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Wrongly Convicted Database Record
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Charge: |
Murder |
Sentence: |
Life Imprisonment without possibility of parole |
Years Imprisoned: |
7.75 |
Year Crime: |
2006 |
Year Convicted: |
2007 |
Year Cleared: |
2015 |
U.S. State or Country of Crime: |
Texas |
County or Region of Crime: |
Nueces |
City of Crime: |
Corpus Christi |
Result: |
Judicially Exonerated Released |
Summary of Case: |
"Hannah Ruth Overton and her husband Larry Overton were codefendants wrongly convicted on September 7, 2007 of capital murder in the death of her four-year-old foster son Andrew Burd, who died on October 3, 2006 in Corpus Christi, Texas. Hannah Overton and her husband Larry Overton were in the process of adopting Burd. The Nueces County Medical Examiner determined Burd died of salt poisoning and may have experienced blunt head trauma. Both Hannah and Larry were charged on October 3, 2006 with capital murder, but the trial judge granted defense motions for separate trials. During her trial Hannah Overton testified that Burd was “obsessed with eating,” and that he ate more than her five biological children at every meal. On October 2, 2006 Overton testified to a series of events over a period of several hours in which Burd increasingly became more ill, and that culminated with them personally transporting him to the emergency center of the local hospital. The jury convicted Overton on September 7, 2007, and she was subsequently sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. In 2009 Texas' Thirteenth Court of Appeals affirmed her conviction (Overton v. State, No. 13-07-00735-CR (Tex. App.-Corpus Christi, 10-29-2009). Overton subsequently filed a state habeas corpus petition that asserted "she is actually innocent based upon newly discovered evidence, that she received ineffective assistance of counsel, and that the State failed to turn over material, exculpatory evidence." (Ex Parte Overton, No. WR-75,804-02, Tex. Ct of Crim Appeals, 2012) The petition asserted her trial lawyers were ineffective because they failed to call Dr. Michael Moritz to testify before the jury. Moritz is an expert on hypernatremia, which is a medical condition related to a body's elevated salt level. It was known by Hannah's lawyer's that Moritz would have testified that in his opinion Andrew didn't die because of Overton, but because of his extreme eating habits that were symptoms of emotional deprivation syndrome. Thus, Andrews death was accidentally caused by his own over eating of salt laden foods. Overton's trial judge -- District Judge Jose Longoria -- dismissed her petition the day it was filed. Overton appealed that ruling. In 2012 the Texas Court of Criminal appeals ordered that the trial court make findings of fact regarding the claims in Overton's petition. After the trial judge held an evidentiary hearing, he denied Overton's petition. Overton appealed. On September 17, 2014 the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reversed the lower court's ruling, and ruled that Overton's had been provided with constitutionally ineffective assistance of counsel during her trial for failing to call Dr. Moritz as an expert defense witness. The Court stated: "We believe that Dr. Moritz's credibility combined with his testimony would have had a strong impact on the jury and sufficiently undermines the outcome of the trial. But for the defense team's failure to present Dr. Moritz's testimony to the jury in some way, there is a reasonable probability that the outcome of Appellant's trial would have been different. Both prongs of the Strickland test have been established." (Ex parte Overton, 444 SW 3d 632 (Tex. Ct. of Crim. Appeals 2014) The Court remanded for a new trial. Overton was released on bond on December 16, 2014 pending Nueces County Nueces County District Attorney Mark Skurka's decision to retry her, a plea agreement, or another resolution to her case. DA Skurka filed a motion to dismiss the charges against Overton, which was granted by a Nueces County judge on April 8, 2015. On March 11, 2008, six months after his wife's conviction, Larry Overton -- who like his wife was charged with capital murder -- pled no contest to the reduced charge of criminally negligent homicide. Judge Joaquin Villarreal accepted the recommedation of the Nueces County DA's Office and sentenced Larry Overton to five years of deferred adjudication probation and a $5,000 fine. Judge Villarreal stated for the record that if Overton successfully completed his probation, the charge against him would be dismissed and there will be no conviction, unlike a regular sentence of probation. The sentence allowed Larry to care for the couple's five children. Then Nueces County District Attorney Carlos Valdez stated said the plea deal was a result of months of negotiations and was a decision based on the evidence he could prove during a trial: "It's based on the limited responsibility we can prove against this defendant. He was not as involved as his wife was." After he had sucessfully completed his five years of probation, in 2013 Larry Overton's conviction was vacated and the charge was dismissed. In May 2017, the Nueces County District Attorney's office officially declared Hannah Overton was innocent. She filed a compensation claim with the Texas Comptroller's Office which in May 2018 awarded Hannah Overton $573,333.33 in lump sum compensatoin, plus an annual annuity paid monthly." |
Conviction Caused By: |
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Innocence Proved By: |
"On September 17, 2014 the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals granted Overton's habeas petition on the ground she had been provided with constitutionally ineffective assistance of counsel during her trial. On April 8, 2015 a Nueces County judge granted the motion by the Nueces County District Attorney's Office to dismiss the charges against Overton." |
Defendant Aided By: |
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Compensation Awarded: |
"$573,333.33 + annual annuity (State of Texas, March 2018)" |
Was Perpetrator Identified? |
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Age When Imprisoned: |
29 |
Age When Released: |
36 |
Sex: |
Female |
Skin/Ethnicity: |
White |
Information Source 1: |
"Murder Charges Dropped Against Hannah Overton, Texas Mom Convicted of Killing Foster Son in 2007 Salt Poisoning Trial, By Shana Druckerman (Staff), ABCnews.com, April 9, 2015" |
Information Location 1: |
http://abcnews.go.com/US/murder-charges-dropped-hannah-overton-texas-mom-convicted/story?id=30173226 |
Information Source 2: |
"Texas Mother of 5 Released After Spending Years in Prison for Foster Son's Murder, By Juju Chang, Shana Druckerman and and Jon Meyersohn (Staff), ABCnews.com, December 16, 2014" |
Information Location 2: |
http://abcnews.go.com/US/texas-mother-freed-spending-years-prison-foster-sons/story?id=26186920 |
Information Source 3: |
"Ex parte Overton, 444 SW 3d 632 (Tex. Court of Criminal Appeals 2014) (Granting habeas corpus petition based on ineffective trial counsel.)" |
Information Location 3: |
"https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=9691336965928927081&q=Hannah+Overton&hl=en&as_sdt=6,48" |
Information Source 4: |
"Larry Overton gets probation: Husband in capital murder case pleads to lesser charge, By Mary Ann Cavazos (Staff), Caller Times (Corpus Christi, TX), March 11, 2008" |
Information Location 4: |
http://www.caller.com/news/larry-overton-gets-probation-ep-364440471-316947651.html |
Information Source 5: |
"Texas mom who served seven years in prison after being wrongly convicted of killing her four-year-old foster son by poisoning him with salt will receive almost $600,000 in compensation, By Dailymail.com Reporter, Daily Mail (London, UK), March 8, 2018" |
Information Location 5: |
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5478791/Texas-gives-600k-mom-wrongly-convicted-foster-son-salt-death.html |
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Innocents Database Created and Maintained by Hans Sherrer innocents@forejustice.org