Less than a month after Jayla Belton's death, in June 1996, Lacresha went to trial on the charge of capital murder. Her court-appointed attorney, Kameron Johnson,  did not mount a defense because among other reasons, the Public Defender had been given a budget of only $300.00 from the State of Texas to defend her. He was encouraged by Judge John Dietz not to provide a defense.  Johnson also believed the State's total lack of evidence guaranteed the jury could not find her guilty.  If it did, Johnson believed the judge would step in with a directed verdict and release her. He was only half-right.

The State had no evidence against Lacresha – only a preposterous theory. But, the jury found her guilty anyway, and the Honorable Judge John K. Dietz did not intercede with a directed verdict.  He let the verdict stand. But then he changed his mind. Community pressure, the political calendar and perhaps his conscience induced him to nullify the verdict and grant his own motion for new trial, saying: "This is an adversarial system, designed to establish the truth and I have reason to question whether the truth has been established."

In our justice system, criminal cases are supposed to hinge on clear and convincing evidence, presented by the prosecution, establishing guilt of the accused beyond a reasonable doubt. Clear and convincing evidence was lacking in Lacresha's case, and the only legitimate evidence presented at trial was ignored and suppressed. These are not hollow claims, and you will soon see how

• the APD's failure to obtain evidence,
• the medical examiner's selective autopsy and testimony,
• the D.A.'s suppression of evidence,
• the jury's disregard of evidence and testimony, and
• the judge's failure to recognize and rectify the prosecution's lack of clear and convincing evidence

resulted in a second conviction.

The Prosecution's Case

The prosecution, Gary Cobb, Stephanie Emmons, and Jack Stick, opened their case by telling the jury that everyone who would testify for Lacresha would lie. After slandering all of the defense witnesses, they proceeded – with no corroborating factual evidence linking Lacresha to Jayla's death, no witnesses nor any plausible explanation of how Lacresha could have beaten Jayla to death – to present the jury with unsubstantiated claims, theories and improbabilities.

The Impossible Chronology

During the second trial, the prosecution failed to produce any witness who could testify as to what might have happened to Jayla Belton, who did it, when or how it happened. We are denied any explanation of how this crime happened and are asked to accept the impossible: Starting with Dr. Bayardo's opinion that Jayla Belton died within minutes of the "fatal blow," we must work our way back from 5:57 p.m., which was when Lacresha Murray walked into Brackenridge Hospital carrying Jayla Belton in her arms.

From the interrogation tape, we are asked to believe that at approximately 5:30 p.m. on May 24, 1996, after watching the tv program "Step-by-Step," Lacresha went into an unprovoked (and unwitnessed) rage, attacked Jayla, producing some 30 bruises, four broken ribs and a severed liver. That Lacresha then presented the baby to her grandfather, R.L. Murray, and Ms. Turner.   Mr. Murray and Ms. Turner examined the child and decided she had to be taken to the hospital.

Mr. Murray, who is paralyzed from the waist down, Lacresha and Jayla got into their car, drove through Memorial Day weekend rush-hour traffic 8 to 10 miles to a clinic, then to Brackenridge Hospital and checked into the hospital's emergency center at 5:57 p.m. We are expected to accept that this all happened in less than 30 minutes.

Specifically, the prosecution asked us to believe that in less than 5 minutes, Lacresha injured Jayla Belton, causing over 30 bruises, 4 broken ribs and a severed liver – without making any sound that would have alerted Mr. Murray or Ms. Turner who were no more than 10 feet away, and without leaving one microscopic trace of physical evidence.

The prosecution's own witnesses testified that the APD's full forensics team scoured the Murray home 3 times and failed to find any trace of evidence indicating any violence or beating occurred in the Murray home.

The Unsubstantiated and Unsupportable Assertion

To support this improbable theory, the prosecution asserted that Lacresha was "prone to violence" as demonstrated by their claim that she had been suspended three times from school for fighting. However, they failed to present a single witness or a single piece of documentation evidencing this claim. Such an unsubstantiated claim should have been struck by the judge, who also should have directed the jury to disregard any testimony regarding Lacresha's alleged history of violence.  However, four teachers testified that they had no knowledge of these suspensions or fights and that in the years they had known Lacresha, spanning back almost 8 years, they knew her to be a shy child who withdrew from conflict of any kind. The prosecution blatantly lied to the jury, with immunity.

One Improbability Substituted for Another: The Bouncing Ball Theory

In the first trial, the prosecution claimed that Lacresha beat Jayla Belton against the walls and floor of a bedroom in the Murray home, a 8'x10' room no more than 10 feet away from where Mr. Murray and Ms. Turner were talking. They offered this theory to correspond to a statement made by Mr. Murray that he had heard Lacresha bouncing a ball against the wall sometime that afternoon -- an activity that was common among the children in the Murray home and, therefore, a sound with which Mr. Murray was very familiar.

During her interrogation, Lacresha volunteered -- without being asked about any ball -- that she had been bouncing a ball on the wall, but had taken it outside before she walked by the room where she saw Jayla "shaking" on the bed and took her to Mr. Murray and Ms. Turner for help.

The prosecution claimed Lacresha was lying about bouncing any ball because the APD's forensics team searched the entire house, inside and out, and never found any ball. But the prosecution could not use this absurd theory during the second trial because not only it is it ludicrous to propose that a baby can by rhythmically bounced against a wall and floor like a ball, but also because

1. ) their own crime scene photos displayed the very ball they claimed was non-existent;

2. ) Jayla Belton's injuries did not correspond to this absurd scenario; and

3. ) the prosecution's criminologist and serologist testified that there were no indications, no body fluids, no hair, nor DNA evidence to indicate that Jayla Belton had been slammed against any wall or floor in the Murray home.

So, the prosecution scrapped that theory. And with no evidence to go by, they came up with a new one . . .

The Suspect Tennis Shoes

In the second trial, the prosecution claimed Lacresha kicked Jayla with her tennis shoes and they had medical expert testimony to prove it. There are a lot of problems with the tennis shoe theory:

• Family members and neighbors testified Lacresha was barefoot both inside and outside the Murray home that day.
• A witness from Brackenridge Hospital testified Lacresha was barefoot when she arrived with Jayla at the hospital.
• Lacresha was transported from Brackenridge to the children's facility, where she was interviewed by an APD officer on videotape, again barefoot.
• The officer testified she was then transported to the police department for further questioning, barefoot. However, when she arrived at home, at some time after midnight, she had tennis shoes on her feet.
• Lacresha was given a pair of boys tennis shoes, three sizes too large, by someone at the APD hours after the death of Jayla Belton because they were escorting this child all over town for six hours without shoes. (In other words, the alleged murder weapon was supplied to Lacresha by the APD hours after the attack was supposed to have happened.)

When Lacresha was interrogated on May 29, Officer Pedraza implied that the tennis shoes she was then wearing (a different pair than the boys tennis shoes given to her by someone at the APD) were the shoes she had on when she allegedly kicked Jayla Belton. But then, to add more confusion, the tennis shoes Lacresha Murray was wearing during the interrogation and which were described on the tape by one of the officers were not the tennis shoes presented at trial. In an effort to get around these inconsistencies, detective Pedraza testified he found the shoes when visiting the home by himself on May 28, 1996. Not only is there no one who can verify he actually found them there, but the crime scene team's exhaustive investigation of the Murray home before May 28 failed to find these shoes.

How could have Pedraza picked up the alleged "murder weapon" tennis shoes at her home on the 28th when she was supposedly wearing them at the shelter?

First, the police claim the shoes she was wearing during the interrogation were used to injure Jayla Belton; then they say it was another pair of shoes found by detective Pedraza, and then an entirely different pair of shoes is sent in for forensics testing and presented at the second trial.

What gives? If these tennis shoes, whichever pair, were such crucial evidence, then why were they never sent to the crime lab for testing until November 8, 1996, five months after Jayla Belton's death and four months after Lacresha's first trial?

And why did the judge suppress the letter from the crime lab to prosecutor Jack Stick definitively stating there was no relationship between the tennis shoes sent to them for testing and Jayla Belton's injuries? The jury should have seen this letter!!! We think the reasons are clear. After being forced to discard the preposterous "bouncing ball" scenario, the prosecution had nothing to go on. They were desperate for a "murder weapon" to help account for how Lacresha could have caused the serious injuries sustained by Jayla.

In addition to failing to find any evidence in the Murray home of any crime, the police also failed to find any type of "weapon." With nothing to go on, they decided on the shoes, hoping no one would care about the inconsistencies and improbabilities in the theory. And, we believe the judge granted the prosecution's request to suppress the crime lab's letter, because he knew that without the suppression of it, the prosecution had no case.

Lastly, despite the crime lab's letter eliminating the tennis shoe, the State's own medical expert, Dr. Di Miao of San Antonio, asserted there was "undoubtedly" a match between treads on the shoes and two scrapes on Jayla Belton's body. He stated there was a 1/4" distance between two treads on the heel of the shoe matching a 1/4" distance between two of the scrapes. However, when asked whether he compared the lengths of the treads with the lengths of the scrapes, he admitted he had not and he admitted that the scrapes on the body were much too long to match any tread on the tennis shoes. So again, the State by its own witness, eliminated its alleged murder weapon.

The Problems with Jayla Belton's Clothes

First, one must ask why in a capital murder case, particularly involving an alleged brutal beating, Jayla Belton's clothes were not sent in for forensics testing until one week before Lacresha's second trial (eight months after Jayla's death).

Secondly, during the second trial, the admitting physician from Brackenridge Hospital testified that Jayla Belton's clothes had been cut off her after she had been admitted. As testified to by the State's own criminologist, these clothes were sent to the DPS crime lab for testing and both blood and vomit were found on these clothes, corroborating the Murrays' statement that Jayla had vomited blood during the afternoon of May 24, 1996.

Yet, the prosecution presented at evidence at trial an intact, clean pair of clothes claiming them to be the clothes in which Jayla Belton died. Could it be possible that the prosecution had the audacity to substitute Jayla Belton's clothes in order to corroborate their claim that no blood was found on Jayla's clothes and thereby make it appear that the Murrays had lied about Jayla vomiting blood? How did the prosecution believe themselves able to state no blood was found on the clothes, when their own criminologist said there was?

AN INNOCENT GIRL CONVICTED FOR THE SECOND TIME!

For the second time an innocent child, Lacresha Murray, has been found guilty of the death of two-year old Jayla Belton. With no physical evidence, no reasonable explanation of opportunity or motive, no witnesses, and no history of violence, Lacresha's trial should have resulted in a directed verdict, an acquittal or, at the very least, a hung jury.

Since the only legitimate and reasonable evidence, presented by the defense in this case, implicated someone other than Lacresha or her family members, we can only surmise that this jury, like the last one, did not concern itself with the lack of evidence offered by the prosecution nor with the evidence presented by the defense.

How did they get away with this?