By MELINDA J. OVERSTREET
for Glasgow News 1
As a March trial approaches for two people charged in connection with the death of a 19-month-old child, attorneys are working to nail down details pertaining to expert testimony and jury-selection procedures.
Serenity Brown, now 22, and Devin Pierce, now 25, are each charged with murder. The child had been in their care on the March 2021 evening when emergency personnel responded to a call about an unresponsive child, who was transported to T.J. Samson Community Hospital and later pronounced deceased. An autopsy was performed after detectives observed “suspicious bruising” on the child’s head.
“The results of the autopsy determined the child died from blunt impact injuries of the head, and the manner of death was ruled homicide,” according to a press release from the Barren County Sheriff’s Office at the time.
At a pretrial conference in November, defense attorney David Broderick, representing Pierce, raised questions about the types of sources and/or resources used by an expert witness the prosecution intends to call and suggested a hearing may be necessary to determine further details and even whether she should be allowed to testify.
After the discussion that day, Circuit Judge John T. Alexander found that a hearing wouldn’t be necessary, and she could testify, but it could be helpful for Melissa Currie to provide further insight into how she reached the conclusions she did, e.g. the methodology she used, and that information should then be shared with the defense attorneys.
Currie is a member of the child abuse team at Norton’s Children’s Hospital who did not have any direct involvement with the child before the death, Commonwealth’s Attorney John Gardner said in November.
“She was part of a state panel that reviews all infant mortalities, so she, through that, obtained the medical records, reviewed those medical records and then has obviously, has an opinion on the manner of death in this situation.”
According to the Norton Children’s Hospital website, Currie became a certified pediatrician in 2002, and also was certified in 2009 by the American Board of Pediatrics in child abuse pediatrics.
Currie reached the conclusion in this case that the subdural hematoma the child had was due to an injury as opposed to other potential causes, Broderick had said. Subdural hematoma occurs when blood pools between the brain and the skull.
At Monday’s pretrial conference, Gardner said he had emailed Currie after that previous court date requesting the additional information that was supposed to be received by this date, and she had responded that she would get it to him.
“I hadn’t followed up with that until Friday,” the prosecutor said.
At that point, he sent her an email asking about the information, and she had not replied as of Monday afternoon. He said he would forward the information to the defense attorneys as soon as he receives it.
Gardner said that Currie’s office had also notified him of when the doctor would be available to testify, offering certain blocks of time that mostly were presuming she could provide her testimony virtually. He said he had emailed the defense that information as well, and neither Pierce’s nor Brown’s attorney, Ken Garrett, had offered an objection to that.
Taylor Broderick, filling in for her father, and Garrett both confirmed Monday they had no objection.
Alexander said he thought it best if he applied a new deadline for receipt of that information from Currie to help ensure it arrives in a timely manner. Gardner said they would need to have another pretrial conference, too, with Alexander adding that he would like to see that happen in two to three weeks.
Taylor Broderick said they would, in fact, request a deadline for the information to be produced; otherwise, they could be in a position where they would be forced to file a motion to postpone the trial, because the defense’s expert would need time to review what Currie relied upon when reaching her conclusion.
Alexander agreed that postponing the trial would be undesirable.
He set a new pretrial conference for Feb. 17 and a new deadline of Feb. 12 for the material to be provided.
Initially, when the case was called, Pierce was not present in the courtroom or via the Zoom video streaming option, and his attorney had requested to step out and call him. When the case was recalled a little more than 30 minutes later, he was there online.
After the discussion about the expert witness, Alexander said, “I want to make sure – and, and I don’t want to have an extensive conversation about this with your client, because he’s not here where he can talk to you and whisper and so forth – but I do want to make sure he is in a position where he knows he’s going to be here. Usually, I like to have, when we have a trial set and we have a pretrial bumping up real close to the trial, I like to lay eyes on somebody, flesh and blood.”
“Absolutely,” Broderick said, adding that would be her preference as well.
The judge then told Pierce that he wanted him to be there in person so he and his attorney could talk.
“There’s just some things that have to be done in person,” Alexander said.
Broderick then raised an issue that she said may be premature but she wanted to bring to the court’s attention that, at trial, she didn’t want to share with the other defense attorney the number of potential jury members they would be allowed to strike, i.e. rule out.
Garrett said he would agree to that.
Gardner said he had been told of this request just prior to the court proceeding and, at least initially, he didn’t have an objection to it, but he also hadn’t had a chance to look into it. He said the potential jury pool may have to be larger in that case.
Broderick said she would submit a written motion making the request.
Alexander said he would review the court procedure rules and would see what they could do toward that end.
The trial is set for March 18-21.
NOTE: Currie’s first name has been corrected since the original publication of this report.
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