Bail for a multimillionaire pharmaceutical executive previously convicted of manslaughter in the death of her young son was revoked on Dec. 29 by the Supreme Court a little over a week after the high court ordered her freed.
The rulings are unusual because the Supreme Court doesn’t often involve itself in bail disputes in criminal prosecutions.
The heavily litigated case involves Gigi Jordan, who was convicted by a state jury of giving a fatal dose of drugs to Jude Mirra, her 8-year-old autistic child, in 2010 and was given an 18-year custodial sentence in 2015. Her defense characterized what happened as a mercy killing. At the time she applied to the Supreme Court, Jordan was at liberty, subject to a secured bond, ankle bracelet monitoring, and a court-imposed curfew.
Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who oversees emergency applications from New York, revoked the bail order she granted Dec. 20 in Jordan v. Lamanna, court file 22A551. Amy Lamanna is the superintendent of New York’s Bedford Hills Correctional Facility.
After Jordan was convicted, a Manhattan court determined that Jordan had been imprisoned unlawfully because there were irregularities during her trial.
Her lawyers argue Jordan was deprived of her Sixth Amendment right to a public trial because of what they called “a shocking courtroom closure in the middle of the guilt phase of … Jordan’s closely watched criminal trial.”
During the trial, the judge “abruptly declared” that “everyone” had to leave the courtroom for several minutes and directed court security to keep the courtroom closed to spectators, according to court papers.
During the closed-door session, “the judge heard repeated defense objections to the closure, contentious allegations by the prosecutor of misconduct by Jordan and the defense team, a motion for corrective jury instructions, and a motion for clarification on a gag order. For his part, the judge made direct inquiries of the defense team, admonished the defendant (just four days before she was to give testimony in her own defense) for what he believed were ‘improper’ statements published on a website, and instructed the prosecutor to conduct an investigation.”
The New York Appellate Division affirmed the overruling of Jordan’s objections to the closure and found her public-trial right wasn’t violated because what was discussed in the absence of the public was the same kind of material that would be legitimately raised in a sidebar with lawyers or in a conference in chambers.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit found that Jordan’s imprisonment was not unlawful and on Dec. 19 ordered Jordan to report to prison immediately.
When Sotomayor stayed that order on Dec. 20, she directed Jordan and the prosecutors to provide written submissions regarding Jordan’s emergency application.
“The closed proceeding did not otherwise affect any substantive matter before the jury,” according to the brief.
“[T]he State does not (and cannot) dispute that Jordan has been a fully compliant bailee who is neither a flight risk nor a risk to the public. It also does not (and cannot) deny that she has already served the significant majority of her sentence, mitigating its punitive interest in immediate custody,” her brief states.
The Epoch Times reached out for comment to counsel of record for both sides.
Jordan’s attorney, Michael B. Kimberly of McDermott Will & Emery LLP, and prosecutor Steven Chiajon Wu of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office had failed to return telephone calls as of press time.
