The Delaware Supreme Court has upheld the third-degree child abuse conviction of Stacy Jenkins, ruling that her appeal was completely groundless after her own defense attorney could find no legal errors to fight in court.

Background

Jenkins was previously convicted of one count of third-degree child abuse. The conviction followed a quick, one-day bench trial—a trial decided by a judge rather than a jury—in the Superior Court of Delaware. Immediately following the trial, the presiding Superior Court judge sentenced Jenkins to two years of incarceration. However, the judge suspended that prison time entirely, opting instead to place Jenkins on one year of Level II probation.

Following the sentencing, Jenkins filed a direct appeal to the state’s highest court, but the case quickly stalled from within her own defense team. Her appellate attorney filed a special motion to withdraw from the case, alongside a “no-merit brief” under Supreme Court Rule 26(c).

In the filings, her attorney asserted that he had completed a thorough and careful examination of the entire trial record and simply could not find any legally sound issues that could be argued on appeal.

Supreme Court Ruling

The Supreme Court wrote that it “reviewed the record carefully and has concluded that Jenkins’ appeal is wholly without merit and devoid of any arguably appealable issues.”

The justices added that they were fully satisfied that Jenkins’ counsel made a conscientious effort to examine both the record and the law before correctly determining that a successful claim was impossible.

Original reporting: Tampa Free Press — read the source article.