Thirteen years after she was first charged with killing her toddler, a former Midlothian woman was found guilty of murder this week in a case that highlights just how long the Cook County courts can take to resolve cases.

A jury convicted Marles Blackman, 50, after deliberating more than 10 hours Friday and Monday. She had spent more than nine years in jail awaiting trial — and then another four years on electronic monitoring at home — before the jury trial began June 23. With the jury’s verdict, she was taken back into custody to await sentencing.

Blackman’s attorney, Derrick Reese, argued to the jury that Blackman’s 2½-year-old child, Lavandis Hudson, died in July 2011 from medical complications that he’d struggled with since birth.

“You’ve got a mother over here who’s been wrongly accused,” Reese said during his closing argument, after walking over to Blackman at the defense table and gently rubbing her shoulders. “She’s been going through hell.”

But prosecutors described a woman who “brutally” beat her child after regaining custody from a foster mother. Prosecutors said that medical experts found no evidence the boy had a seizure, as Blackman initially reported in a call to 911, and that experts had determined the injuries leading to his death could not be explained by medical complications.

“They ruled all of it out, and all they were left with was one thing: intentional inflicted beatings,” assistant state’s attorney Robert Rodemeyer told the jury.

Blackman was charged seven months after the boy’s death. Soon after, the murder case began limping through hearing after hearing at the Markham courthouse. The Tribune profiled the case two years ago as part of its “Stalled Justice” investigation, which dissected a system that allows pretrial issues to delay cases for months or years. Just like many other cases that stagnate in the county’s criminal courts, the docket in Blackman’s case shows how a revolving cast of prosecutors, defense attorneys and judges contributed to delays.

What made her case relatively unique was that the child’s death also prompted a lawsuit in civil court premised on the assumption that Blackman killed the child. The Tribune had previously chronicled how the state’s child welfare system allowed the toddler to remain in Blackman’s custody despite red flags suggesting abuse.

Long before the criminal trial, a civil jury in 2018 determined a child welfare agency bore blame for ignoring signs of child abuse and awarded tens of millions of dollars to be split among lawyers and the boy’s relatives. During the civil case, Blackman invoked her Fifth Amendment right not to say anything that could incriminate her in the criminal proceeding.

She also did not testify Friday at her murder trial, where Blackman’s defense attorney rested his case without calling any witnesses.

For years, Blackman has been in line to get roughly $900,000 from the 2018 civil jury award as an heir to her son’s estate. The toddler’s father, Herbert Hudson, filed a petition in probate court to deny Blackman any of the proceeds, but that petition has been on hold for years waiting for the criminal case to be resolved.

With Blackman’s conviction for first-degree murder, under state law she no longer qualifies for any money from her son’s estate. Through a statement issued Monday by his attorney, Leonard LeRose, Hudson thanked the state’s attorney’s office for their work “bringing closure to Herbert and justice to his son, Lavandis.”

In a statement, the state’s attorney’s office said the verdict delivered “long-overdue justice” for the toddler: “Despite delays in the court process, our prosecutors remained committed to securing accountability.”

Blackman’s attorney, Reese, called the verdict a “miscarriage of justice” and noted in a text to the Tribune that the verdict “will be reviewed” by judges. “So it’s not over!” he wrote.

For now, Blackman’s criminal case is still considered pending in the Cook County courts, with a presentencing investigation due July 23.

Though Blackman’s case may be an extreme example of a defendant waiting years for a trial, county records show that, as of last week, more than 150 people had been jailed at least five years. That figure has shown steady improvement, with 80 fewer people on the list now than two years ago. But it’s still far higher than in New York City, where jail records show just 21 defendants, as of Thursday, held at least five years without a trial.

Jail records show two murder cases have lingered in the Cook County court system for more than 14 years without a trial. The oldest involves Augustin Toscano, jailed since the first administration of President Barack Obama on allegations he was part of a drug and robbery crew blamed for more than a dozen slayings.

Toscano fired his attorney 1½ years ago and began acting as his own lawyer. In January, he filed a motion arguing he should be set free because his case has dragged on so long that he can’t possibly track down witnesses from so many years ago. Prosecutors countered that they’ve been ready to go to trial for nearly four years, arguing that Toscano or his former attorney are to blame for every delay since.

The docket doesn’t show any indication of a decision on Toscano’s motion, and court records show Toscano is still trying to gather records to review for his own defense. No trial date has been set in that case.

jmahr@chicagotribune.com