A Ramsey County judge has dismissed two counts of second-degree manslaughter against a Roseville father whose 15-month-old daughter died after falling from a second-story apartment balcony last year, ruling that the extraordinary consequence of deportation to Somalia justified tossing the case in furtherance of justice. Hiba Hassan fell from a shallow Juliet balcony at an apartment on the 2700 block of Lexington Avenue on July 6, 2025, and died the following day. Her father, 36-year-old Hanad Hassan Jama, had faced trial over allegations he was not directly supervising his children when the fall occurred.
According to the Minnesota Star Tribune, Ramsey County District Judge Andrew Gordon granted a defense motion to dismiss the charges against Jama, finding that he was absent when his daughter fell and had left the children’s direct care to his wife, Aisha Ali. Jama was charged in October 2025 and is subject to a federal deportation order to Somalia, which Gordon found constituted an extraordinary collateral consequence supporting dismissal. Jama told police that Ali said she was going to shower and that he told her he was going to work before he left the apartment.
Ali, 31, told officers she had been in the shower around the time of Hiba’s fall, and police later determined the shower stall was dry, according to the Star Tribune’s reporting. Ali acknowledged that the balcony screen was torn and off its track, and she has said she believed Jama was watching the children at the time. She remains charged with two counts of second-degree manslaughter and is scheduled to go to trial on October 5, 2026.
What Happened the Day Hiba Fell
A 911 caller reported that a girl had fallen from an apartment balcony, and police and medics found Hiba on the driveway outside the building’s garage, unresponsive and suffering from a head injury. Officers at the scene yelled for another child to go inside after finding a 2½-year-old girl crawling through the balcony’s vertical safety bars and holding onto the outside of the structure; a woman retrieved the child. The balcony sliding door was found partly open, and the screen had a large tear and was off its track…