SUB-HEADING: "Judges affirm lower court rulings barring testimony on the syndrome in two criminal cases. Read on:
GIST: "For half a century, doctors have blamed babies’ unexplained, sometimes fatal injuries on shaken baby syndrome, with hospitals reporting about 1,300 cases a year and hundreds of parents and caregivers getting prosecuted annually.
But the science behind it has increasingly come under suspicion, especially when there’s no obvious physical evidence of assault.
A New Jersey appellate court Wednesday added to the growing resistance, siding with a lower court judge who declared shaken baby syndrome “junk science,” a ruling that barred prosecutors from bringing it up in the Middlesex County cases of two fathers who challenged their child abuse indictments.
Judge Greta Gooden Brown, writing for a three-judge panel that weighed the case, noted that prosecutors must show a theory is generally accepted within the medical and scientific community.
While shaken baby syndrome is generally accepted in pediatrics, it’s controversial in the biomechanics community, particularly when a baby shows no physical evidence of being assaulted, Gooden Brown wrote.
Biomechanics scientists disagree on whether shaking alone can create forces strong enough to cause the intracranial trauma needed to diagnose the syndrome, which is also known as abusive head trauma, she added.
“Biomechanical testing has never proven the premise of SBS/AHT, despite the hypothesis being grounded in biomechanical principles,” Gooden Brown wrote.
Cody Mason, a managing attorney with the Office of the Public Defender, argued the case on behalf of one of the fathers and called the ruling “well-reasoned.”
“The Appellate Division and the Supreme Court have shown again and again that they value scientific reliability over expediency or accepting things just because they have been accepted for a long time. This opinion is another step in that direction,” Mason said.
The decision comes in the consolidated appeals of two fathers, Darryl Nieves and Michael Cifelli, who authorities accused of assaulting their children.
Nieves was charged with aggravated assault and endangering the welfare of a child after three incidents over a two-week period in February 2017, when his 11-month-old son became limp and appeared to lose consciousness.
Cifelli was similarly charged after his 10-week-old son had to be hospitalized twice in December 2016 and January 2017 for vomiting and seizure-like behavior, according to the ruling.
The babies, both born premature, were found to have brain injuries and hemorrhages, but prosecutors in both cases couldn’t otherwise show the fathers assaulted the infants, the ruling says.
In a January 2022 decision, Judge Pedro J. Jimenez Jr., presiding over Nieves’ case, declared expert testimony on the syndrome not scientifically reliable and dismissed his indictment.
In Cifelli’s case, Judge Benjamin S. Bucca Jr. barred prosecutors from presenting testimony on the syndrome, citing Jimenez’s ruling.
Jimenez said a shaken baby syndrome diagnosis often is made “by way of a process of elimination” of other possible causes of trauma.
He said that made the syndrome “more conjecture than a diagnosis because it [was] an option embraced once a diagnostician runs out of diagnostic options.” Scientific testing also hasn’t been conclusive, he added.
Prosecutors appealed, arguing Jimenez erred in his decision.
The appeals court held a hearing last May, and in Wednesday’s ruling, Gooden Brown rejected prosecutors’ appeals and affirmed Jimenez’s and Bucca’s rulings.
“The evidence supports the finding that there is a real dispute in the larger medical and scientific community about the validity of shaking only SBS/AHT theory, despite its seeming acceptance in the pediatric medical community,” she wrote. “Where the underlying theory integrates multiple scientific disciplines, as here, the proponent must establish cross-disciplinary validation to establish reliability. The state failed to do that here.”
The lower court arguments in both cases occurred before trial and it’s unclear whether the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office will ask the state Supreme Court to review Wednesday’s ruling.
A spokesperson for the prosecutor didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Shaken baby syndrome, first coined as whiplash shaken infant syndrome in the early 1970s, is cited as the most common cause of death and brain injury resulting from child abuse, according to the National Library of Medicine.
A diagnosis typically requires three symptoms — bleeding on the brain, bleeding in the eyes, and neurological injury. But signs also could include seizures, vomiting, lethargy, scalp swelling, neck or spinal cord injury, fractures or external injuries, and bruising.
Wednesday’s ruling applies to a “narrow subset” of head trauma during infancy where there are no signs of impact, Mason said.
“For parents and caretakers that are faced with these awful situations, it ensures that they’re not going to be prosecuted or have their children taken away based on what the court has recognized is an unproven hypothesis,” Mason said."
The entire story can be read at:
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. 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;
SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/47049136857587929
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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FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;
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YET ANOTHER FINAL WORD:
David Hammond, one of Broadwater’s attorneys who sought his exoneration, told the Syracuse Post-Standard, “Sprinkle some junk science onto a faulty identification, and it’s the perfect recipe for a wrongful conviction.”
https://deadline.com/2021/11/alice-sebold-lucky-rape-conviction-overturned-anthony-broadwater-1234880143/
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