ANDERSON, Ind. — A Madison County jury decided Wednesday that a Pendleton woman may not have acted wisely, but she did not act criminally when she left her baby in a bathtub slingback chair that flipped over in her brief absence.

“The big stumbling block was the high probability of intent,” said alternate juror Darlene Lusher, who was not allowed to participate but observed the 55 minutes of deliberations. “She used that baby chair so many times.”

Having sobbed throughout the one-day trial, 30-year-old Beverlie Lamborne broke down in tears when the jury of eight women and four men read the “not guilty” verdict to an anxious courtroom.

Her mother, in the audience, let out a sudden gasp and rushed outside to give Lamborne’s sister the news. The sister leapt for joy, threw up her hands and yelped, “Take that!”

The mother and sister left the courthouse without giving any comments.

Lamborne had been charged with Class B felony neglect of a dependent resulting in serious bodily injury.

In a trial rarity, the prosecution and defense weren’t disputing the facts of what happened the fateful January morning that left 6-week-old Zoey Pierce with brain damage and blindness.

“Given the opportunity, there’s no question she’d take it all back,” said prosecutor Kevin Eads during a relaxed and pointed closing argument. “This is a question of responsibility.”

The jury was to decide whether Lamborne “knowingly or intentionally” placed Zoey in a situation where the first-time mother was “aware of a high probability” of danger.

Eads and defense attorney Douglas Long agreed to read the jury a set of facts before the trial that they both agreed on:

On January 21, 2009, Lamborne was preparing to bathe Zoey in a blue slingback bath chair. With the water already run, Lamborne left the infant and chair for a brief moment to grab some things from the next room. When Lamborne returned, the chair had flipped and Zoey was under water. Lamborne called police, cooperated with an investigation and was distraught at the outcome of her decision.

“You may go back there; you may hate her for what she did,” Long said, slowing down to engage the jury after pushing through a detailed PowerPoint presentation. “But you’ll have to stand in line because no one hates her more than she hates herself.”

During emotional testimony, court staff said Lamborne admitted she had not read the instructions to the chair that said not to fill the tub past one inch.

She’d filled it up to about the infant’s chest because she planned to get into the bathtub, she said.

She also said she didn’t read the label or instructions that warned against leaving the baby alone.

“Warning: Children have drowned when unattended. Always keep child within arm’s length,” Eads read from the base of the light-weight chair during closing arguments.

But Long reminded the jury during his closing argument that no one in the courtroom raised their hands during Tuesday’s jury selection when he asked if anyone had ever read the instructions for elective surgery.

“It’s easy to say, ‘You should have read the sign on the side of the chair,’” he said. “But we don’t always read what we should.”

In a common discussion with the judge and attorneys after the verdict, jurors said the chair’s sturdiness had concerned them. They commented that the chair constantly collapsed as witnesses handled the chair during their testimony.

The jurors also noted that they couldn’t find a “high probability” that Lamborne was aware the situation was so dangerous, especially with Lamborne’s testimony that she had used the chair since bringing the infant home.

“She’d done this for six weeks and nothing had happened, so she had some expectation of safety,” a juror told the judge.

Contact Christina M. Wright, 640-4883, christina.wright@heraldbulletin.com.