Edelin's Attorneys File Motion For Reversal of Jury Verdict

Defense attorneys in the Kenneth C. Edelin manslaughter case resubmitted a motion yesterday asking Suffolk Superior Court Judge James P. McGuire to overturn the guilty verdict passed by a jury February 15.

William P. Homans '41, Edelin's defense lawyer, said in his brief that the weight of the evidence in the case ran contrary to the jury's verdict, and he therefore is requesting a directed verdict from the judge.

Will File Today

Newman A. Flanagan, assistant district attorney and prosecutor in the case, said he expects to file an opposing brief today.

The attorneys will argue their cases in a hearing tomorrow before Judge McGuire.

McGuire may grant either a directed reversal of the verdict, acquitting Edelin, on a new trial. If he denies both requests, the defense will pursue an appeal that has already been filed, Charles R. Nesson, professor of Law and defense attorney for Edelin, said yesterday.

Homans said his request for a reversal was based on two major discrepancies in the case.

"The bill (of indictment) said that the death occured before the fetus emerged completely from the mother, with the fetus inside but separate from the mother, or partially removed, or partially separate," he said. The defense therefore dealt entirely with the period before it was removed.

In the course of the trial, however, McGuire ruled that the fetus only becomes a person with legal protection after it has been removed from its mother's body.

The second discrepancy is between conflicting testimony over whether the fetus drew a breath of air outside the mother.

Prosecuter Flanagan said that it had. A pathologist testifying for the prosecution said there was evidence to this effect.

Pathologists testifying for the defense, however, unanimously refuted the claim.

Dr. Enrique Gimenez-Jimeno, the only eye-witness to the legal abortion, testified that the fetus was dead when it was removed.

The motion for a directed verdict was first made before the jury deliberation, but was denied, Flanagan said.