It turns out that Michelle Bott-Graham doesn’t like prison very much. She’s made a couple of attempts get out by appealing the sentence she received for her role in the death of a child at a Chubbuck daycare. Phil Campbell has been following this case since the moment Chubbuck Police arrived at the crime scene. He has more from the Pocatello Women’s Correctional Facility where Michelle Bott-Graham now resides.
It’s standard procedure during sentencing. The judge gives the convict their sentence and tells them how many days they have to file an appeal. Seconds after learning that her sentence would end in 2026, the judge told Michelle Bott-Graham that she would have 42 days to file an appeal.
That apparently didn’t register with her and she went ahead and filed an appeal way after the six week window had closed.
As you can imagine, it didn’t take long for the judge to make a ruling in that case. In November, she tried it again. In that appeal, she gave the judge a list of excuses for why she didn’t appeal her sentence in a timely manner the first time.
Her three main points were; she claimed that she was denied effective assistance of counsel, which would be a violation of her Fourth Amendment Rights. Her second claim was that new evidence of material fact is now available that would have impacted her sentence and/or plea. Her final argument was that she was incapacitated during the six week stretch because of the effects of the powerful psychotropic medication she was on.
Judge Naftz dismissed her claim that new evidence was available as she failed to prove that any was in existence. He then addressed her claim that she was denied effective assistance of counsel. To which he cited other legal cases in the state and that this argument has only been recognized twice and never for circumstances like the ones in this case.
As for her claim that she could not file an appeal because of the effects of psychotropic medications, he said that they may have made it a little tougher but that she was still more that capable of filing a timely appeal of her sentence
Judge Nafz’s decision means that Michelle Bott-Graham is still scheduled to serve her sentence. A sentence that could keep her behind bars for the next 14 years.
Michelle Bott-Graham continues to fight her sentence and her focus seems to be on the effects of the psychotropic drugs. She has since taken this argument to the Idaho Supreme Court where a decision should be made shortly.
