Friday February 3, 2006

Is there justice for mentally disabled?
Film profiles plight of Eunice Baker in heat-related death of 3-year-old

By Debbie Swartz
Press & Sun-Bulletin, Binghamton, NY

SPENCER — Debra Brown never wanted her daughter, Eunice Baker, to be labeled "mentally handicapped" or "mentally retarded." But Baker's mental disability played a significant role in her 2000 conviction for second-degree murder and later in her successful appeal and release from prison in 2004.

That period in the life of Baker and her family is chronicled in Slawomir Grunberg's award-winning documentary, Borderline: The People vs. Eunice Baker, which will premiere Feb. 17 at the Fall Creek Cinema in Ithaca.

Gumberg's 77-minute film — which won an award as best documentary on a disability theme at the 2005 International Film Festival in Calgary — follows Baker's case and her family's fight for her, from the original 1999 trial to her release from the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in 2004.

Grunberg said the purpose of his film is to cast a critical eye on how the criminal justice system unfairly deals with individuals with mental disabilities, especially in poor, rural areas such as Tioga County.

Grunberg met Baker shortly after her arrest in 1999 in connection with the death of 3-year-old Charlotte Kurtz. The child, who Baker was babysitting, died from hyperthermia — an abnormally high body temperature — after being locked in her bedroom. A short in the thermostat caused the furnace to continually heat and the temperature in the Owego apartment to soar to over 110 degrees.

But to many in the community, Baker was seen as a baby-killer. She was accused of turning up the heat as high as it would go and locking the bedroom door until the child died. Her own words were held against her; in a second statement she gave to police, she said she intentionally killed the girl.

In the film, Baker's attorney, Scott Miller, said Eunice did not know her own limitations and would have confessed to killing John F. Kennedy if it meant she could go home. Brown said she could understand why law enforcement and court officials might have thought her daughter was lying or hiding the truth, and likened Eunice's mental abilities to that of a basic computer. "You can put the information in and she will spit it out," she said.

Baker's gripping 15-day trial received extensive newspaper and TV coverage. Grunberg said he had seen some of the news stories, but after speaking to Baker in person prior to the trial, he said he knew she was disabled. "I'm talking to someone whose brain works different than mine," he said, calling the idea of her pre-meditating a crime "nonsense."

The New York State Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Third Judicial Department disagreed with the Tioga County jury's decision to convict Baker of second-degree murder. The appellate court reduced the charge to criminally negligent homicide, which has a maximum term of 1 1/3 to four years. Since Baker had already spent four years in prison, she was released.

According to the appellate court's decision, Baker's mental disabilities — which include her IQ of 73 — brought into doubt her ability to understand the risk the over-heated apartment presented. In the film, Tioga County District Attorney Gerald Keene, who prosecuted the case, said Baker's mental disability was relevant, but did not excuse her conduct.

Brown said Wednesday she doesn't blame the investigator who questioned her daughter for 4 1/2 hours. "For him to do his job the right way, he would persistently interrogate the individual," she said. The problem arose when "he failed to see that he was dealing with a person with disabilities," Brown said. Baker doesn't comprehend what she is saying, nor will she show a lot of emotion unless overwhelmed, Brown said.

In the film, Beverly Davenport, Baker's former special education teacher, said while the now 29-year-old might dress and talk like everyone else, she is not. Davenport said Baker perceives people in authority as infallible. Also in the film are Baker's former principal and a corrections officer who regularly interacted with Eunice.

Brown said that advocating for people with disabilities is of paramount importance to her and her family, and she hopes Borderline will aid in the fight. She said one step in the right direction would be to have all confessions recorded on video or audio tape.

Grunberg said 4 percent of the nation's nearly 2 million prison inmates are mentally disabled and said he has spoken with families who are in the same situation Baker and her family faced.

"I was so happy that there was such a positive ending to this story," Grunberg said. "If there hadn't been a camera following this poor girl for five years, who knows what would have happened."