LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — The Kansas Supreme Court has agreed to consider an appeals court decision overturning the conviction of a day care worker in the death of a 9-month-old.
The Lawrence Journal-World reports that the Douglas County District Attorney’s Office is seeking to have the murder conviction against Carrody Buchhorn reinstated.
The office appealed after the Kansas Court of Appeals ruled in August that Buchhorn should get a new trial because her attorney did not adequately question a coroner’s ruling on how 9-month-old Oliver “Ollie” Ortiz died. He was found unresponsive in 2016 at the Sunshine Kids Group Daycare Home in Eudora.
Her defense team argued the child’s fatal head injury could have been inflicted up to a week before he died. The coroner said the boy would have become unresponsive immediately.
The 2018 trial ended with Buchhorn, now 47, convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 10-years in prison.
Deputy District Attorney Joshua Seiden told the Journal-World Wednesday that the petition for review was accepted but a date in court had not yet been scheduled. He said it could be several months before the case reaches the court’s docket.
Buchhorn is now free while the case works its way through the courts.
