Weaver Case to Go Before Ohio Supreme Court

April 22, 2015 the body of Addison Grace Weaver was found in a trash bag on the campus of Muskingum University.

The coroner ruled the child died of asphyxiation.

Her mother, Emile Weaver was convicted in 2016 of aggravated murder, abuse of a corpse and two counts of tampering with evidence.

Weaver continues to challenge her conviction as she’ll make her third appeal Wednesday before the Ohio Supreme Court.

The Muskingum County Prosecutor’s Office will make arguments as well to keep Weaver in prison.

“Our office has successfully defended the conviction and sentence of life without parole three
times. The state public defender’s office continues its repeated efforts to undue the justice that was
done for the murdered newborn,” Prosecutor Ron Welch said. “The only concern the Muskingum
County Prosecutor’s Office has is whether the Supreme Court will set aside long-standing legal
precedent to overturn a just sentence.”

The defense is now arguing that there was judicial bias during Weaver’s last hearing in 2019 when Judge
Mark Fleegle ruled that Weaver’s mitigation “expert,” Diana Barnes, was unbelievable and biased before
denying Weaver post-conviction relief.

Ohio’s Fifth District Court of Appeals already affirmed Judge Fleegle’s judgement. Now the Supreme
Court is deciding to what extent and appeals court must defer to the trial judge’s determination of a
witness’ credibility and whether an appeals court can overturn a trial court decision if the appeals court
determines the judge was biased or prejudiced.