Christina's Story: Newspaper Articles

Home --> Christina Holt's Story --> Christina Holt's Story: Newspaper Articles --> 1995 Page 10

Christina's Story - Newspaper Articles

The following links take you to various articles in Christina's story as it appeared in the South Florida media.

PLEASE DO NOT COPY THE INFORMATION ON THIS SITE BEFORE ASKING.

Thank you!


*In Loving Memory Of* Christina Diane Holt May 23, 1987 - September 16, 1994 "Beautiful Child who has found love from the angels...RIP..."	(Not her actual headstone)
These pages contain all of the articles from the Palm Beach Post and The Sun-Sentinel throughout the years.

Zile Case A Setback For Rubin (4/17/95)
Zile Lawyer: Death Penalty Improper (4/18/95)
Rubin Tells Judge Pauline Zile Doesn't Deserve Death Penalty (4/18/95)
Zile Counsel: Deny Death Penalty (4/18/95)
Judge Accepts Zile's Request For Gag Order (4/19/95)
'Victims' Who Abuse System (4/19/95)
The Killing Of Pauline: Rage, Not Punishment (4/19/95)
John Zile Wins Gag Order (4/19/95)
Students Reach Out To Abused Children (4/20/95)
Charges Unlikely Against Grandmother (4/22/95)

ZILE CASE A SETBACK FOR RUBIN
LAWYERS SAY PUBLICITY TRIGGERED CONVICTION
Sun-Sentinel
April 17, 1995
Author: STEPHANIE SMITH Staff Writer

Miami lawyer Ellis Stanley Rubin is known for his often outrageous victim defenses.

Television violence made Ronnie Zamora kill his 82-year-old neighbor, Rubin said. Nymphomania turned Kathy Willets from housewife to hooker, he argued.
But with his most recent case, the first-degree murder trial of Pauline Zile, Rubin played it straight, and he lost.

Rubin, 69, is angry with the verdict and the jurors who rendered it.

"Last time I saw faces like that was in the Tale of Two Cities, the crowd dancing around the guillotine, waiting for blood," Rubin said.

Experts say the Zile case is the first time a jury has come back with a first-degree murder conviction of a parent for not stopping the abuse and death of a child.

"It had to happen to me," Rubin said.

Rubin met Zile for the first time on Oct. 30, in a meeting arranged by a free-lance tabloid reporter who had interviewed Zile. It was a Sunday, and Zile and her mother, Paula Yingling, drove from Jensen Beach to meet Rubin at his Miami law office.

He waived his usual high retainer and took on the unemployed waitress as a client for what Rubin called a small "flat fee."

Former client Willets said she remembered laughing to herself after reading that Rubin had taken the Zile case.

"He took the case for one reason, one reason only, and it was the publicity. After the horrible job he did with our case, he wanted to get his credibility in the legal community back by taking a serious criminal case," Willets said.

Willets and her husband, Jeff, both were convicted and served jail terms. The couple got into a dispute with Rubin about allegations that he tried to profit from them by selling illicit videotapes and writing a book about them.

In 1992, The Florida Bar filed a similiar complaint against Rubin regarding his handling of a high-profile palimony case involving Brent Plott, who claimed to be entertainer Merv Griffin's homosexual lover.

An affidavit filed in that case by private investigator Jack Kassewitz Jr. says Rubin concealed polygraph records that showed Plott was lying about his relationship with Griffin and sold an illegal audiotape between Plott and Griffin to the tabloid National Enquirer for $30,000.

The state Supreme Court's grievance committee found insufficient evidence and dismissed the complaint.

Kathy Willets said she doesn't think Rubin was acting altruistically in taking Zile as a client. "I could see these people were poor. Unless that poor girl signed over all her book rights, she doesn't have any money to pay him," Willets said.

Rubin said defending Pauline Zile did nothing for his law practice. It made him the most reviled lawyer in America, with the exception of Susan Smith's attorney in South Carolina, he said. Smith is accused of drowning her two toddlers by strapping them into a car and pushing it into a lake.

"I took the case because the poor girl and her mother asked me. Can't anyone believe someone could have a good motive? Do you think I like getting hate mail? I like getting death threats?" Rubin said.

A day after taking Zile's case, Rubin called a news conference to prime the media for his defense strategy. Pauline Zile was just as much a victim of her husband, John Zile, as her dead daughter was, Rubin told reporters.

He was preparing for the battered spouse defense although Zile had not yet been charged.

The news conference on the steps of the Palm Beach County State Attorney's Office, with Zile and her mother embracing and weeping behind him as he talked, made almost every television newscast and newspaper in South Florida.

It was the warning shot to both John Zile and the Palm Beach County State Attorney's Office that the case was about to turn very public and very ugly.

In the six months it took for Pauline Zile's case to trial, Rubin launched attacks:

-- He questioned the integrity of the prosecutors in the case, including popularly elected State Attorney Barry Krischer, calling them liars who granted immunity to his client and then used the statement to indict her. He took depositions of the two trial prosecutors and Krischer.

-- He blamed John Zile for ruining his wife's life and then trying to kill her in a phony suicide pact in which only she was supposed to die. Rubin tried to submit one of John Zile's love letters to his wife as evidence in his case.

While Rubin's professed tactic is to meet publicity head-on in a case to try to sway public opinion, it failed dismally in Zile's case. The public recoiled at the image of Pauline Zile as a victim, and Rubin dropped his plans to use the battered spouse defense.

James Eisenberg, a West Palm Beach criminal defense lawyer, said it was obvious there was no way to turn around the publicity in the Zile case.

"Hey, the publicity's not good," Eisenberg said. "Just `no comment' through it, refuse to talk to the media, let things die down instead of fanning the flames."

Rubin said he did that in this case by refusing to discuss it as it came closer to trial.

But when the guilty verdict came this week, Rubin could not stop talking. It was obvious the state did not have evidence of a first-degree murder, he said, just an "ear-witness" to two beatings and a family friend who saw John Zile beat Christina while her mother was elsewhere in the apartment.

"You tell me how that was evidence of first-degree murder. There was no evidence," Rubin said.

Assistant State Attorney Scott Cupp, one of the prosecutors in Zile's trial, said he didn't think Rubin understood the case.

"I'm totally convinced he still doesn't understand what the evidence was, he didn't understand the legal theory that was being applied in the case," Cupp said.

Immediately after the trial, Rubin told a mob of reporters that the jury was made up of liars.

They had sworn to him they would set aside from their decision Zile's deception at a Broward County flea market that her daughter Christina Holt was kidnapped, Rubin said.

Rubin said he isn't worried about angering jurors because the jury is already prejudiced against his client. "Would anything have made any difference to this jury?" Rubin said.

Criminal defense lawyers questioned Rubin's tactic of attacking the jury that will later decide whether Zile will get life in prison or the death penalty.

"I just can't believe a lawyer's going to be antagonistic to a jury that's still going to decide the sentencing phase," said Michael Dubiner, a board-certified criminal defense lawyer in Palm Beach County. "The worst thing you can do is call anyone a liar, and he called these jurors that in front of every TV camera in South Florida."

A sentencing hearing date has not been set. The jury has a choice between life in prison or the death penalty. The recommendation is made by majority vote and does not have to be unanimous like the verdict.

Judges usually follow the jury's sentencing recommendation.

"At this point, it wouldn't surprise me if the jury came back with death," Dubiner said.

ZILE LAWYER: DEATH PENALTY IMPROPER
The Palm Beach Post
April 18, 1995
Author: CHRISTINE STAPLETON
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Ellis Rubin asked a judge on Monday to do what he claims prosecutors should have done long ago - prevent Pauline Zile from going to the electric chair.

``Mr. Krischer is out to get this lady,'' Rubin said, referring to State Attorney Barry Krischer. ``He convinced the public that she stood there and let her husband brutally beat this little girl.''
A jury convicted Pauline Zile of first-degree murder last week for failing to protect her 7-year-old daughter, Christina Holt, from the girl's stepfather, John Zile. Holt's body was unearthed from a 59-inch deep grave behind a Tequesta shopping center in October, about a month after her death.

The jury will decide in June whether to recommend a sentence of life in prison without parole for 25 years or death.

On Monday, Rubin blasted Krischer's secret procedure for deciding whether to seek the death penalty, then ticked off the 11 aggravating factors that prosecutors must rely upon to ask a jury to recommend a death sentence.

Of the 11, only two apply to Zile, and even those are legally questionable, Rubin said. Prosecutors want to argue that Pauline Zile had previously been convicted of a violent felony, even though she had no criminal record before her arrest.

Prosecutors claim they can use the three child abuse charges that the jury convicted her of at the same time it found her guilty of first-degree murder. In two of those cases, Pauline Zile did nothing to protect her daughter from her husband on the night of the murder and several weeks earlier. In the third child abuse charge, Pauline hit Christina one morning when the girl refused to wear what her mother wanted her to wear to school.

``The defendant was a major participant,'' Assistant State Attorney Mary Ann Duggan argued. ``The court should not intervene in the decision of the state attorney to seek the death penalty.''

Rubin said he also expects prosecutors will argue that the murder was ``heinous, atrocious or cruel.'' Under the law, the kinds of crimes that juries should consider heinous, atrocious or cruel are those ``accompanied by additional acts that show that the crime was conscienceless or pitiless and was unnecessarily torturous.''

A neighbor who allegedly heard the fatal beating said she also heard a woman say: ``John, that's enough.'' and a man crying: ``What have I done?'' An autopsy report showed some bruising but no evidence of torture.

In deciding Zile's sentence, the jury must weigh the aggravating factors against mitigating circumstances in Zile's defense. Among the mitigating factors that can be considered: that the defendant had no prior record, was mentally and emotionally disturbed and was being dominated by another person.

Prosecutors defended their office's policy of sending the case to a ``death penalty committee'' made up of 10 prosecutors and Krischer. The committee weighs the aggravating and mitigating circumstances and recommends a life or death sentence. The committee's notes are not public.

The judge has reserved ruling and also is considering whether to impose a gag order to prevent attorneys from talking to the news media.

AGGRAVATING FACTORS IN ZILE CASE

The jury will weigh the aggravating circumstances - reasons why Pauline Zile should be executed - against the mitigating circumstances - reasons why she should spend the rest of her life in prison. Prosecutors are limited by law to 11 aggravating factors. Only two apply in Zile's case, and those two stretch the legal definition to the limit, according to Ellis Rubin, Zile's attorney:

THE DEFENDANT HAS a prior violent criminal record. Pauline Zile had no prior violent convictions but prosecutors claim that they should be allowed to use the three child abuse convictions from her murder trial.

THE MURDER WAS `heinous, atrocious or cruel.' Heinous means `wicked and shockingly evil.' Atrocious means `outrageously wicked and vile.' Cruel means `designed to inflict a high degree of pain, with utter indifference to, or even enjoyment of, the suffering of others.'

OTHER AGGRAVATING FACTORS

Other aggravating factors considered in first-degree murder cases:

THE MURDER WAS COMMITTED by a person in prison or on probation.

THE MURDERER CREATED a great risk to others.

THE MURDER OCCURRED while the defendant was an accomplice or actually committed a robbery, rape, arson, burglary, kidnapping, hijacking an airplane or planting a bomb.

THE MURDER WAS COMMITTED to avoid arrest or during an escape.

THE MURDER WAS COMMITTED for financial gain.

THE MURDER WAS COMMITTED to disrupt government.

THE MURDER WAS COLD, calculated or premeditated.

THE MURDER VICTIM was a law enforcement officer.

THE MURDER VICTIM was a public official.

RUBIN TELLS JUDGE PAULINE ZILE DOESN'T DESERVE DEATH PENALTY
Sun-Sentinel
April 18, 1995
Author: MIKE FOLKS Staff Writer

Prosecutors have no legal basis to seek the death penalty against Pauline Zile in the death of her daughter, Christina Holt, 7, Zile's defense attorney said on Monday.

"The imposition of the death penalty is not called for in this case," defense attorney Ellis Rubin said.
Rubin is trying to set aside the death penalty phase of Zile's trial and dismiss the jury who will decide her fate.

"The state never proved any aggravating circumstances," Rubin said. "You can't punish her for going to the flea market and pretending the girl was alive."

Zile, 24, faces a possible death sentence after her convictions last week for first-degree murder and three counts of aggravated child abuse.

In death penalty cases, jurors must weigh aggravating and mitigating factors before making a recommendation to the sentencing judge.

Aggravating factors that are considered range from whether a defendant previously has been convicted of a violent felony to whether the crime committed was especially heinous, atrocious or cruel.

Mitigating factors that jurors consider range from the young age of the defendant, which could allow for rehabilitation, to the defendant having no past violent felony convictions.

If aggravating factors outweigh mitigating factors, juries are supposed to recommend a death sentence.

Rubin argued on Monday that Zile had no violent criminal felony convictions and that her role in Christina's death, which prosecutors say was to stand by while her husband, John, beat the girl, was anything but heinous, atrocious or cruel.

He said the death penalty was sought by Palm Beach County State Attorney Barry Krischer only because of the public outrage over the case.

But Assistant State Attorney Mary Ann Duggan dismissed Rubin's argument that prosecutors were seeking the death penalty in bad faith.

Duggan said Pauline Zile had been convicted of violent felonies when the jury found her guilty last week of three counts of aggravated child abuse. Those child abuse convictions, Duggan said, qualify as aggravating factors for the jury to consider when Pauline Zile's sentencing hearing begins on June 5.

Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Stephen Rapp said he would issue a written ruling later.

Rapp also deferred ruling on a motion for a gag order filed on Monday by John Zile's defense attorney, Craig Wilson.

In particular, Wilson lashed out at Rubin, citing comments he has made to the news media about John Zile's role in the killing of Christina compared with Pauline Zile's role as a bystander.

"My client cannot get a fair trial in this county. If this man [Rubin) persists for whatever reason, then maybe my client will not be able to get a fair trial in the state of Florida," Wilson told the judge.

Rapp, who said all parties involved have "talked too much about the case," ordered the attorneys to submit their arguments in writing so he can review them and rule later.

ZILE COUNSEL: DENY DEATH PENALTY
Miami Herald, The (FL)
April 18, 1995
Author: Associated Press

An attorney asked a judge Monday to deny the state's request to seek the death penalty against Pauline Zile, who was found guilty of first-degree murder last week for the death of her 7-year-old daughter.
Jurors now must recommend whether Zile, 24, should spend the rest of her life in prison or die in the electric chair.

Circuit Judge Stephen Rapp of West Palm Beach set the trial's penalty phase to begin June 5.

But Zile's attorney Ellis Rubin asked Rapp to deny the state's request to seek the death penalty. The judge has taken the motion under advisement, Rubin said.

The defense didn't call any witnesses during the five-day trial earlier this month.

After the verdict, Rubin told Rapp that he was outraged with the jury's finding.

Rubin also argued that alternate jurors should have been told not to read or watch any coverage of the case between the trial and the penalty phase.

The alternates were allowed to go home without that instruction from the judge, Rubin said.

Zile was charged along with her husbandJohn, who is awaiting trial in the beating death of Christina Holt last September.

Zile was accused of covering up the girl's death by reporting that her daughter had been abducted from a Fort Lauderdale area flea market.

JUDGE ACCEPTS ZILE'S REQUEST FOR GAG ORDER
The Palm Beach Post
April 19, 1995
Author: CHRISTINE STAPLETON
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Attorneys and prosecutors in the Pauline Zile murder case can't say anything to the media that would prevent John Zile from getting a fair trial, a judge ruled on Tuesday.

Circuit Judge Stephen Rapp issued the gag order after Craig Wilson, John Zile's attorney, argued Monday that comments by one of Pauline Zile's attorneys, Ellis Rubin, to reporters and an opinion piece that he wrote were jeopardizing John Zile's right to a fair trial.
Under the gag order, attorneys cannot discuss John Zile's ``character, credibility, reputation or criminal record.'' They also cannot divulge any potential plea bargains or comment on the results of any tests or physical evidence in the case. Letters that John Zile has written to his wife while the couple have been in jail also may not be released without his permission.

The lawyers ``are free to complain about the judge or criticize his rulings,'' Rapp wrote.

A jury convicted Pauline Zile of first-degree murder and three counts of aggravated child abuse last week. The jury will reconvene on June 5 to decide whether to recommend a sentence of death or life in prison without parole for 25 years. John Zile faces the same charges at his trial in August.

John Zile told police that his 7-year-old stepdaughter, Christina Holt, died on Sept. 16 after he hit her and she began having convulsions. He said he tried to revive the girl in the bathtub, then hid her body in a closet for four days while he searched for a spot to bury her.

`VICTIMS' WHO ABUSE SYSTEM
The Palm Beach Post
April 19, 1995

Erik and Lyle Menendez claim to have much in common with Christina Holt and A.J. Schwarz.

They suffered parental abuse, the brothers say. So it was OK for them to kill their parents in 1989.
Christina was 7 when she was killed. A.J. was 10. Erik Menendez was 19 and Lyle Menendez was 22 when they killed their parents. Child victims?

In separate trials, two California juries were unable to convict the Menendez brothers, who will inherit $14 million if acquitted. The judge in a new trial has tentatively ruled that the ``abuse excuse'' can't be raised as a defense. The ruling, though based on a technicality of California law, is a welcome return to common sense that has become rare in big-money trials.

For example, the O.J. Simpson trial. There, jokes about fortune cookies (told by former Lyle Menendez lawyer Robert Shapiro) have displaced common-sense concern for facts.

The Menendez brothers say they're victims of abuse. O.J. Simpson says he's the victim of a racist system.

As for Christina and A.J., they can't say anything.

THE KILLING OF PAULINE: RAGE, NOT PUNISHMENT
The Palm Beach Post
April 19, 1995

Pauline Zile allowed her daughter to die. During 7-year-old Christina Holt's terrifying last weeks of life, Pauline Zile wasn't a mother; she was a co-conspirator. Pauline Zile deserves to go to prison for a long time. But she doesn't deserve to die.

Zile was convicted last week of first-degree murder in Christina's death. The little girl allegedly suffocated last September when her stepfather, John Zile, tried to silence her screams. Rather then report the death to police, John and Pauline Zile kept Christina's body in their Riviera Beach apartment for four days before John Zile buried it behind a Kmart in Tequesta. More than a month later, the Ziles tried to get away with the crime by fabricating a story that Christina had been abducted from a Broward County flea market.
Ellis Rubin, Pauline Zile's attorney, went before Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Stephen Rapp on Monday and argued that the judge should rule out the death penalty on his own. If Judge Rapp refuses, the 12-member jury that convicted Zile will gather again in June to recommend, by simple majority vote, whether she should be sentenced to death or to a prison term of at least 25 years without parole. Judge Rapp would make the final decision.

Florida law identifies 11 ``aggravating circumstances'' that can justify the death penalty and seven ``mitigating circumstances'' that can forestall it. Juries and judges weigh both. The state attorney's office will cite two aggravating circumstances - that Christina's death was ``especially heinous, atrocious or cruel'' and that Pauline Zile has a record of violent crime, namely the three counts of aggravated child abuse on which she also was convicted.

Given that Pauline Zile did not directly kill Christina, the first-degree murder charge was a stretch. But prosecutors made compelling arguments that Pauline Zile could have prevented Christina's murder. In zealously seeking the death penalty, however - a decision made by the state attorney's office, not the grand jury - prosecutors are pandering to public outrage over a mother who apparently sided with her husband against her daughter.

The sad twist to the case of Christina Holt is that the most repulsive things happened to her after she died. Neglect in life was terrible enough; abandonment after death was unspeakably horrible. But none of those actions - including Pauline Zile's teary, televised scam - bear on her sentence.

The legal argument for a death sentence can be demolished with the state's own justification: ``especially heinous, atrocious or cruel.'' Any murder fits that description. Only a very few murderers do. Ted Bundy. Danny Rolling. But for the two decades since the Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment, federal and state courts have been unable to craft a law that covers only such demonic killers. There is no clear pattern to how Florida administers the death penalty.

Courts dispense punishment, not vengeance. If Florida wanted to put abusive and violent parents on notice, that mission has been accomplished. Sending Pauline Zile to prison for 25 years will almost certainly mean she won't be able to have any more children/potential victims. Sending her to the electric chair would amount to witch-burning.

Back To Top

JOHN ZILE WINS GAG ORDER
Sun-Sentinel
April 19, 1995
Author: Staff Reports

A judge on Tuesday issued a gag order to prevent attorneys involved in the John and Pauline Zile cases from talking to the media.

The gag order applies to the attorneys, as well as their employees, Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Stephan Rapp said in his written ruling.

Although attorneys will be able to discuss some aspects of the case, Rapp ordered they may not be involved in the "dissemination of any information which would create a substantial likelihood of materially prejudicing the rights" of John Zile.

The order forbids the discussion of credibility, reputation or criminal background of John Zile or any witness who may give testimony at trial. It also precludes attorneys from discussing possible plea deals, physical evidence, an opinion to John Zile's guilt or any evidence that could prejudice an impartial trial.

Rapp issued the order after one of John Zile's attorneys, Craig Wilson, complained on Monday that Ellis Rubin, the attorney for Pauline Zile, was prejudicing John Zile in statements he has made to the media.

Pauline Zile was convicted last week of first-degree murder and three counts of aggravated child abuse in connection with the Sept. 16 death of her daughter, Christina Holt. Her sentencing hearing is scheduled to begin on June 5. John Zile goes on trial in August.

STUDENTS REACH OUT TO ABUSED CHILDREN
Miami Herald, The (FL)
April 20, 1995
Author: SABRINA WALTERS Herald Staff Writer

A group of fifth-graders from Carol City's Miami Gardens Elementary rambled off one by one about instances of children being hurt by people they count on to care for them -- their parents.
Hands sprung high in the air, as the eager students waited their turn to recount recent child neglect and abuse cases they have seen on TV and in the newspaper.

"In October, Christina Holt's father suffocated her, no, that's another case," Estela Carballo, 11, said as she stumbled over the facts of two different, highly publicized South Florida child murder cases.

The recent incidents have touched the hearts of the youngsters at Miami Gardens. This week, they will deliver toys to children at a Carol City child abuse shelter.

"We have had some cases here, close to us, where kids have been mistreated," said activities sponsor Katrina Manning. "It's reality here, and it touches close to home," she said.

The students said they feel a connection to the abused children.

"They may have bruises, but we still care for them and we want them to know that they're not being left out," said Evelyn Valentin, 11. "Some people may say 'look at this child, I don't want to go near them,' but we're not like that, we care.' "

About 50 toys were purchased with the $100 made from the "Selling Hearts to Mend Hearts" candygram fund-raiser.

The children purchased a walker for an infant, dolls, books, roller skates and a football and basketball for some of the older boys at the nonprofit shelter. The center houses 32 youngsters from infants to age 10, who have been exposed to crack cocaine and sexual and physical abuse, said center Director Annette Edwards. Some of the children attend neighborhood schools during the day.

"These are the children you may see on TV and children you don't know anything about," Edwards said. "Cocaine babies and those abandoned on the street." She said many of the children are placed at the shelter by HRS while a decision on a permanent home is being determined.

HRS director Anita Bock said the number of child abuse cases in Dade is on the rise. The number of child deaths reported by HRS rose from only a few in 1993 to 15 in 1994. Bock said 12 of those were the result of child abuse. "We're seeing more serious abuse going on," Bock said. "Any time you have teenage pregnancy numbers rising and substance abuse and poverty a continuing problem, child abuse cases are going to rise," Bock said. She said 78 percent of abused children become victims of abuse later on or abuse their own children. "Abuse continues to perpetuate itself," Bock said.

Tuesday, the Miami Gardens students were busy wrapping gifts, anxiously awaiting their visit to the shelter for abused children.

"I'd like to tell them they're important to us and that there are people in the community that care," Niuik Santa Teresa, 11, said.

Said Jennifer Fertil, 11: "It's just a good thing to do, I'm excited about it."

To report child abuse cases, call the Florida Abuse Hotline at 1-800-962-2873. To volunteer at the Carol City shelter for abused and battered children, call 670-7005. Donations can be made to the shelter by calling 446-5071.

CUTLINES:DONNA E. NATALE / Herald Staff

THINKING OF OTHERS: Jennifer Fertil, Estela Carballo, Stephanie Clavijo and Ashley Brown, all 11, pack toys for kids at the shelter.

CHARGES UNLIKELY AGAINST GRANDMOTHER
Sun-Sentinel
April 22, 1995
Author: STEPHANIE SMITH Staff Writer

Rosina Corvin says she never knew her husband sexually abused their three daughters, her attorney says. She never knew her 12-year-old daughter was pregnant with her husband's child. She never knew the child was buried for 27 years in the back yard of her Boynton Beach house where she still lives.

"There's plenty of households in America where abuse goes on and one side or the other doesn't know about it," said Michael Salnick, Corvin's attorney. "It's less naive than you think."
Salnick said Corvin was as shocked as anyone about the allegations of incest and murder.

Legal experts say it's unlikely Corvin could be prosecuted for failure to protect her daughter or her granddaughter, the same type of charge used successfully to prosecute Pauline Zile.

Zile, of Riviera Beach, was convicted last week of first-degree murder of her daughter, Christina Holt, 7, because a jury found she did nothing to protect Christina when she was beaten and suffocated by her husband. Zile faces a possible death sentence.

In Corvin's case, her ex-husband, Mendum Paul Corvin, 61, is accused of sexually abusing the couple's three daughters, fathering two children with his oldest daughter and killing the newborn babies.

The daughter, now 39, told police she gave birth the first time in Boynton Beach, when she was 12. Then again, at age 15, in Pennslyvania.

At first glance, the cases of Corvin and Zile may not appear much different: Both mothers did not intervene in the abuse of their daughters, with tragic results.

But the key distinction is that Corvin is a generation removed from the murder victim, the baby, but Zile was the victim's mother.

In Zile's case, prosecutors established that the mother had a legal duty to protect her child from abuse when she knew of the abuse, and her failure to intervene made the parent just as guilty of the child's death as the killer.

Whether that theory would extend to a grandparent is questionable.

"It doesn't sound like there is any basis of charging anyone other than the father," criminal defense lawyer Thomas Gano said.

"Considering the mother was 12, what are they going to do, charge her with failure to protect her baby from her father?" Gano said.

Assistant State Attorney Scott Cupp said prosecutors have no plans to charge the incest victim with any crime.

The father, Mendum Paul Corvin, has been charged with criminal homicide in Pennsylvania and prosecutors in Palm Beach county say they expect to present a case of first-degree murder against Corvin to a grand jury.

As for the incest victim's mother, Cupp said it was premature to speculate what charges, if any, could be filed.

"We don't even have a [police) file yet," Cupp said. "I don't know what the victim is saying about the mother. I don't know if the mother was around and knew what was going on."

The prosecution of Zile was precedent-setting under current laws. In Corvin's case, 1968 legal standards would have to be applied because the killing occurred then.

Chief Assistant State Attorney Paul Zacks said prosecutors are researching laws on the books in 1968, including the felony first-degree murder law that was the basis of charging Zile and whether a parent had any legal duty to protect a child from abuse at that time.

"I doubt it in 1968," Zacks said. "Society and laws have changed a lot since then. It's troubling."