The Iowa Supreme Court has reversed a Newton woman’s child endangerment conviction. The court has ordered a new trial for Kristen James. She was convicted of child endangerment after neighbors saw her son, who was two years and nine months old at the time, hanging out of his bedroom window. James had tied the door to the boy’s bedroom shut with a telephone cord because she had a migraine and didn’t want the boy getting into the kitchen cabinets while she slept. She and her husband said they didn’t know the boy could open the window by himself, but a state child protection worker concluded James had subjected her son to a “substantial risk of harm.” The Iowa Supreme Court has ruled the judge in the case made an error that confused the jury, and James is to get a new trial.
