"Ultimately our reaction to this case has little to do with process. It’s hard for me to set aside that doctors now question whether infants can be fatally injured through shaking alone. Deborah Tuerkheimer, a professor of law at DePaul University and former assistant district attorney in Manhattan, wrote about it on our Op-Ed page in September 2010 and Emily Bazelon picked up the subject again for the Times Sunday Magazine in February this year.
Shirley Ree Smith, now 51, served 10 years of her sentence. She has been free for five years since the Ninth Circuit overturned her conviction, but she is expected to return to prison before Christmas..."ANDREW ROSENTHAL; THE NEW YORK TIMES;
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BACKGROUND: (FROM NPR STORY BY NINA TOTENBERG PUBLISHED ON OCTOBER 31, 2001): Shirley Smith, the grandmother of 7-week-old Etzel Smith, was convicted of killing him after a seven-day trial that was a dominated by conflicting medical experts. The jury was ultimately convinced that Etzel had died from Shaken Baby Syndrome, and Smith was sentenced 15 years to life in prison. The California state courts upheld the conviction, but the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit overturned it, finding that there had been "a miscarriage of justice" because there was "no demonstrable support" for the prosecution's theory of the case. Without hearing arguments, a six-justice majority said that the appeals court had imposed its own judgment in place of the jury's judment, and that the lower court thus exceeded its authority. The court majority acknowledged that "doubts about whether Smith is in fact guilty are understandable," but nonetheless said the high degree of deference due to the state courts barred the kind of second-guessing engaged in by the federal appeals court. Dissenting were Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, joined by Justices Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor. Ginsburg wrote that what is now known about SBS "casts grave doubt" on the charge leveled against Smith. She went on to note that all the experts in the case, including the prosecutor's expert witnesses, agreed that few of the usual signs of Shaken Baby Syndrome were present in this case. She observed that there had never been any report of child abuse in this family, and she said that given the doubts posed by the physical evidence in the case, the Supreme Court should have stayed its hand. She went on to chastise the majority for being "bent on rebuking the Ninth Circuit" and using the case "as a fit opportunity to teach the Ninth Circuit a lesson." For its part, the majority noted that this case had made its way to the Supreme Court twice before, and that the lower court "each time persisted in its course," setting aside the jury verdict, despite clear signals from the Supreme Court to do otherwise. This time, the court majority said, the Ninth Circuit's action "cannot be allowed to stand." The High Court decision puts an end to a highly controversial case that for more than a decade has made legal headlines in California. It also means that the grandmother, Shirley Smith, who served 10 years in prison before being released, will now have to return to prison to serve at least another five years.
http://www.wrvo.org/post/supreme-court-reinstates-conviction-grandmother-shaken-baby-case
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"The Republican presidential candidates Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum say the Ninth Circuit appeals court, based in San Francisco, should be abolished because they often disagree with its rulings. Apparently the appellate court has some detractors on the Supreme Court, too," the New York Times commentary by Andrew Rosental published on November 1, 2011 under the heading, " Shaken Baby Syndrome," begins.
"Take a look at the Supreme Court’s first ruling of the 2011 term, issued on Monday in a case entitled Javier Cavazos, Acting Warden v. Shirley Ree Smith. (Just runs trippingly off the tongue, doesn’t it?) Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who dissented along with Justices Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor, says bluntly that the majority chose this “case as a fit opportunity to teach the Ninth Circuit a lesson,” the commentary continues.
"I can tell a bad decision when I see one, but I don’t pretend to be an expert in the intricacies of Supreme Court decisions. So I asked our editorial board Supreme Court writer, Lincoln Caplan, for his take.
The case, Linc told me, is about a tragic death and conviction: Ms. Smith’s seven-week-old grandson died while in her care , and she was found guilty in a California trial of causing the baby’s death by shaking him. She was sentenced to 15 years to life. The Ninth Circuit noted that there are “very strict limits” for an appellate court to review a state criminal conviction, but in this case it found “no demonstrable support” for Ms. Smith’s conviction, and overturned it.
Now the Supreme Court has stepped in – to vacate the Ninth Circuit’s judgment on the premise that “it is the responsibility of the jury—not the court—to decide what conclusions should be drawn from evidence admitted at trial.” Linc and I detect a bit of glee in this rebuke.
Justice Ginsburg, however, wonders if it’s the Supreme Court, rather than the Ninth Circuit, that’s overreaching: “The Court’s summary disposition of this case, in my judgment, is a misuse of discretion.” She asks “Is this Court’s intervention really necessary?”
Ultimately our reaction to this case has little to do with process. It’s hard for me to set aside that doctors now question whether infants can be fatally injured through shaking alone. Deborah Tuerkheimer, a professor of law at DePaul University and former assistant district attorney in Manhattan, wrote about it on our Op-Ed page in September 2010 and Emily Bazelon picked up the subject again for the Times Sunday Magazine in February this year.
Shirley Ree Smith, now 51, served 10 years of her sentence. She has been free for five years since the Ninth Circuit overturned her conviction, but she is expected to return to prison before Christmas. That doesn’t sit well with us."
The commentary can be found at:
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at:
http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith
Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at:
http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog; hlevy15@gmail.com;
