A Buchanan County Circuit Court judge this week threw out a jury’s guilty verdict and discharged a St. Joe woman accused in the death of her baby daughter. The move surprised observers and officers of the court alike, including Prosecuting Attorney Dwight Scroggins.

“We were surprised at the finding by the court,” Scroggins said. “I’m sure that the court did that because the judge in good conscience determined that that’s what he needed to do.”

“We’re not arguing with that. We were surprised.”

Jaspera Rainey is a free woman now, after Judge Patrick Robb set aside a jury’s guilty verdict to a lesser, misdemeanor offense, during a hearing at which the woman was scheduled to be sentenced.  She had been charged with the Class-A felony offense of Child Abuse Resulting In Death.  The mother’s boyfriend is serving 18 years for his conviction in the case.

Prosecutor Scroggins says the timing of the ruling was surprising. Judge Robb had previously rejected two motions to dismiss the case.

“If it’s going to happen, and that’s a rarety that it happens at all, but if it does, it normally happens at either the close of the state’s case, or, more commonly, at the close of all of the evidence in the case, after both the state and defense have finished presenting evidence,” Scroggins said.

“The court has then seen everything that there is, and nothing after that changes, nothing evidentiarly, there’s no more or less evidence. It is completed at that point in time. The court generally, if it rules then that a motion for acquittal should not be granted, that a motion to find the person not guilty should not be granted at that stage, then it’s very unusual that it gets done at the next level.

The child, 23-month-old Jaliya Blackmon, died in August of 2014 after suffering dozens of injuries. The judge ruled that there was no clear way to determine when the fatal injuries occurred, and nothing in the evidence to show that the defendant lied about it, as asserted by the prosecutor Kate Schaefer.

“She made, I thought, an exceptionally good argument during the course of the hearing on the motion, and the judge just disagreed with her arguments,” Mr Scroggins said, “and that’s the system, and we live with the outcome.”

Court records in the case, including the paper files and the records on Case.net, have been blocked from public access.  Scroggins says this happens any time a defendant is found not guilty, in an effort to prevent the unproved charges from following a person around for the rest of their life.