Lawyers appeal in infanticide case

Edmonton Journal, CanWest News Service; Friday, September 29, 2006

Wetaskiwin AB - Katrina Effert, 19, in disguise, quickly enters the Wetaskiwin Court House for her trial, she's charged with second-degree murder in the death of her newborn son in Wetaskiwin in 2005.

EDMONTON - Lawyers for an Alberta woman are appealing her second-degree murder conviction for killing her newborn baby.

In the meantime, they hope Katrina Effert, 20, of Wetaskiwin, Alta., will be able to get bail during what could be a lengthy process.

''We did that this morning,'' lawyer Sheila Schumacher said Thursday after launching their appeal.

Schumacher represented Effert during her trial and was aghast by the jury's decision late Tuesday to send her client to prison for at least a decade.

Schumacher said she'd expected the jury of eight women and four men to find Effert guilty of the lesser offence of infanticide. For the past half-century in Canada infanticide has been the usual charge levied against a mother who kills her newborn.

Infanticide carries a maximum sentence of five years but in virtually every case, the mother is given only a conditional sentence and does no jail time.

Two expert witnesses a forensic psychiatrist and a forensic psychologist testified during the trial that Effert suffered a ''disturbed mind'' after secretly giving birth in the basement of her parents' home. That trauma, the hormonal upset of birth and lactation and the shame she felt following an unwanted and secret pregnancy made hers a classic case of infanticide, they said.

Schumacher said she feels her client was side-swiped by small town sentiment, which refused to give a woman who killed her newborn the possibility of avoiding jail time.

Edmonton Journal CanWest News Service 2006