PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I had been asked by a member of Rodricus Crawford's support team in Louisiana who were familiar with this Blog to provide information to Crawford's lawyers about the Charles Smith cases - the subject matter of this Blog, of whom I had been reporting for years - in which the infant tended to have sadly died from a disease or condition which had been missed or misdiagnosed by the coroners and pathologists and the parent or caregiver was charged with the most serious of crimes.
The murder existed only in the minds of the police who seldom questioned the expertise of the pathologist and who were often subject to pressure to close the case ASAP because of the fear often generated in a community when an infant unexpectedly dies..
Rodricus Crawford’s case turned out to be a typical Charles Smith case as he was released from death row and exonerated after highly qualified defence experts consulted by the defence convinced Louisiana’s Supreme Court that rather than being suffocated by his father as the prosecution alleged, 1-year-old Roderius had been died of a sudden, raging sepsis triggered by an underlying pneumonia.
I was frankly stunned by the mountain of racism I detected in my review of the documentation provided to me about the Crawford case, including articles about the case written in America and the U.K - most of it centering around a notorious former Caddo County prosecutor named Dale Cox.
In one of these articles, author Yolanda Young concluded in an article published by ‘Rolling Out’ headed ‘Innocent on death row’ that, "At every turn he (Rodricus) was presumed guilty and ultimately convicted of the death of his 1-year-old son who medical experts say died of pneumonia,” adding,”This is one in a series of articles examining how easy it is for a Black man to end up on death row.”
In an article on the Crawford case, Yolanda Young wrote about "how easy it is for a Black man to end up on death row."... My reaction: "On re-reading this powerful article, it occurred to me that, in light of George Floyd’s tragic arrest - and the experiences of so many other Black American’s I knew about or had learned about in recent days who also lost their lives in similar circumstances - how easy it is for a Black American to end up dead as the result of a brutal, unjustified arrest."
Once charged, the racism in Rodricus’s case began with the jury selection which led to the selection of Nine Whites and three Blacks, a process ultimately found by the Supreme Court to be ‘discriminatory' - and the sole reason for allowing his appeal and ordering a new trial which his prosecutor's subsequently abandoned.
This in itself was not shocking to me as I was aware of other U.S. cases where prosecutors had been found to have abused procedures meant to ensure that Blacks and other minorities would have fair trials by securing a jury of their peers.
What did shock me was the extent that Cox went to ensure on the death penalty hearing that the jurors would send Rodricus to his death - including his enlisting the prosecutor's invocation of Jesus Christ to help obtain the conviction at any cost.
In Yolanda Young’s words: "In the death penalty phase, the prosecutor painted Crawford and his family as deadbeats who didn’t obey the law. In his closing, he told the jury Jesus Christ required them to sentence Crawford to death. He read this New Testament Scripture that he’d successfully used to get another black man sentenced to death: “It would be better if you were never born. You shall have a millstone cast around your neck, and you will be thrown into the sea.” That evening, Crawford was sentenced to death and sent to Louisiana State Penitentiary, known as Angola. He is the second-youngest man on death row.”
As the National Registry of Exonerations described it more fully: "On November 12, 2013, the jury convicted Crawford of first-degree murder. The penalty phase then commenced and during closing argument, Caddo Parish prosecutor Dale Cox argued that Jesus Christ had commanded that death be the punishment in the case. He cited Jesus as saying, “To the adult, who would harm one of these, (referring to children) woe be unto you, who would harm one of these. Now, this is Jesus Christ of the New Testament. It would be better if though you were never born. You shall have a millstone cast around your neck and you will be thrown into the sea . . .the thing about Christ…He reached a just verdict which is what the law asks you to reach in this case: A just verdict...And that's why I think that we should not lightly disregard His words when He talks about what He would do to someone who hurt one of these...what He would do.”
Not surprisingly, the next day the tainted jury unanimously voted to impose the death penalty - and the state was now free to kill the innocent young Black man.
I was further shocked to learn from a statement released by The 'Equal Justice Initiative' under the heading 'Rodricus Crawford exoneration highlights racial bias' "A month later, Cox wrote a memo to the state’s probation department: “I am sorry that Louisiana has adopted lethal injection as the form of implementing the death penalty,” he wrote. “Mr. Crawford deserves as much physical suffering as it is humanly possible to endure before he dies.”
https://eji.org/news/rodricus-crawford-exoneration-highlights-racial-bias-prosecutorial-misconduct/
I was further shocked to learn from a statement released by The 'Equal Justice Initiative' under the heading 'Rodricus Crawford exoneration highlights racial bias' "A month later, Cox wrote a memo to the state’s probation department: “I am sorry that Louisiana has adopted lethal injection as the form of implementing the death penalty,” he wrote. “Mr. Crawford deserves as much physical suffering as it is humanly possible to endure before he dies.”
https://eji.org/news/rodricus-crawford-exoneration-highlights-racial-bias-prosecutorial-misconduct/
So in short, Cox went out of his way to get a jury that was more likely to convict Rodricus, he used his rhetoric to get the jurors to allow the state to kill Rodricus, and he then did the best he could to ensure that Rodricus would die a terrible death.
Unfortunately the Rodricus Crawford case cannot be dismissed as a mere aberration - something that never happens in Louisiana: As the Equal Justice Initiative noted in its above noted release.
"Dale Cox obtained more than a third of Louisiana’s death sentences from 2010 to 2015. Data from 22 felony trials prosecuted by Cox revealed that he had struck black jurors at a rate 2.7 times higher than other jurors. Researchers examining data from more than 300 felony trials prosecuted by the Caddo Parish District Attorney’s office between 2003 and 2012 found that, overall, Caddo Parish prosecutors used peremptory strikes to exclude 46 percent of qualified black jurors, but struck only 15 percent of jurors who were not black.
Caddo Parish is 48 percent black. But the typical 12-member criminal jury had fewer than four African American members, and the share of juries with two or fewer black jurors was more than double what race-neutral jury selection would yield in Caddo, which has accounted for nearly half of Louisiana’s death sentences over the past five years.
Louisiana’s history of racial injustice provides a context for contemporary discrimination in Caddo Parish. In 1898, Louisiana rewrote its constitution to completely disenfranchise African Americans and to allow majority jury verdicts so that a jury with at least ten non-black members could return a verdict without regard to the votes of the black jurors. That majority-white juries in Caddo Parish have condemned to death mostly black defendants at record rates likewise evokes Caddo’s history as a lynching stronghold.
In 2015, Dale Cox’s inflammatory comments about his excessive support for the death penalty — including the comment that Louisiana needs to “kill more people” — received national media coverage. Cox declined to run for re-election, and voters elected their first African American district attorney.
No racism in America?
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No racism in America?
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AFTERMATH: As the National Registry of Exonerations entry notes at the link below: "The charges were formally dismissed on April 17, 2017. in November 2017, Crawford filed a federal lawsuit against police and others, including several parties including the Caddo Parish Coroner’s Office, the Caddo Parish District Attorney’s Office and the Shreveport Fire Department. In 2019, the lawsuit was dismissed except for certain claims against Traylor (the pathologist) , which remained. Those final claims were settled for an undisclosed sum in October 2019. In May 2019, Crawford filed a claim for compensation from the state of Louisiana."
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FINAL OBSERVATION: " Cox presented Rodricus to the jury as a young black man, who was unemployed and smoked marijauna.
No wonder he was convicted.
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DISCLAIMER: My country, Canada, has an abysmal record of treating Native Canadians in just about every aspect of our criminal justice system from the manner in which they are policed, prosecuted and treated in the courts so that they flood the prisons disproportionally - and that includes all too many attempts by prosecutors to jig the jury selection process as in the Rodricus Crawford case to help ensure convictions. At least, many lawyers, civil libertarians, and concerned every day citizens, are doing their best to turn things around for Native Canadians in the 'justice' system, and in society at large...That's the bad news. The good news? At least we don't have the death penalty.
Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog.
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Read 'New hope for people who claim racism tainted their death sentence,' by Joseph Neff and Beth Schwartzapfel, published by the Marshall Project on June 11, 2020 at the link below:
Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog.
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Read 'New hope for people who claim racism tainted their death sentence,' by Joseph Neff and Beth Schwartzapfel, published by the Marshall Project on June 11, 2020 at the link below:
Read the entire National Registry of Exonerations entry masterfully written, as usual, by Maurice Possley, at the link below:
"On the morning of February 16, 2012, 22-year-old Rodricus Crawford awoke to find his one-year-old son, Roderius, not breathing. The boy, who had been suffering from what appeared to be a cold, had been sleeping with Crawford without incident during the prior two nights in Shreveport, Louisiana.
Family members attempted CPR, but the boy did not respond and paramedics determined he was dead. They concluded almost immediately that the boy was the victim of a homicide based on a split lip and what appeared to a bruise on his buttocks and the side of his head.
Crawford was taken in for questioning by police and repeatedly denied harming the child. He was nevertheless charged with first-degree murder after a pathologist conducted an autopsy and concluded the boy was smothered to death.
On November 9, 2013, Crawford went to trial in Caddo Parish District Court. The prosecution sought the death penalty. After a jury was selected, the defense filed a motion claiming that the prosecution had engaged in discriminatory jury selection, having used five of its seven discretionary challenges to excuse black prospective jurors. The trial judge denied that motion and the testimonial phase of the trial began.
Several family members testified for the prosecution that Crawford had been a loving, caring father to Roderius from the day the boy was born and that Crawford was there to cradle him immediately after birth.
The boy lived with his mother, Lakendra Lott, who lived with her family about five blocks from where Crawford lived with his family. Family members testified that Roderius was a sweet and happy baby, although he often had a runny nose and cold symptoms. One family member testified that the boy also had a wheeze. When he was eight months old, Roderius had been treated at a hospital for an upper respiratory infection. Although the acute symptoms subsided, he frequently had cold symptoms.
Detectives testified that Crawford told them that he was preparing to give the boy a bath two nights before he died, and the boy had fallen in the bathroom when Crawford left him alone briefly to get a towel. The boy had split his lip and banged the side of his head, but seemed fine, Crawford said.
Lott, the boy’s mother, testified that she saw a bruise on the right side of Roderius’s head on the morning of February 15—the day before he died—when she brought clothes for the boy and a suction device to clean the mucus from his nose. Lott said that Crawford told her the boy had fallen in the bathroom the night before.
Paramedics testified that when they came to the house in response to the 911 call, Crawford said the boy had fallen off the sofa-bed—a statement that Crawford denied he ever made. The prosecution also presented evidence that Crawford was unemployed, frequently smoked marijuana and had been convicted in the past of marijuana offenses to suggest he was not a responsible parent.
Dr. James Traylor, Jr., a pathologist from the University Health Center at Louisiana State University, performed an autopsy and discovered hemorrhaging on the boy’s buttocks, which he said resulted from blunt force trauma. He also observed 12 separate contusions to the child's body, including seven on his forehead. Traylor said the child’s death was a homicide due to smothering. After examining slides of the child’s lung tissue, Traylor discovered that Roderius was suffering from bilateral early bronchopneumonia, which was present in all five lobes of his lungs. The bronchopneumonia, in Dr. Traylor's opinion, was insufficient to have caused the boy’s death.
The Caddo Parish Coroner, Dr. Todd Thoma, testified that he found bruising on the boy’s lips that were caused by being pushed against his teeth and were “classic” signs that Roderius was smothered. Thoma said his opinion as to the cause of death was strengthened by other areas of bruising, suggestive of “multiple episodes of abuse,” although he conceded they had nothing to do with the suffocation. Thoma also said the boy’s bronchopneumonia “was not significant enough to have killed the child” and had nothing to do with his death.
The defense called Dr. Daniel Joseph Spitz, a forensic pathologist and chief medical examiner for two counties in Michigan, as well as an assistant professor of pathology at Wayne State University, a clinical educator at Michigan State University, and a private consultant. Spitz testified that Roderius was “not a healthy child," and was coughing, wheezing, and had a runny nose.
Spitz told the jury Roderius "died as a result of ... bilateral bronchopneumonia" that caused the child to become septic and die "of those infectious complications."
Spitz also noted that a streptococcal infection was present in the blood, which indicated that Roderius “was, in fact, septic as a result of this infection." That condition "can cause significant cardiovascular consequences." Spitz said it was "implausible" to conclude that Roderius "just happened to be smothered in some untoward fashion."
On cross-examination, the prosecution challenged Spitz’s credibility and reliability, noting that he had botched an autopsy in which he said the cause of death was undetermined. A second autopsy commissioned by the family of the dead man found a bullet wound in the back of the man’s head, suggesting he had committed suicide.
Spitz admitted that he "never ruled out smothering,” but believed that the existence of the bilateral pneumonia was more likely the cause of death.
On November 12, 2013, the jury convicted Crawford of first-degree murder. The penalty phase then commenced and during closing argument, Caddo Parish prosecutor Dale Cox argued that Jesus Christ had commanded that death be the punishment in the case. He cited Jesus as saying, “To the adult, who would harm one of these, (referring to children) woe be unto you, who would harm one of these. Now, this is Jesus Christ of the New Testament. It would be better if though you were never born. You shall have a millstone cast around your neck and you will be thrown into the sea . . .the thing about Christ…He reached a just verdict which is what the law asks you to reach in this case: A just verdict...And that's why I think that we should not lightly disregard His words when He talks about what He would do to someone who hurt one of these...what He would do.”
The jury then retired to deliberate and the following day, November 13, 2013, it voted to impose the death penalty.
The defense moved for a new trial on the basis that Cox misquoted and misinterpreted biblical authority in the argument that Jesus would punish one who harms a child with the death penalty and thus violated Crawford’s right to a fair trial. The defense presented affidavits from three theologians who said that the passage that Cox referred to was not a mandate that those who harm children must be put to death, but instead a warning about not leading the vulnerable faithful into sin. The motion was denied.
In 2014, while the case was on appeal before the Louisiana Supreme Court, lawyers for Crawford filed another motion for a new trial and asked that the case be remanded back to the trial court. The motion cited newly-discovered evidence that medical science did not support the prosecution’s theory of the circumstances surrounding Roderius’s death. The defense presented affidavits from a pediatric neuropathologist, a pediatric neurologist, and an expert in pediatric infectious diseases, all of which said that Roderius was the victim of bronchopneumonia.
The experts said that the two primary bases for Traylor’s conclusion that the death had been a homicide were wrong. Traylor had testified that cerebral and cellular changes he observed were a side effect of suffocation. The defense experts said that the cerebral and cellular changes would have taken hours to develop, during which time the child had to have been alive. The changes were an indicator of a different condition occurring between hours and days before death.
Second, the experts contradicted Traylor’s testimony that there was “really no accurate way to date a bruise” when he testified about the injuries to the boy’s lips. In fact, the experts said there was a simple test that could have conclusively determined whether the bruises occurred at the time of death—as Traylor believed—or earlier during a fall in the bathroom as Crawford contended. On March 16, 2015, the request to remand the case to the trial court for a hearing was denied.
In November 2016, the Louisiana Supreme Court reversed Crawford’s conviction and ordered a new trial. The court held that the trial judge had failed to follow proper procedures after the defense accused the prosecution of engaging in discriminatory jury selection. As a result, the court said, the only remedy was a new trial.
On April 14, 2017, the Caddo Parish District Attorney’s Office issued a statement saying that the case would be dismissed.
“New evidence presented after the trial raised questions about the degree of pneumonia together with bacteria in the child’s blood indicative of sepsis are possibilities that require consideration. While the coroner and this office stand by the determination that a homicide occurred, the State has the burden of proving all elements of a crime beyond a reasonable doubt. In this circumstantial evidence case, the State must also exclude every reasonable hypothesis of any other crime or innocence factors. Therein lies the problem.”
“While the State feels a reasonable prosecution could be pursued on a charge of criminal negligent homicide, that negligence could extend to other members of the family, [and] even if successful on that charge against Crawford, the amount of time he has spent in jail is close to the maximum sentence available if he was convicted,” the state said. “The death of a child is a tragedy under any circumstance for the victim, the family, and the community as a whole, but this office is charged with the task to consider all of the evidence in a case and to bring a charge when the evidence can support it. For these reasons, the State has elected not to retry Rodricus Crawford.”
The charges were formally dismissed on April 17, 2017. in November 2017, Crawford filed a federal lawsuit against police and others, including several parties including the Caddo Parish Coroner’s Office, the Caddo Parish District Attorney’s Office and the Shreveport Fire Department. In 2019, the lawsuit was dismissed except for certain claims against Traylor, which remained. Those final claims were settled for an undisclosed sum in October 2019. In May 2019, Crawford filed a claim for compensation from the state of Louisiana."
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PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. 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;
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FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."
Lawyer Radha Natarajan:
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
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