Judge convicts teen in deadly school bathroom fight

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On Thursday, a Delaware judge convicted a 17-year-old girl of homicide after a fight in a high school bathroom ended with one teenage girl’s death.

A second girl was charged for conspiracy, but a third girl was acquitted. All three defendants in the case were 16 at the time of the fight and were tried as juveniles.

Amy Joyner-Francis, the girl who died, was found to have died because of a sudden cardiac episode caused by the stress of the fight, which took place at Howard High School of Technology in Wilmington. The heart condition had gone undetected by doctors until that point.

While defense lawyers argued that the fight was between “mutual combatants” and that there was no way the girls could have foreseen her death, prosecutors said that the assault showed “a level of barbarism that reasonably would result in the outcome.”

“Distress, the unexpected nature of the attack, the brute ferocity of it raining upon her, all led to Amy’s death,” deputy attorney general Sean Lugg said during closing arguments.

After a week of testimony in which the three girls being tried declined to testify, Family Court Judge Robert Coonin handed down the ruling on Thursday.