Pubdate: Sun, 06 Oct 2002
Source: Arizona Republic (AZ)
Copyright: 2002 The Arizona Republic
Contact:  http://www.arizonarepublic.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/24
Author: Carol Sowers

BABY DEATH WILL TEST LAW ON DRUG USE

Anndreah Robertson suffered a death so horrible that the 4-pound newborn 
grunted and screamed in pain as her intestines steadily decayed. Born 
addicted to cocaine, she died 10 days later.

"I have an obligation to figure out what happened, and she's deserving of 
that," Phoenix police Detective Anthony Jones told the baby's mother in an 
interview five days after Anndreah's Nov. 9 death. "She didn't deserve to 
die that way."

No one disagrees. But nearly a year later, exactly what caused Anndreah's 
tortured death remains in question. Her mother and grandmother have been 
arrested, and prosecutors are making last-minute preparations for a 
groundbreaking preliminary hearing that begins Monday.

Maricopa County prosecutors blame Anndreah's death on a lethal stream of 
secondhand crack cocaine smoke from her mother and grandmother's crack 
pipe, a theory being tested for the first time in Arizona.

Pitted against them are medical experts who say the baby's death was caused 
by the cocaine her mother, Demitres Robertson, smoked during her pregnancy, 
including the day of Anndreah's birth. In Arizona, and several other 
states, prenatal substance abuse is not a crime.

The state's star witness: a husband who is sparing himself by testifying 
against his wife - a wife who four years ago persuaded a judge not to put 
him behind bars for violating probation on a drug charge.

Solomon Butler told investigators, according to police reports, that his 
wife, Lillian, who is Anndreah's grandmother, and Robertson smoked cocaine 
around the infant. He also once told a Child Protective Services worker 
that he worried that crack smoke was affecting Robertson's two other 
toddlers, according to police reports.

"It's an unusual case with an unusual set of facts," Maricopa County 
Attorney Rick Romley said.

Indeed, Anndreah Robertson's death sparked CPS to implement a new policy 
that makes drug-addicted babies a higher priority and refueled debate among 
lawmakers who seek to make it a crime to expose a fetus to drugs. But for 
Anndreah, prosecutors must prove the baby was harmed by exposure to drugs 
after her birth.

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Gregory Martin will decide at the 
close of the preliminary hearing, a mini-trial of sorts that is expected to 
last three days, whether there is enough reasonable evidence to believe 
that Robertson, 23, a convicted prostitute, and the child's grandmother, 
Lillian Butler, 44, caused the baby's death.

If he disagrees with the secondhand-smoke theory, Martin could dismiss the 
charges, allowing prosecutors to refile only if they come up with more 
compelling evidence.

Robertson, who told police Anndreah "looked like a skeleton" before she 
died, is charged with murder and child abuse. Butler, who referred to the 
10-day-old "as my dream baby," faces two counts of child abuse.

Robertson, who is expecting another baby, told police she didn't "have much 
to do with babies" and said she couldn't be responsible for Anndreah's 
death because she was rarely at the family's tiny central Phoenix apartment.

"I smoked crack around my baby only one time," she said, telling Jones 
instead that it was her mother and stepfather "who got high."

James Cleary, Lillian Butler's county-paid attorney, said he will focus his 
defense in part on doctors' findings that it would be impossible for 
secondhand cocaine smoke to cause the deadly intestinal condition that 
killed Anndreah.

Prosecutors decided to seek a preliminary hearing, rather than an 
indictment, in part because Solomon Butler, 53, has a terminal illness.

Grand jury testimony is inadmissible at trial, whereas testimony from 
preliminary hearings is allowed because attorneys for both sides have an 
opportunity to question witnesses.

Lillian Butler, who does not have a criminal record, told police she smoked 
crack to "relax my mind," and ease memories of a murdered son and the 
rigors of caring for her daughter's children, according to police records.

"She is a loving mother and grandmother," said Lillian Butler's brother, 
James Craig, 45, a Phoenix firefighter who took in his sister after she was 
released from jail on bail.

"She is not the best person, but she is not the worst."

Craig said he never saw evidence of drug abuse when his sister appeared at 
family get-togethers.

"If we would have known she was abusing drugs, we would have gotten her 
help," he said.
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