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20 June 2010
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News and Updates
Letter of Thanks from Joy
At the auction, we had the opportunity to hear from Joy over the phone. She had written a letter to be read and it arrived after the auction. We wanted to publish it here. It shows Joy's humor and shares her thanks. We continue to be so grateful for everyone's incredible support!!
Dear Friends, Family, Friends of Friends and Family, Supporters, and Guys just there to score a date with Laurie's co-worker Katie,
What an awesome gathering this must be! All my favorite people, together in one room, tasty snacks and drinks! Gosh, I wish I was there. Actually I wish I could be anywhere but here. But even so , I'd choose to be there with you.
I just wanted to write a quick note to thank all of you for coming to the silent auction and supporting my appeal for a new trial. They say, "Crime doesn't pay." My experience has taught me that "Being accused of a crime can bankrupt you!" However, you have taught me, I am one of the richest people in the world. Your love and support for me and my family is my treasure.
I want to thank everyone who contributed items, services and baskets to this auction. The contributions far exceeded our expectations. I also want to thank all who did much of the behind the scenes work to put the auction together - especially, my mom, Audrey, and dad, Danny, sisters Laurie and Kris and friends from the church and my nursing buddies.
I hope you all have a great day. I hope you win some great treasures. I look forward to a day when I can thank you all in person.
God bless each and every one of you.
Love,
Joy
31 May 2010
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News and Updates
Justice for Joy Silent Auction to be held June 6th
A silent auction benefiting Joy O'Shea-Woomer's defense will be held on June 6th at the Fireside Tavern in the Historic Strasburg Inn in Strasburg. Starting at 1pm, this will be a fast actioned auction with a staged closing of tables starting at 2pm and finishing up by 3:30pm. We have over 90 AMAZING baskets and items that have been donated. We have baskets for a wide range of interests: Animal lover's, cooks, crafters (scrapbooking and quilting), movie goers and baskets for babies and children. We have baskets with Lancaster Co. snacks, Italian dinners, Strawberry jams and more! We have services donated: Air conditioner maintenance and service, 2 wills, pet sitting and Income tax preparation. We have artwork, Vera Bradley bags, depression glass, a diamond ring valued at $1000 and tickets to the theatre as well as a Barnstormers game. We even have a 4 box seats with food and souvenirs to a Phillies vs Mets game in August....the package even includes parking!!
The event will be held from 1pm-4pm on Sunday, June 6th in the ballroom at the Fireside Tavern in Strasburg, PA. There will be light snacks, a cash bar, and live background music . It will be a wonderful way to spend a Sunday afternoon and assist with Joy's cause! Hope to see you there.
27 March 2010
Posted in
News and Updates
What the jury was not told.
At Joy’s sentencing on March 24, 2010 Judge Ashworth chastised those who would dare to criticize the jury. He noted that the jury sat through two weeks of trial and heard all of the evidence. If only the last part of that statement was true. The fact of the matter is that the jury was prevented from hearing all of the evidence. Key pieces of evidence were not allowed to be presented to the jury.
The following three articles will deal with three important pieces of evidence that the jury was prevented from hearing. There will be others to follow.
The articles may be summarized as follows:
1. During the trial, an employee of a mental health care provider, came forward to express concerns that the child’s mother, Carol Weaver, became suicidal over her feelings of guilt after the criminal investigation began.
2. The Weavers had a strong financial interest in making it appear that the nurse caused the death of their child because they were seeking to profit from the death by suing Bayada Nursing.
3. Joy’s 70 character witnesses were not allowed to give any detailed information to the jury.
I. Carol Weaver was “guilt ridden” but her psychological records are sealed.
Sometime in early January, 2010 while the trial was already in progress, an employee of a mental health care provider appeared on the fourth floor of the Lancaster County Courthouse. At the risk of losing her job, she wanted to come forward because of her concerns that a grave miscarriage of justice was occurring with Joy being prosecuted for a crime she did not commit. This woman did not know Joy. She knew about the trial from news reports. (Unfortunately, due to a court order entered more than one month after the trial, we cannot name the mental health care provider. There will be more about this later in this article.) Once the woman arrived on the fourth floor of the Courthouse, she did not know what to do. She wandered up and down the hallway looking visibly distraught.
A Lutheran Pastor, who was in the Courthouse to support Joy and her family, noticed this distraught woman and went over to offer assistance. The woman told the Pastor that she had valuable information that Joy’s attorneys had to know and she needed to speak to Joy’s attorneys. At a recess the Pastor arranged for the woman to meet Joy’s attorneys.
The woman told Joy’s attorneys that sometime after the criminal investigation began, Carol Weaver sought psychiatric help due to her feelings of guilt. Although the woman was not present when Carol Weaver spoke privately to the psychologist, the woman spent some time with Mrs. Weaver. She described Mrs. Weaver’s condition as “guilt ridden”. Mrs. Weaver was considered at risk for suicide and advised to be voluntarily hospitalized for 72 hours. Mrs. Weaver stayed less than one day and left the facility against medical advice.
Upon learning this information, Joy’s attorneys asked for a meeting with Judge Ashworth. It was an ex parte meeting, meaning that the prosecutor was not at the meeting. However, a court reporter was present to make a record of everything that was said between Joy’s attorneys and the Judge. On January 11, 2010 the Judge signed an order directing the mental health care provider to release to Joy’s attorneys all psychological records of Carol Weaver from 2002 until 2010. However, within 30 minutes, prior to the order being served upon the mental health care provider, the Judge rescinded the order. The Judge decided that the patient psychologist privilege outweighed the need for the truth to be known.
The docket entries for the case make no mention of the January 11, order. However, when transcripts to the trial were requested the Judge entered the following Order:
AND NOW, this 23rd day of February, 2010, upon review of the trial transcript in the above-referenced case and concerns with regard to the rights and privileges protected by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA) of 1996, it is hereby ORDERED that all counsel and their representatives are directed not to reveal the identity of any health care providers for any of the witnesses called in this case.
It is further ORDERED that those portions of the trial transcript which address the identity of any health care providers for any of the witnesses called in this case shall be sealed and not open for public inspection.
BY THE COURT:
DAVID L.ASHWORTH
JUDGE
What is so amazing about this order is that HIPAA does not apply to the Court. Why did the Court manufacture this as an excuse to seal records that could exculpate Joy?
The Judge directed Joy’s attorneys to give the prosecutors the name of the mental health care provider employee. We do not know whether the prosecutors talked to this woman or what was said to her. However, this woman is now remaining silent. Joy’s attorneys are following the Judge’s directive and have refused to even tell Joy the name of this woman. It is intolerable that Joy’s attorneys were required to give information to the prosecutors, even though Joy is not allowed to know the information.
When the transcript was obtained, (at a cost of approximately $2,500 to Joy’s family), the court reporter refused to provide 18 pages of transcript, which is believed to be the record of the ex parte meeting concerning Carol Weaver’s psychological records. The Court reporter stated that the Judge would not allow her to provide these 18 pages. These 18 pages are to be sealed. However, there is no record of anyone in this case requesting that this part of this record to be sealed. The order of February 23, 2010 could have been followed by simply redacting the name of the mental health care provider and the employee of the mental health care provider. What is the Judge trying to hide?
Perhaps the psychological records provide an answer. Perhaps they do not. We know that Carol Weaver has made untruthful statements throughout this entire process. For example, at the preliminary hearing, she testified that Brent did not have a cold before he died. However, cold medications were in his system according to the autopsy, so Mrs. Weaver changed her story for the trial. Mrs. Weaver may have been less than truthful with her psychologist.
No accusation is being made here that Carol Weaver is responsible for the death of her son. She may have been guilt ridden for other reasons. Remember, Carol Weaver had a financial interest in making Joy appear guilty. She and her husband filed a lawsuit against Joy’s employer, Bayada Nursing. They needed to make Joy look responsible for the death in order to make a large amount of money from their lawsuit. Perhaps Mrs. Weaver was guilt ridden over destroying evidence that could have shown some other explanation for her son’s death. There is more about the lawsuit in the next article.
II. The Weaver’s lawsuit against Bayada Nursing
It is a matter of public record that the Weavers wanted to make a financial profit from the death of their son. On April 12, 2004 they filed a lawsuit against Bayada Nursing alleging that Joy, an employee of Bayada Nursing, was responsible for the death of their son. They filed the lawsuit in
Why did they file in
At any rate, the
After two years of fighting to keep the lawsuit in
Throughout the criminal investigation the Weavers had the assistance of their attorney, whose law firm was also handling the Weaver’s lawsuit against Bayada Nursing. Although the fee arrangement between the Weavers and their attorney is not certain, personal injury attorneys typically take cases on contingent fees and collect their fee only if their client is awarded money in the case. The contingent fee is usually one third of the amount of the recovery.
Thus, the Weavers and their attorney had an economic incentive to make Joy look guilty. If Joy was responsible for the death of the child, they could make a lot of money. If there was another explanation for the death of the child, the Weavers would not make any money. All evidence at the house was under the Weavers control. Is it possible that some of the evidence was destroyed to prevent anyone from finding another explanation of what happened to Brent? The Weavers admit that they discarded the child’s feeding machine and formula. It seemed like a logical explanation to the jury due to the passage of time. But, during this time, the Weavers were gearing up for their lawsuit? Why would evidence be discarded if they were planning to sue?
Judge Ashworth recognized that the lawsuit had some significance, but he did not want to disturb Judge Hobart’s decision to seal the settlement of the lawsuit. The only explanation given to Joy is that one judge would not want to disturb an order entered by another judge in the same court. It would not be polite to enter an order contradicting the order of another judge in the same county. Something far more important than Joy’s innocence was at stake: judicial etiquette. The privacy of the personal injury settlement between the Weavers and Bayada Nursing was far more important than the possibility of convicting an innocent person.
However, the Judge had to recognize that there was relevance to the personal injury case. Therefore, he entered an order that allowed the jury to be told about the lawsuit, but limited the questions that could be asked on this subject to two. The order entered on January 7, 2010 provided as follows:
AND NOW, this 7th day of January, 2010 it is herby ORDERED that Mark and Carol Weaver are required to testify, if asked, that a lawsuit was filed on their behalf against Bayada Nurses and that the lawsuit did settle.
BY THE COURT
What is so amazing about this order is that it not only directs defense counsel on what questions may be asked, but also directs the Weavers on how to answer. The Court did not want to risk that Carol Weaver would give an incorrect answer, as she had done on other issues at the preliminary hearing.
Joy’s attorneys limited themselves to these two questions. Reporters in the courtroom who knew many of the details of the personal injury lawsuit were shocked that defense counsel did not go into more detail about the lawsuit. The limitations imposed by the Judge prevented Joy’s attorneys from going any further on this issue.
Rumor has it that the Weavers were seeking over $1,000,000 from Bayada Nursing. Rumor also has it that the case against Bayada was settled for nuisance value. However, these are only rumors. The truth is sealed. Was nuisance value to a $1,000.000 lawsuit, still a sufficient amount of money for the Weavers to remodel their home and build an in ground pool? We do not know. What is abundantly clear, however, is that the Weavers are financially far better off now than when Brent was alive. There is an old saying that money corrupts. How much corruption did money cause in this case? The jury was prevented from considering this.
At sentencing the prosecutor sought restitution for Brent’s funeral expenses of over $6,000. The funeral expenses were an issue in the personal injury case which was settled with a payment of some amount to the Weavers. So, they are seeking to be paid twice for the same expense. This is known as double-dipping. Nevertheless, the Judge awarded restitution.
III. Limitations placed on character witnesses.
There were over 70 people who knew Joy well and who were planning to testify as character witnesses. They spent two days sitting in the hallway of the courthouse waiting to be called as witnesses. They all had many things to tell the jury about Joy’s character as a wonderful and caring person who would never harm a patient.
Unfortunately, only a handful of witnesses were allowed to be called individually and their testimony was limited to two general questions about Joy’s reputation for being law abiding and honest. Several other character witnesses were herded in front of the jury in groups of ten where they were asked the same questions en mass. Many of the other character witnesses never saw the inside of the courtroom.
The only explanation given for limiting the character witnesses was that it would take too much time. The trial needed to be over before the three day weekend began. The judge would be willing to listen to more details about Joy’s character at the sentencing hearing (as if the verdict was a foregone conclusion).
If the jury had heard what the character witnesses said at the sentencing hearing, there most definitely would have been a not guilty verdict.
24 March 2010
Posted in
News and Updates
Our Thoughts.....
We were very saddened today to finally receive Joy’s sentence. The hearing lasted nearly the whole morning. We were all very tense. It was so hard knowing that Joy is innocent, but that the sentencing would be based on the premise that she was guilty. We learned that her sentence, 7 to 20 years, is considered a “good” sentence. Hardly good for the mother, sister, friend and daughter we all know and love. Joy will soon be moving to a state facility adding more complexity and distance to our already difficult times.
There is no question that we intend to appeal. The question right now is how we will ever fund it.
Our quest for Justice for Joy is not base solely on our faith in Joy is an incredibly honest and caring person. We know that a series of events and irregularities have occurred within the judicial system. We intend to correct these mistakes.
We continue to be amazed at the incredible outpouring of love and support to our family and especially to Joy. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts. We hope that you will continue to help us seek Justice for Joy.
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