Carol Marbin Miller and Audra D.S. Burch of the Miami Herald win the April Sidney Award for “Innocents Lost”, an investigative multi-media package profiling some 477 Florida children who died after the state’s child protection authorities investigated their families for abuse or neglect but failed to take them into care.

Marbin Miller and Burch collected the death reports on each child who died of confirmed abuse or neglect within five years of Florida’s Department of Children and Families finding maltreatment in the home during a prior investigation, from 2008 onwards. They found that deaths had skyrockedted since the state implemented slashed funding for child protection in the name of “family preservation.” The reporters also found that DCF was low-balling the number of child deaths with priors they reported to the state legislature by as many as 39 cases a year.  

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A judge dismissed a “depraved heart” murder charge against a Mississippi woman who delivered a stillborn baby and positive for a metabolite of cocaine. Rennie Gibbs was 16 years old when she delivered her stillborn child in 2006. There was never any evidence that drugs caused the demise of the fetus, which was born with the cord wrapped around its neck. 

The judge dismissed the case on a legal technicality:

[Lowndes County Circuit Court Judge Jim] Kitchens dismissed the charge against Gibbs Wednesday. Citing Mississippi Supreme Court case Buckhalter v. State, he said the law was unclear on the appropriate charge for Gibbs.

“Gibbs was indicted prior to Buckhalter and the law was unclear in Mississippi as to the appropriate charge, if any, to be levied when a pregnant woman allegedly consumed illegal drugs and allegedly caused the death of her unborn child,” Kitchens ruling stated.

He added, “Accordingly, pursuant to the Mississippi Supreme Court’s ruling this case for depraved heart murder is dismissed without prejudice.” [CD]

Nina Martin of ProPublica and the other reporters who kept this case in the spotlight probably had a lot to do with justice finally being served, at least for the time being. 

The prosecutor has pledged to send the case back to a grand jury in August.