Being poor sucks
Quote of note:
When Briggs was charged with murder, her family went into debt to pay her attorney's fee, $10,000. Briggs' mother, Shelbia Goss, says she has always known her daughter was innocent. But money was a problem.
"We had no more money, we was losing everything we actually had, we didn't have anything left, all our money was going to fighting for her innocence, and so here she is, in prison, because we don't have any money," Goss said.
Instead of questioning the medical evidence and fighting the case, the attorney told Briggs she should plead guilty to a reduced charge and spend some time on probation.
"He said there was no way we could win because he didn't have the money for the medical people he needed to testify for me," Briggs said. "He told me to take the plea that would be the only chance, that there wasn't no way the judge would give me prison time."
Wrongly Convicted?
Young Mother Hopes New Medical Evidence Will Clear Her in Baby’s Death
By Mike von Fremd and Gina Treadgold
ABCNEWS.com
July 20, 2004— Brandy Briggs sits in a Texas prison, serving a 17-year sentence for shaking her 2-month-old son so severely that he later died. But now, a medical examiner says the baby was never shaken at all.
Briggs, from a small town outside Houston, was just 17 years old when her son, Daniel Lemmons, was born. During his short life, Daniel was in and out of hospitals, suffering from kidney problems and urinary tract infections.
On May 2, 1999, Briggs called 911, saying she had gotten up to feed her baby and found him barely breathing in his crib. Daniel was taken to the emergency room at one hospital, where the medical staff made a horrible mistake. They put a breathing tube in his stomach, not his lungs, and pumped air into his stomach for 42 minutes.
Daniel was transferred to another hospital, where the breathing tube mistake was corrected, and he was put on life support. He died in his mother's arms on May 9, 1999 — Mother's Day.
Briggs' nightmare only got worse. A Harris County assistant medical examiner ruled Daniel had died from "shaken baby syndrome," and his young mother was charged with murder.
