new jury selected after it was discovered Barney allegedly sent a Facebook request <\/a>to a juror.<\/p>\nMitchell also noted, in his May 14 decision, that state prosecutors had filed a motion to disqualify Barney\u2019s attorney, Robert Sandy Jr., from the case, primarily because Sandy had represented a man in another case involving Barney\u2019s daycare that Mitchell said presented at least a potential conflict of interest.<\/p>\n
In a July 29 ruling, Mitchell granted the state\u2019s motion to disqualify Sandy.<\/p>\n
Sandy did not immediately return a call for comment Monday.<\/p>\n
Prosecutor Jennifer Ackerman, a state assistant attorney general, said it was the only time in her 25-year legal career she\u2019s sought to disqualify a defense attorney from a case.<\/p>\n
Ackermann said the case represented a clear-cut conflict of interest that can\u2019t be remedied in other less impactful ways. Allowing Sandy to take the case to trial could hamper his defense of Barney and open the door to potential appeals if she\u2019s convicted. It would allow him to use otherwise confidential information he had from the previous case in defending Barney, and put Sandy in the position of possibly implicating his former client while defending Barney from the current allegations. <\/p>\n
She said Sandy never should have agreed to represent Barney.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re trying to account for all these different things that should not be an issue, because Mr. Sandy\u2019s representation should not have happened,\u201d Ackerman said at a June hearing held to consider Sandy\u2019s representation.<\/p>\n
Sandy, according to testimony in June, represented a man in a 2015 divorce. In 2007, the man was apparently interviewed as part of an investigation into injuries his child had suffered, although no charges were filed. The child had attended Barney\u2019s child care so, as part of that investigation, officials pursued whether the child could have been injured while in Barney\u2019s care. Sandy\u2019s former client denied injuring the child and told investigators at the time he believed whatever happened to the child took place at Barney\u2019s daycare.<\/p>\n
Sandy said there was evidence in the 2007 case that indicated someone other than Barney had injured the child, and that his client had suggested another child could have hurt his child.<\/p>\n
Mitchell said if the prior injury came up in Barney\u2019s trial, that could be problematic because any past incidents involving Barney\u2019s child care business, including the 2007 injury, could be brought up by prosecutors. If Sandy wanted to counter any claims by the state that a child had been previously hurt at the daycare, he would not be able to claim Barney didn\u2019t injure the child and the previous client may be beause that would violate his legal obligations to the first client. <\/p>\n
Lawyers who have represented a client in a matter are not allowed to later represent another person in the same or a substantially related matter if the new client\u2019s interests are materially adverse to those of the former client, unless the former client gives written consent. Lawyers, Mitchell wrote in his decision, are also not allowed to use confidences or secrets of a former client to the disadvantage of the former client.<\/p>\n
Sandy said at the June hearing the 2007 incident is irrelevant to Barney\u2019s current case, and that he was not involved in that case. If necessary, he said, there would be other ways to show Barney did not injure the child in 2007 incident without implicating his former client.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe important point, to me, is not who (injured the child in 2007), but who didn\u2019t,\u201d Sandy told Mitchell. \u201cAnd that\u2019s Ms. Barney.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mitchell concluded in his decision that Sandy had acquired confidential information during his representation of his prior client and there was a significant risk Sandy\u2019s ability to effectively represent Barney would be materially limited by his duties to his prior client.<\/p>\n
The Office of Chief Medical Examiner determined the infant\u2019s death in 2023 was a homicide and the cause of death was \u201cshearing injuries to neurons in brain and other parts of central nervous system.\u201d<\/p>\n
Barney\u2019s child care business closed Aug. 31, 2023, the day the infant died and parents of other children there were notified to pick them up, a Maine Department of Health and Human Services official said. The agency oversees licensing for child care providers.<\/p>\n
Barney\u2019s license has expired. State records indicate she was licensed as a child care provider from May 22, 1997, to Nov. 16, 2023. Her business was licensed to care for up to eight children.<\/p>\n
Barney was arrested Sept. 20, 2024<\/a>, after a yearlong investigation into the death of the infant on Sept. 8, 2023, a news release from Maine State Police Lt. Aaron Turcotte stated.<\/p>\nA Kennebec County grand jury indicted Barney on a manslaughter charge Sept. 19, 2024. She later pleaded not guilty.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Superior Court Justice Daniel Mitchell presides over a hearing last April at the Capital Judicial Center in Augusta.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":364012,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[143,145,144],"class_list":["post-429395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=429395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429395\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/364012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=429395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=429395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=429395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/41860127_20250415_MurderCompetency_6515-2.jpg\")
\t\t\tSuperior Court Justice Daniel Mitchell presides over a hearing last April at the Capital Judicial Center in Augusta. (Joe Phelan\/Staff Photographer)<\/p>\n