Dad on trial for fracturing baby's skull, breaking bones (Fort Wayne, Indiana)

I'm not a lawyer, so Dastardly's legally-inclined readers will have to indulge me here. But why is dad CORTEZ LEE charged with infant NEGLECT when it appears the baby's injuries were INTENTIONALLY inflicted with great force? Wouldn't that be assault and felony child abuse? Just wondering.

And this baby was just 6 weeks old! A newborn. Just rips your guts.

http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20100610/LOCAL03/306109980/1039/LOCAL03

Published: June 10, 2010 3:00 a.m.
Father on trial in infant neglect
6-week-old suffered fracture to skull, several broken bones
Rebecca S. Green The Journal Gazette

FORT WAYNE – At just 6 weeks old, Cordell Lee endured a handful of broken bones – skull fracture, broken femur, broken wrist and others.

Cordell survived, but his father, 20-year-old Cortez Lee, is on trial this week in Allen Superior Court, charged with neglect for failing to provide adequate medical care for the infant.

In January 2009, Lee took the baby to Parkview Hospital’s emergency room for what was later found to be a displaced femur fracture. While the baby was at the hospital, doctors found a skull fracture, bleeding on the brain, and older fractures in a wrist, foot, rib and shin, according to court documents.

“Those injuries,” Allen County Deputy Prosecutor Patricia Pikel told the jury, “would have been obvious to a caretaker.”

Lee’s defense attorney Jeff Raff said Lee had little education and, at 19 years old at the time, little experience in taking care of Cordell and his twin brother. The babies’ mother was 17.

When Department of Child Services caseworker Faith Jackson interviewed Lee at the hospital that day, he told her the baby’s mother had been sleeping with the infant the night before.

Lee said the baby had been fussier than normal for weeks and attributed the skull fracture to his striking the infant in the head with an elbow by accident, unaware the baby was behind him, Jackson testified.

A number of doctors testified as well, including Dr. Antoinnette Laskey, an associate professor of pediatrics at Indiana University’s School of Medicine and a pediatric child abuse expert.

According to Laskey, all of the baby’s injuries would have been evident to anyone caring for him, especially the leg fracture.

“It took a dramatic amount of force to cause that injury,” she said, adding the injury may have even been audible when it occurred.

The skull fracture, which ran along the side of Cordell’s head, could have been caused only by a tremendous amount of force because infants’ skulls have some give to them, Laskey said.

“He had inflicted trauma,” she said, adding there were no other medical causes for the fractures, such as a genetic disorder or nutritional deficiency.

“There was more than one event where a caregiver caused him to have injuries,” Laskey said.

The trial is expected to conclude today.

If convicted, Lee faces between six and 20 years in prison.