Appellate panel orders new trial in Millville child death case

An appellate panel has sent one of Cumberland County’s most painful criminal cases back to court, ordering a new trial for Latimar Byrdsell in the death of his fiancée’s 3-and-one-half-year-old daughter, A’brianna Session. The ruling means a case that once ended with life-altering convictions will now return to the Cumberland County criminal system, with prosecutors, defense lawyers and the victim’s family facing another round of proceedings in a matter that has already stretched across years.

In State of New Jersey v. Latimar Byrdsell, docket A-3520-24, the New Jersey Appellate Division decided on April 15 that newly conducted DNA testing changed the posture of the case enough to justify post-conviction relief and a new trial. The testing excluded Byrdsell and identified an unknown male contributor in partial male DNA profiles from samples taken from the child. The court said that evidence undermined confidence in the original verdict and affirmed the grant of PCR, even though it reached that result on grounds different from the PCR court’s reasoning.

Byrdsell’s post-conviction filing centered on ineffective assistance of counsel, arguing that his trial attorneys failed to retain a DNA expert. The State of New Jersey contended the PCR court should not have granted relief without a formal finding that trial counsel was constitutionally ineffective. The appellate panel rejected that path and left standing the order for a new trial, reopening questions about how the original case was built and what evidence should now guide any retrial.

The procedural history is long and familiar to anyone who has followed the case in Cumberland County. An earlier Appellate Division opinion in December 2017 noted that Byrdsell’s jury trial began on April 24, 2013, and that he was sentenced on November 15, 2013. That opinion listed convictions for aggravated manslaughter, felony murder in the commission of sexual assault and first-degree aggravated sexual assault. It also showed the case had already moved through suppression hearings before multiple judges before reaching the jury.

The latest ruling sends the case back into a county system that has already spent years on it, from Bridgeton to Millville and through multiple rounds of appellate review. For A’brianna Session’s family, it extends the timeline again. For Cumberland County, it means renewed attention to old evidence, old testimony and a tragedy from July 10, 2006 that has never fully left public memory.