POST: Medical 'folklore' yields yet another shaken baby conviction," by Phil Locke, published by the Wrongful Convictions Blog on April 25, 2013.
GIST: "The court’s finding was grounded in
the same sort of questionable theory underlying “shaken baby syndrome”:
i.e., the mere presence of certain “injuries” is indicative of abuse
and sufficient to sustain a finding of abuse even when there is no
direct evidence of an abusive action. “In its written ruling, the court found that the parents were “loving
and responsible” caretakers who nurtured their children and attended to
all of their needs (indeed, the record is packed with evidence about
how wonderful Teresa and K.S. are, both as parents and as good and
decent people). Nonetheless, and even though no person other than the
parents had been with the baby unsupervised, the court concluded that
the State had met its burden of proving abuse based upon their
then-5-week-old infant (Yohan) having been diagnosed with intracranial
bleeding, retinal hemorrhaging, and a fracture to his left knee (the
actual existence of which was hotly-contested).” “At the dispositional hearing, the court returned the children to
Teresa and K.S. (evidencing the true belief of the court that these
parents never caused their son’s injuries). When the GAL appealed the
return home ruling, the parents decided to file a cross-appeal of the
underlying finding of abuse.........Testifying at trial on behalf of the parents (where they were
represented by outstanding trial attorney Ellen Domph — a Chicago-based
criminal defense attorney who also has experience practicing in juvenile
court) were three preeminent medical experts.........“Despite the overwhelming evidence for the parents and the weak,
vague, and equivocal evidence for the State, the trial court concluded
that it was unreasonable to believe that Yohan had both BEH and
congenital rickets (the court’s opinion relies upon fundamentally flawed
analysis, including the court’s assumption that there must have been a
connection between the bone-related findings and the head-related
findings). Based on this faulty logic, the court concluded the State
had met its burden of proving abusive causation by a preponderance of
the evidence. Hopefully, the appellate court will be more discerning and analytical than was the trial court. That
Teresa and K.S.’s children could be adjudicated abused means, of
course, that any family that has a child with a rare medical condition
is vulnerable to similar State action.”
The entire post can be found at:
http://wrongfulconvictionsblog.org/2013/04/25/medical-folklore-yields-yet-another-shaken-baby-wrongful-conviction/
PUBLISHER'S NOTE:
I
have added a search box for content in this blog which now encompasses
several thousand posts. The search box is located near the bottom of
the screen just above the list of links. I am confident that this
powerful search tool provided by "Blogger" will help our readers and
myself get more out of the site.
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
Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog.
