Opinion ID: 2623482
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Michele Dague

Text: Michele Dague elected to take the stand in her own defense. She first testified to the various stressors in her life around the time of the accident. Dague's husband, a budget analyst in the Air Force, was transferred to a base in Alaska in April 1994. Dague immediately became homesick as this was the first time she had ever been away from family and friends in Colorado. Dague further testified that, after a pregnancy which resulted in her gaining considerable weight, her husband spent more and more time out with his friends, increasing her own sense of isolation. She considered leaving her husband but wanted to make it work. In addition, she testified to increased financial worries around the time of the crime, a lifelong struggle with migraine-like headaches, and various problems associated with starting up and running a daycare center out of her home. Dague's counsel next turned to the day that K.T. was injured. Dague testified that she had an especially bad headache that morning, so bad in fact that it was noticeable to L.T., who was dropping off her son K.T. Nevertheless, Dague felt well enough to handle her daycare duties that day, looking after K.T. along with two other children, including her own daughter. Dague described the events as they unfolded. Her headache was getting worse to the point where no sitting, leaning, or standing position would give her relief. She decided to take the children outside to the mailbox to get some fresh air, but they were so restless and rambunctious that this only made her headache increase, and so she marched them back inside. She laid K.T. on the couch, removed the other children's coats, and then picked K.T. up again and carried him into the kitchen. Her head was still throbbing. She closed her eyes, K.T. screamed in her ear, and then I threw him. She testified that she neither planned nor meant to do such a thing, that it just happened out of the blue. Near the end of Dague's direct testimony, her counsel inquired as to why she had lied to the police about what happened. She responded, I live with this every day, and I lied about it because it couldn't have happened that way. I couldn't have done that. I wouldn't have done that.... I just don't want to believe that I did it. Dague then answered affirmatively when asked whether she was telling the truth today. On cross, inconsistencies in Dague's story were brought to light. The district attorney requested that she demonstrate how she threw K.T. After re-enacting the throw, Dague was asked if she knew how K.T. had received a bruise on his ankle. Despite the fact that she had at one point informed the police that K.T. might have a bruise on his ankle from where she tried to stop his fall, she now indicated that she did not know how he might have received the injury. The prosecutor then asked her if she had swung rather than thrown the baby, You grabbed his ankle that caused the bruise and you swung him into some object, didn't you? Dague answered No. A few moments later, the prosecutor referenced a transcript of Dague's prior statement to the police about the bruise on K.T.'s ankle. This time, when asked if she'd grabbed K.T.'s ankle, Dague responded I think so, but she again denied ever swinging K.T. On redirect examination Dague testified that she was not really focusing on K.T.'s ankle at the time of the crime, but that she was not disputing that he had a bruise there.