Local news reports
Jurors have found the parents of a toddler killed by her young brother not guilty of criminally negligent homicide.
The verdict comes after a two-day trial for Thomas Wallace, 25, and his wife, Samantha Wallace, in the 2010 death of 2-year-old Camron Wallace.
The pair could have faced one to six years if convicted.
Within hours of her death Chattanooga police Det. James Tate interviewed Samantha Wallace. She described the scene and seemed shocked at what happened.
The older children each had .22 caliber rifles, she said. She and Thomas had explained to all three children that they should not touch a gun unless mommy or daddy was around.
Defense attorneys Dan Ripper and Steve Brown explained to jurors during opening statements that just days before Camron's death, a group of men came knocking on the couple's front door at 2 a.m., and there had been reports of home invasions.
Tinsley Place is considered a low-income, high-crime area, Tate testified.
After the incident, Thomas Wallace had taken the .45 caliber revolver from its storage place high in a closet and put it in his nightstand, wrapped in a towel.
Photographs the jury saw showed the fully loaded handgun, still holding the empty shell casing, that had fired the bullet that struck Camron in the chest.
"The only reason we're here today is because the state wants you to hold these parents criminally responsible for the death of their child," Brown told the jury in opening statements.
Guilty with a suspended prison sentance and strict probation would have been the right call. Often jurors feel so sorry for the irresponsible gun owners who lose children and they let that cloud their judgment.
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