Lawyers for a couple charged in the death of their 14-month-old son cautioned jurors Tuesday against basing their verdict on emotion or a desire for mob justice.
Jennifer and Jeromie Clark of Calgary have pleaded not guilty to criminal negligence causing death and failure to provide the necessaries of life for their son John.
The Crown presented evidence from an array of medical professionals that suggested John could not fight off a staph infection because he was malnourished and that he was close to death by the time he arrived in hospital.
The trial heard the boy was covered in a rash, had some blackened toes and had an abnormally low heart rate and temperature.
“That one-sided presentation sure would sound pretty damning, but it is a good example of why we have trials in our legal system,” Jennifer Clark’s lawyer John Phillips told court in his closing argument.
“In our society, we try not to just act like an angry mob, grabbing our pitchforks and torches and heading off to the windmill to kill a monster, all fired up by a story.”
Jeromie Clark’s lawyer, David Chow, told jurors they must steel themselves when looking at photographs of the dead child with tubes attached to his little body.
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“You can feel nothing but a broken heart for that little baby,” he said.
“It’s easy to fall into the trap and place those pictures at the feet of those two people,” he added, gesturing toward the Clarks in the prisoners’ dock.
Both Phillips and Chow agreed John was sick when he was taken to hospital, but noted he was alert initially.
They argue he died as a result of the treatment he received in the Alberta Children’s Hospital, not from parental neglect.
Anny Sauvageau, Alberta’s former chief medical examiner and now a consultant, reviewed John’s files and determined he died from being given too much sodium and fluid in too short a time.
Sauvageau’s testimony contradicted the forensic pathologists’ report by Elizabeth Brooks Lim, the current chief medical examiner, that John was malnourished and died from sepsis.
Chow said the Crown has not proven how John died, or that his parents were responsible.
He said for the jury to find the pair guilty of criminal negligence causing death, the Crown must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that their behaviour was a “marked and substantial departure in the standard of care expected of a reasonable person in the circumstances.”
He said the Clarks may wish they had done something differently in hindsight, but they acted reasonably.
“No human being is subject to a standard of perfection. That’s not what we are,” Chow said.
Both defence lawyers highlighted police photos of the Clarks’ modest Calgary home that show healthy snacks, nutritional supplements, wellness books and baby gates.
“Just use your common sense: does this look like a home where the family is not properly looking out for the nutritional health of its children?” Chow asked. “No way.”
Prosecutor Shane Parker is to deliver his closing argument later Tuesday. The jury is to receive its instructions from Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Paul Jeffrey Thursday.
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