Judge rejects appeal of woman serving life for murdering 4-year-old
U.S. District Judge Kim R. Gibson of Johnstown has affirmed a magistrate’s recommendation dismissing an appeal by an Altoona woman who is serving life for the murder of a 4-year-old child.
Rowlanda-Lea Kenney asked the federal court to hear her pleas for a new trial because she claimed her appointed attorney had abandoned her more than a decade ago.
In her most recent petition, she contested her conviction pointing out that she was unfairly blamed for multiple injuries to her boyfriend’s daughter in 1997, and she contended at the time she was suffering from depression and post-traumatic stress.
Kenney, 50, said she was taking medications during her trial, which “changed my emotions” to the point the prosecution argued to the jury that she showed no remorse for the death of young Ashley Decker.
Her most recent state petition was heard by Blair County Senior Judge Hiram A. Carpenter, who in 2014 ruled that it had been filed nearly nine years after the date when the statute of limitations expired.
Carpenter’s ruling was upheld by the Pennsylvania Superior Court in May 2015.
Kenney then filed a petition in December with the U.S. District Court in Johnstown challenging the ruling by Carpenter and presenting her contention that attorneys throughout her case had been ineffective.
In March, U.S. Magistrate Keith Pesto made a recommendation that Kenney’s petition be dismissed because it was untimely.
Earlier this month, Judge Gibson agreed with Pesto’s recommendation and issued an order denying her petition.
Gibson refused to issue a certificate of appealability, which would allow Kenney to take her case before the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
This means she must present “a substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right” if she wants her case heard by the federal appeals court.
Gibson rested his decision on Pesto’s 10-page opinion issued March 17.
Pesto cited the federal Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 that requires petitions to be filed within a year of the final judgment of sentence.
There are exceptions to that general rule including a claim that new information has been discovered.
Kenney’s initial appeals were exhausted on Dec. 27, 2000, Pesto pointed out.
There were additional filings in the case as late as 2002, but then nothing occurred for almost nine years, or until Oct. 20, 2010, when Kenney herself filed a new post-conviction petition.
At that point an attorney was appointed for her, and the post-conviction challenges moved forward.
That nine-year hiatus proved to be insurmountable even though Kenney maintained that she didn’t realize she allegedly had been “abandoned” by her court-appointed attorney in the early 2000s.
When Carpenter heard testimony in the case in 2014 that attorney said he was never notified of his appointment.
Pesto cast doubt on Kenney’s argument that she “only recently discovered (the attorney’s) lack of action.”
Kenney was charged with the murder of the youngster in March 1997.
The case led to the passage of a law by the Pennsylvania General Assembly, known as Ashley’s Law, that made it possible for police and child welfare agencies to work cooperatively across county lines in the investigation of child abuse complaints.
Kenney had 14 days to challenge Pesto’s March recommendation but did not file exceptions.
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