Lisa Marie Cunningham death-row trial case delayed
A South Australian mother accused of murdering her young American stepdaughter faces an almost two-year trial delay because of coronavirus, while a legal hurdle preventing her execution has been removed.
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A South Australian mother accused of murdering her young American stepdaughter faces an almost two-year trial delay because of coronavirus, while a legal hurdle preventing her execution has been removed.
Mannum-born Lisa Marie Cunningham, 46, and her American husband, former armed robbery Detective Germayne, 41, are charged with the first-degree murder, neglect and abuse of his daughter Sanaa, 7, in February 2017.
But a judge this week ruled they will not face a jury until at least March 2022 after their original trial date was last month abandoned because of Arizona’s COVID-19 crisis.
The couple, who deny the charges and claim her death was a medical tragedy, have been in custody for almost two years at two of Phoenix’s biggest jails now considered COVID-19 “hot spots”.
“Due to the pandemic, and the effects of the pandemic on the parties’ ability to prepare for trial, a (delay) is necessary,” Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Patricia Starr said. “Neither the defence team nor the state is in a position to adequately prepare for trial at this time.”
Prosecutors, who are seeking the death penalty, did not object to the defence request.
The ruling came weeks after Arizona’s Attorney-General Mark Brnovich settled a contentious lawsuit challenging the state’s lethal injection rules and blocked executions.
While no criminal has been executed since 2014, legal experts said the decision made it easier to kill inmates, including the Cunninghams, if they are found guilty. In Arizona, all capital crime convictions are granted an automatic appeal.
The judge this week said she was willing to broker a settlement conference for the couple, who lived in an affluent part of western Phoenix.
But prosecutors have offered no plea deal, records show. Scores of cases have settled because of the rising COVID threat. A jail virus outbreak has delayed the case while the pandemic threatens their defence.
Their lawyers cannot conduct important meetings, while travel is impossible to interview 84 witnesses, including Mrs Cunningham’s friends and SA-based relatives, who knew her as Lisa Topsfield. Crucial DNA evidence was discovered in May. Her lawyer Eric Kessler said prosecutors had handed over 20,000 pages of records while thousands more remain secret. Arizona’s local justice system has melted down as trials were suspended. The state’s jail system, the US’s fourth largest, has gone from one COVID-19 case in May to more than 1500, leaving at least a third of inmates ill.
Former prison guard Mrs Cunningham, a mother of four who has trained as a Christian preacher, is the first Australian woman to face the US death penalty. An Australian man was hanged in California in the 1850s gold-rush era.
Mrs Cunningham has urged the Australian Government to save her from the death penalty.