Court Overturns Conviction In Fatal Delaware School Bathroom Attack
DOVER, Del. (AP) — Delaware's Supreme Court has overturned the conviction of a 17-year-old girl in a school bathroom attack that left a 16-year-old classmate dead.
The girl was found culpable of criminally negligent homicide by a Family Court judge and sentenced to six months in a juvenile facility for the 2016 death of Amy Joyner-Francis.
An autopsy found that Joyner-Francis, who had a rare, undetected, heart condition, died of sudden cardiac death, aggravated by stress from the fight.
The Supreme Court on Thursday said no reasonable factfinder could have found that the girl acted with criminal negligence or, even if she did, that it would be unjust to blame her for Joyner-Francis' death given how unforeseeable it was that the fight would lead to a young teen dying of cardiac arrest.
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