Jennifer and Jeromie Clark outside Calgary court - The Canadian Press

By The Canadian Press and files from LNN

Court upholds prison sentence for child's death

Appeal Court dismisses appeal of Calgary couple convicted in son’s death

Oct 14, 2020 | 11:04 AM

CALGARY. AB. — Alberta’s top court has dismissed the appeal of a Calgary couple convicted in the death of their 14-month-old son.

Jennifer and Jeromie Clark were sentenced last year to 32 months in prison, after a jury found them guilty of criminal negligence causing death and failure to provide the necessaries of life.

Lawyers for the couple appealed the convictions, arguing that they didn’t receive a fair trial and that the Crown went too far in discrediting the testimony of Alberta’s former chief medical examiner.

Dr. Anny Sauvageau testified at trial that she disagreed with an autopsy that found John Clark died shortly after he was taken to hospital in 2013 because of a staph infection.

The defence argued that the boy died because of medical treatment he received at Alberta Children’s Hospital in Calgary.

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The Court of Appeal said in its unanimous decision that the jury had enough medical evidence to reach a fair verdict.

In the decision, released Tuesday, Oct, 13, the court said there were at least 11 medical professionals who saw John before he died.

The jury was “entitled to conclude that John’s health deteriorated over the month of November “¦ and that a reasonably prudent parent would have sought medical attention before that time.”

The Appeal Court said the doctor who performed the autopsy concluded, “like several of the other Crown experts, that the cause of death was a staph infection caused by malnutrition.”

Jeromie Clark was a frequent observer and supporter of David and Collete Stephan, during the couples’ second and controversial trial in the death of their young son Ezekiel, in the summer of 2019. Both the Clarks and the Stephans blamed hospital procedures and the failing of doctors in their defence.

The Stephans, accused of failing to provide the necessaries of life, were found not guilty by judge alone on September 19, 2019. However, the Crown filed an appeal of the not guilty verdict.

The appeal hearing took place June 11, 2020, in Calgary and the Crown is now awaiting a decision by the appeal court.