BY MARY NELL BOCKMAN AND ANDREA MORELL
BOSTON - After a series of contradictory legal decisions Louise Woodward, the 19-year-old au pair who stood trial here accused of killing an infant in her care, was freed from jail November 10. That day the same judge who on October 31 sentenced the youth to a mandatory life sentence, after a jury convicted her of second-degree murder, reduced the verdict to involuntary manslaughter and sentenced her to time served - nine months.

The original guilty verdict and sentencing of Woodward sparked an outcry. Protest rallies were held in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and in her home town of Elton, England. A Massachusetts legislator voted against a death penalty bill, citing Woodward's conviction as his reason.

At the trial Woodward said she never harmed the infant. She denied having told police that she may have been "a little rough" with the child on the day she telephoned emergency services because he was having difficulty breathing. She testified that those were the words of the police officers, not hers. There were no eyewitnesses.

As medical experts for the opposing sides rebutted each other, the district attorney painted Woodward as an irresponsible working-class teenager interested only in going out at night, resentful of her physician employers, and therefore a child abuser and, ultimately, killer.

The courtroom proceedings, carried live on television, provoked a wide discussion on the issues surrounding the case: working women and child care, the causes of child abuse, the exploitation of domestic workers, and the injustice working-class defendants face in court. The overwhelming response was that the ruling was unjust.

The Woodward trial unfolded as the state legislature debated a bill to reinstate the death penalty. Proponents of a bill mandating the death penalty for a broad range of crimes took advantage of a string of grisly murders of women and a child to try to push the measure through. Opponents of the death penalty held several public rallies, vigils, and protest meetings. The measure passed handily in the state Senate, but a slightly different version only squeaked by in the House by a two-vote margin. The bills then went to a committee to come up with a common version for final passage.

As the votes of the jury and the State legislature approached, the two questions became increasingly intertwined. On November 7, one week after Woodward began serving her life sentence, the revised death penalty bill died in a tie vote after Rep. John Slattery switched his vote of a week earlier from yea to nay. He said Woodward's conviction was evidence that "Mistakes can be made."

Judge Hiller Zobel's decision to alter the jury's verdict was permitted by a rarely utilized section of Massachusetts law that allows judges to overturn jury verdicts by reducing or voiding the charge. After weeks of debate in the press and on the street, Zobel ruled, "After intensive, cool, calm reflection, I am morally certain that allowing this defendant on this evidence to remain convicted of second-degree murder would be a miscarriage of justice."

While many working people supported this decision, the right-wing press had a sharp response. The New York Post, for instance, dubbed Woodward the "killer nanny."

Both the prosecution and the defense in the Woodward case have vowed to appeal the judge's decision. Meanwhile, Woodward is out of jail, but confined to the boundaries of Massachusetts pending the outcome.

Proponents of the death penalty, including the governor, say they plan to reintroduce the capital punishment bill next year.  
 
 
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