Pubdate: Tue, 13 Jan 2009
Source: Chico Enterprise-Record (CA)
Copyright: 2009 Chico Enterprise-Record
Contact: http://www.chicoer.com/feedback
Website: http://www.chicoer.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/861
Author: Terry Vau

CASE CENTERS ON HOW KID CAME ACROSS POT BROWNIE

OROVILLE - A Butte County jury will decide whether  giving a 
marijuana-laced brownie to her 5-year-old  daughter constitutes 
felony child abuse by a Chico  mother.

The kindergartner was taken to Enloe Medical Center in  Chico last 
April 17, after she reportedly told a school  nurse she felt "icky and sloppy."

The child's mother, Madeline McChesney, 32, maintains  through her 
lawyer that a roommate, who had a doctor's  recommendation to use 
medical marijuana, normally left  the drug-laced brownies on top of 
the refrigerator.

Due in part to several medications that had been  prescribed for 
McChesney earlier that month for  depression, the single mother 
contends she didn't  realize the single brownie she gave her daughter 
from a  pan on the kitchen counter contained pot until it was  too late.

In an attempt to rebut that claim, the prosecution  played a 
videotaped interview of the little girl for  the Superior Court jury, 
during which she told  authorities her mother had given her the 
"special"  brownies about 10 times.

On the witness stand, though, McChesney's attorney,  Jodea Foster, 
got the defendant's daughter to say she  rarely remembered ever 
getting any "sweets."

In her opening statement to the jury, deputy district  attorney Kelly 
Maloy charged that McChesney gave Chico  police several different 
accounts of the incident,  initially denying ever giving a marijuana 
brownie to  her daughter.

Blood tests showed presence of the drug in the  youngster's system 
when she was  taken by school authorities to the hospital, according 
to the prosecutor.

When the trial resumes on Thursday, a U.C. Davis  Medical Center 
pediatrician is expected to testify for  the prosecution that the 
ingestion of marijuana by a  child that age could result in great 
bodily injury or  even death.

On Monday, over the defense attorney's objection, Judge  Robert 
Glusman allowed the Sacramento doctor to testify  in place of another 
state expert, whose hospitalization  on Friday had forced a brief 
postponement in the case.

The original expert had been prepared to testify  marijuana could 
cause coma in such a young child,  according to the prosecutor.

Maloy told the judge outside the jury's presence Monday  the doctor 
who will testify in her place, would not go  that far, but felt 
serious injury could result from "an  intoxicated child falling off 
the playground equipment  at school."

Called as a defense witness on Monday, Dr. Ronald  Cavanaugh, a Butte 
County Behavioral Health  psychiatrist who examined the Chico mother 
after she  was admitted for a 72-hour mental observation 
period  about two weeks before the brownie incident, testified  four 
different medications prescribed for McChesney  were known to cause 
"dizziness, sleepiness" and affect  thinking in some patients.

The defendant's boyfriend, William Marx, told the jury  he observed a 
marked change in her behavior after she  began taking the medicine.

Normally happy, she seemed "lethargic ... distracted  and unfocused," 
he told McChesney's jury Monday.

The prosecutor got the county psychiatrist to  acknowledge he had 
only McChesney's word she was taking  the medications on the day her 
daughter was given the  pot-laced brownie.

The defendant's boyfriend conceded that the Chico  mother did smoke 
pot and ingest marijuana brownies to  ease the pain of migraine 
headaches, but never in front  of her daughter.
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