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A top US court has overturned the conviction of a woman found guilty after her son's suicide of endangering the 12-year-old's mental health by failing to tidy the house.
The state Supreme Court of Connecticut on Monday quashed Judith Scruggs's conviction for risking injury to her son's mental health, saying the legal statutes were constitutionally vague in her case.
Scruggs was sentenced to 100 hours of community service after a lower court in 2004 found her guilty of risking injury by keeping an "unhealthy and unsafe" home, which the ruling described as having a "foul and offensive odour."
The case sparked debate in the United States on parental responsibility, especially in the case of child suicides.
The state Supreme Court said in overturning the verdict on appeal that the lower court had failed to prove that Scruggs knew her failure to keep a clean home could damage her son's mental health.
"We cannot conclude that the defendant was on notice that these conditions were so squalid that they posed a risk of injury to the mental health of a child," the Supreme Court said in its judgement.
Prosecutors in the initial trial focused on the failure of Scruggs, a single mother working 60 hours a week, to keep the family home clean.
But witnesses described her son, Daniel, as the victim of relentless bullying before he killed himself.
The Supreme Court ruling noted that social services had closed an investigation on the Scruggs family a week before Daniel hanged himself in 2002.
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AFP 291905 GMT 08 06
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