The Iowa Supreme Court heard the case of a former Anita woman seeking to overturn her convictions for second-degree murder and child endangerment causing death for a child at her daycare.
Alison Dorsey argued her case should not have been moved from Cass County to Pottawattamie County after a mistrial, and that there was not enough evidence to convict her. Attorney Trevor Hook told the justices the trial was moved too quickly. “Our argument is that the decision in this case was premature. The motion was filed in April of ’22 jury trial. The second jury trial was in May of ‘ 23, 13 months later,” he says. Hook says
Dorsey’s defense wanted to see if there was a reason to move the trial. “The defense in that case argued for the ability to send out jury questionnaires to see what if any effect the first jury trial had on the bias, prejudice, anything like that may prejudice one side or the other. The court didn’t allow that,” he says.
Prosecution attorney Louis Sloven says the court had information on coverage that would prejudice another jury in Cass County “When the state filed its motion with its attachment, it was pulling news articles and social media posts and prayer bulletins that surrounded the time of the trial,” he says. He says a questionnaire would only have confirmed what was going on in the county surrounding the case. “Which is that this case is the talk of the town, highly divisive, attention-grabbing and emotions are hot on all sides. Almost everybody knows someone who’s involved or a character witness and most of these people who are walking into the courthouse for jury service can’t serve,” he says.
Dorsey’s defense said there is evidence the child could have been injured earlier and she was not the one who killed it. Sloven says the evidence didn’t show that. “The baby was able to drink milk that morning, able to do tummy time that morning. None of that would have been possible after the injury was inflicted. So it had to have been inflicted while the baby was in Miss Dorsey’s care. She had to have been the one who did it,” he says.
Hook countered that prosecution witnesses wouldn’t substantiate that claim. “They would not commit to a position that the child must have suffered the fatal injury on that day. They didn’t exclude that it could have happened before,” Hook says. “And my argument is that with that statement under oath by the doctors, any other opinion would be speculation on their part, because it doesn’t jive with any other opinion.”
The Supreme Court will issue a ruling at a later date. Dorsey was sentenced to the 50-years in prison.