A Troy mother accused of manslaughter in the death of her infant son is scheduled to go on trial Monday, nearly 10 months after the boy was found dead in her mobile home.
The trial of Miranda Hopkins, 32, will begin at 9 a.m. in Waldo County Superior Court in Belfast. The jury was selected Thursday.
Hopkins, whose son Jaxson was 7 weeks old at the time of his death, recently attempted to have a polygraph examination that indicated she did not commit the crime admitted as evidence. Hopkins’ lawyer, Laura Shaw, filed the motion to admit the test’s results in August.
The filing of the test, conducted by licensed polygraph administrator Mark Teceno, indicated there was more than a 99 percent certainty that Hopkins was telling the truth. According to the filing, Hopkins willingly submitted to the examination and stated she did not inflict the injuries on her son.
But a judge ruled last week that the results could not be admitted, disagreeing that the results “overwhelmingly” demonstrated Hopkins was innocent.
Hopkins originally was charged with knowing or depraved indifference murder, punishable by 25 years to life in prison. A Waldo County grand jury indicted her in February on the lesser charge of manslaughter. Manslaughter is a class A felony, as is a charge of murder, but it carries a less severe penalty. It’s punishable by a period of time in prison not to exceed 30 years.
An indictment is not a finding of guilt, but is a determination by the grand jury that there’s enough evidence in a case to proceed with trial.
Hopkins has been free on bail since her indictment.
Hopkins called 911 in January this year from her home in Troy, saying her infant son was unresponsive. The infant was pronounced dead at the scene. The cause of the baby’s death is listed as blunt force head injuries that included cuts and bruises on the head and skull, rib fractures, and bleeding on the surface of the brain.
Hopkins told authorities she woke up and found her baby cold, white and “beat to hell,” according to police. Hopkins lived with Jaxson and two other sons, ages 6 and 8, who both have autism, she told police. She told authorities it was possible the older boy crawled into bed and crushed or suffocated the baby.
But Hopkins also told police she must have “blacked out” and was “so drunk that she did not remember,” saying she had drunk whiskey and ingested the antihistamine drug Benadryl, according to a police affidavit filed with the court. She was arrested Jan. 13, the day after her son died.
Hopkins contended in court documents that one or both of her other sons might have killed their infant brother, possibly by crushing the child while rolling over in bed.
Her other sons are staying with relatives.
Shaw’s motion to allow the polygraph results as evidence conceded that the Law Court in Maine generally supports the belief that polygraph examinations are not sufficiently reliable to allow the results, or a defendant’s willingness or unwillingness to take the test, as evidence.
But Shaw added in her motion that any decision to exclude polygraph evidence from admission at Hopkins’ trial is not binding in her case for a number of reasons.
In her motion, Shaw stated that the court case that initially decided the polygraph question dates to 1954, and standards are not the same ones used by the Law Court today. The motion also states that in those early cases, polygraph tests had not been developed enough so that the result could be considered competent evidence.
Colin Ellis — 861-9253
cellis@centralmaine.com
Twitter: @colinoellis
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