One of Placer County's most contentious criminal cases began anew Thursday when a nanny accused of causing the death of a 15-month-old baby returned to court for a retrial.
The first trial for Veronica Martinez Salcedo ended Oct. 31 with a hung jury – the jurors deadlocking 10-2 in favor of convicting her on a charge of assault on a child causing death.
Prosecutors allege the nanny shook Hannah Rose Juceam of Roseville so violently the baby's brain suffered critical and irreversible damage, leading her parents to pull her off life support.
The attorney for Martinez Salcedo argues that her client had nothing to do with the baby's death. Mary Beth Acton contends Hannah may have already been suffering from injuries or an illness that caused her to become unresponsive as the nanny watched her on May 11, 2006.
Acton said the baby had a healthy blood flow to the brain when the parents ended life support May 13.
The case has been hotly debated outside the courtroom.
The Juceams started a "Don't Shake Your Baby" campaign that features billboards and a Web site for Hannah.
Martinez Salcedo's defenders set up a Web site urging viewers to sign a "Justice for Veronica" petition.
After more than a week of jury selection, the first day of the retrial in Placer Superior Court in Auburn featured attorneys questioning the physician who attended Hannah in a hospital emergency room.
Dr. Christopher Joseph Markus of Sutter Roseville Medical Center testified that the child had bleeding in several places in the brain, swelling to the right side of the brain and retinal hemorrhaging, which he said were all consistent with a baby being violently shaken. Markus said he saw no evidence of external injuries to indicate the baby fell or was struck.
Suspecting the baby had been shaken, Markus called police and Child Protective Services, as is required by law, he testified.
Lead prosecutor Karin Bjork began the proceedings by telling the jury that Martinez Salcedo lied repeatedly when giving statements to police as to what happened at the home of Scott and Lorena Juceam, Hannah's parents.
Bjork said the father was at work and the mother, a housewife, went on an errand, leaving the nanny in charge of Hannah, who began crying for her mother.
The prosecutor said Martinez Salcedo gave at least four versions of events to police: that she found Hannah unresponsive, that she found a chair across the child's body, that she was holding and cradling Hannah, who then fell and struck her head, and that she had shaken the baby to stop her crying.
Martinez Salcedo, 36, who is not a U.S. citizen, is in the Placer County jail on an immigration hold. If convicted on the assault charge, she faces 25 years to life in state prison.
Call The Bee's Art Campos, (916) 773-2825.
