In last week's column, the Florida judge looked over the new evidence – it turned out the autopsy used to convict Alan Yurko of killing his sick infant son via "shaken baby syndrome" had not even been conducted on a child of the right race – and vacated the conviction. After seven years, Alan Yurko was a free man ... right?
Ha, good one. You're not thinking like a government prosecutor.
"As soon as the judge said, 'I'm vacating this sentence,' the prosecution said, 'Your honor, we're appealing your decision,' which would have left him sitting in jail another two to three years, which would have come out the same way with the botched autopsy and the discredited medical examiner," Francine Yurko told me.
"So what they did is they offered him a plea bargain. They said, 'We won't appeal the judge's decision if right here you are willing to plead out to simple manslaughter, no child abuse, in which case we'll give you immediate release.' "
A deal which would prevent the Yurkos from suing the state of Florida for Alan's seven years of false imprisonment, of course.
"They cleared out the courtroom and gave me and Alan a chance to discuss it. It came down to three more years and the amount of money it would take to keep fighting, and he decided to take it, and he made it known that with the plea to manslaughter, what he was willing to work with was the fact of culpable negligence being a form of manslaughter.
"The way he phrased it in court was, 'I should have been a more informed parent; I should have taken a more active role in my child's health care, and if in fact I had been a more informed parent I would not have let him be given those shots.' "
You might want to make note of that. The state of Florida has now officially accepted, as grounds for a guilty plea to the crime of manslaughter, an admission by a grieving father that he committed a felony when he allowed his son to be killed by allowing medical authorities to give the infant a "standard" dose of vaccinations.
Alan "was given immediate release on Aug. 27 (2004) and he was home for two weeks," Francine says. Finally, a happy ending. The innocent man at home with his wife and stepdaughter ... right?
You are still not thinking like a government agent. Pay attention, now.
"Then Ohio decided to reactivate an old parole violation that stemmed back to when he was 19 years old," Francine says. "We believe law enforcement here or even the prosecution here, because of his being released, it was a retaliation kind of thing. ...
"When he was 19 he had been on parole (for burglary). Because of the risk factors with the birth, Alan left Ohio two months prior to the end of his parole, without permission. They took him back and violated him on leaving the state without permission and failing to report in over that time to his parole officer ....
"So he was home for a few weeks in August and September, and then they came to our house and arrested him and sent him to Ohio. He was in holding for about a month; they extradited him back to Ohio. It took him 19 days to get him there, where he spent the entire time on a transport bus.
"And then of course he was there for a short period of time, he saw the head of the parole board, who was also a former public defender, and she looked into the case here in Florida and the information from Ohio and believed in his innocence and was very impressed with the Yurko Project and gave him time served, with immediate release."
OK. Finally Alan is home with his wife and ... no? You're catching on, aren't you?
Define "immediate."
"But as I said, it takes 60 days to process out. He saw the parole board there in Ohio and they gave him 'immediate release.' Of course it takes 60 days to process an 'immediate release,' so he will be out as of Monday.
"But through that experience, now I can help others, and help inform others, and maybe scare them enough into taking their kid in to have them checked out," Francine Yurko says.
But I think I'll still be calling the Yurkos again, sometime after March 7 ... just to make sure.
Vin Suprynowicz (mailto:vsuprynowicz@reviewjournal.com) is assistant editorial page editor of the daily Las Vegas Review-Journal and author of The Black ArrowCopyright © 2005 Vin Suprynowicz
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