuse on Haleigh, culminating in her traumatic brain injury.
Holli died in an apparent murder-suicide with her grandmother shortly after the Stricklands were arrested for child abuse. Police say the grand- mother, who had raised Holli, shot her granddaughter before pointing the gun at herself. Officials allegedly recovered suicide notes left behind, in which Holli proclaimed her innocence.
By convicting Jason Strickland, the jury showed it did not believe his four hours of testimony Friday in which he depicted himself as a hard-working breadwinner with a detached but kindly role in domestic life. With a stoic demeanor, he said that he had noticed bruises and burn marks on Haleigh, but accepted his wife's contention that Haleigh was a deeply troubled girl who hurt herself. The stepfather's defense focused on showing that if anyone was harming Haleigh in the home, it was his wife, who kept her cruel acts hidden from her husband.
Prosecutor Laurel Brandt, however, depicted Holli and Jason Strickland as inflicting severe abuse on Haleigh.
Some of the prosecution's most powerful testimony came from a child-abuse specialist who explained her interpretation of dozens of injuries on Haleigh when she was brought to a Westfield hospital emergency room by the Stricklands. They had told doctors that Haleigh had somehow lost consciousness while suffering a bout of the flu. Dr. Christine Barron, of
Haleigh did not appear before jurors, despite speculation in the months before the trial began that she might do so. The prosecutor said last summer that the girl would be her chief witness, but later changed her mind. She did, however, show a video of Haleigh at a pediatric rehabilitation hospital in Brighton.
The stepfather's conviction does not end legal efforts to get justice for Haleigh. A medical malpractice case is pending in Suffolk Superior Court, alleging that Haleigh's doctors and therapists, among others, violated medical standards when they diagnosed her with self-injurious behavior. Any monetary award from that case would help to pay for Haleigh's long-term care.
Patricia Wen can be reached at wen@globe.com.
