Decision on retrial nears in child-abuse murder

Bill Gang

Monday, Feb. 8, 1999 | 10:50 a.m.

District Judge Mark Gibbons will decide Wednesday whether a prosecutor stepped over the line in closing arguments at the child abuse murder trial of licensed child-care worker Alica Wegner.

If the judge rejects Wegner's motion for a new trial, he will go ahead with the scheduled sentencing on her murder conviction.

Wegner, 34, was convicted Dec. 3 of murder by child abuse in the March 1997 death of 14-month-old Kierra Harrison at Wegner's child-care facility.

The mandatory sentence set by law is life or 50 years in prison with parole possible after 20 years, or life without the possibility of parole. Prosecutors did not seek the death penalty.

Even if she's sentenced Wednesday, Wegner may not go to prison right away.

Gibbons indicated at a hearing Friday that because of the "extraordinary" controversies in the case and allegations of misconduct by the prosecutor, he is inclined to grant bail pending an appeal to the Nevada Supreme Court.

Wegner was free on $100,000 bail before the trial.

Wegner's lawyers say Deputy District Attorney Vicki Monroe improperly revealed during closing arguments medical tests that had been done but were not allowed to be used as evidence.

The defense had argued during the trial that Kierra's injuries occurred when she was in the care of her parents over the weekend, before she was brought to the child-care facility where she eventually collapsed.

Tests by defense experts -- including the Mayo Clinic and the U.S. Armed Forces Institute of Pathology -- on tissue taken from the girl's brain after her death indicated an injury that had been inflicted prior to the date Kierra collapsed.

Defense attorney Tony Sgro chastised the prosecution during his closing argument for not conducting certain tests to determine when the fatal injury occurred.

Monroe objected and responded that the tests had been done but were not admitted as evidence at the request of the defense, because they had been completed too close to the trial date.

In court Friday, Sgro said that Monroe's attempt to get the evidence in through the back door should result in a new trial.

But Deputy District Attorney Doug Herndon said the defense "invited" Monroe's comments. He said Sgro "misled" the jury, and the prosecution "was entitled to right the scales."

The jury deliberated more than nine hours over three days before reaching its decision.

The defense had based its case on scientific evidence that the fatal head wound to the baby had occurred earlier, when she was in the care of her parents.

Prosecution experts, who analyzed the same slides of blood and tissue samples, disagreed.

In the end, the jury looked elsewhere to determine who was responsible for the skull fracture that killed Kierra. The girl suffered a depression fracture, like a cracked hard-boiled egg, and a crack in her skull a quarter-inch wide.

Emergency room physicians concluded that Kierra could not have functioned normally with those injuries. Yet according to Wegner's statements to authorities, Kierra had played with other children, ate apples and macaroni and cheese and gone along to run some errands, but suddenly became unresponsive and had difficulty breathing.

On a 911 tape, Wegner said Kierra had fallen and hit her head.

Wegner did not testify at the trial but she has written letters to the judge and is expected to give a statement at her sentencing.