Definition of Shaken Baby Syndrome: "According to Gabaeff (2018), shaken baby syndrome is an "unproven hypothesis". Scientific challenges to its validity have been increasing.[4] A 2017 review concluded that there is insufficient scientific evidence to assess the accuracy of diagnosing traumatic shaking.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaken_baby_syndrome
Definition of Hypothesis: Oxford Dictionary: "A supposition or proposed explanation lade on the basis of limited evince as a starting point for further investigation."
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RELEASE: "Minnesota Supreme Court affirms Great North Innocence Project client entitled to post-conviction relief," released by The Great North Innnocence Project, on March 13, 2024.
Three courts have now held that Robert Kaiser’s 2016 murder conviction cannot stand
GIST: Today the Great North Innocence Project (GNIP) announced that the Minnesota Supreme Court affirmed that lower courts’ decisions setting aside the second-degree murder conviction of GNIP client Robert Kaiser.
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Mr. Kaiser’s case on September 7, 2023. GNIP pro bono attorney Mark Bradford of Bradford Andresen Norrie & Camarotto and GNIP managing attorney Jim Mayer represented Mr. Kaiser before the Supreme Court.
The Court held that Mr. Kaiser’s conviction was tainted by false medical testimony, and that without that false testimony the jury may well have reached a different conclusion.
In response to the Court’s decision, GNIP attorney Jim Mayer said, “Robert Kaiser was already behind bars in 2014 when he learned that his son had died in the hospital, and he would remain behind bars for the next eight years of his life – based on a conviction that three courts have now held to have been deeply flawed. We fervently hope that today’s unanimous decision will allow the family, all of whom have suffered immensely, to put this tragedy behind them.” This is the third Court to hold that Mr. Kaiser’s conviction should be vacated.
Mr. Kaiser was released on bail from Stearns County Jail on Monday, May 16, 2022, after the Stearns County District Court vacated his original conviction.
A tragic, medically complex case
In 2014, Mr. Kaiser’s infant son William was taken to the hospital because of seizures. Imaging revealed bleeding around his brain and retinas.
Some doctors concluded that William’s neurological decline was the result of abusive head trauma (AHT).
While hospitalized, William developed necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC), an often-fatal condition involving the disintegration of intestinal tissue, ultimately resulting in his death.
Mr. Kaiser was arrested within days of his son's death.
Given the lack of any bruising, laceration, or other sign of impact to
the infant's head, the State theorized that Mr. Kaiser must have violently shaken William or slammed him into a soft surface.
At trial, the State's medical witnesses relied heavily on medical imaging, insisting to the jury that there was no other explanation for the infant's neurological presentation other than AHT.
They also claimed that the abuse must have occurred immediately before the seizures began, while William was in his father's care.
Mr. Kaiser's defense team argued that NEC was the actual cause of death, but they did not consult with or retain any expert qualified to review and interpret the CT and
MRI scans.
On that evidence, Mr. Kaiser was convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
For more on Mr. Kaiser’s story, watch this profile.
GNIP’s investigation illuminates errors in original medical diagnosis, finds alternative cause of death In 2020, GNIP began investigating Mr. Kaiser's case, collecting the medical records and consulting with a team of experts, including a pathologist, radiologist, neuroradiologist, neurologist, pediatrician, and ophthalmologist.
The experts not only concluded that the medical evidence did not support the State's AHT diagnosis, but they identified a non-traumatic medical cause for William's condition: blood clots in his brain veins, known as cerebral venous thrombosis (CVT).
CVT is a serious medical condition that causes many of the same symptoms often attributed to AHT, including those afflicting William.
The jury that convicted Robert Kaiser never heard about CVT.
The team of volunteer lawyers from Carlson Caspers and Bradford Andresen Norris & Camaratto, along with GNIP staff)attorney Jim Mayer, presented this evidence and more over the course of a two-week hearing in October 2021.
Court finds that Mr. Kaiser is entitled to a new trail (sic)
Following extensive post-trial briefing, Stearns County District Court Judge Laura Moehrle issued a 90-page ruling on April
28, 2022.
The Court held that Mr. Kaiser's conviction rested on false evidence, namely the testimony that certain medical symptoms could only be explained by abuse.
The Court further held that Mr. Kaiser did not receive effective assistance of counsel due to counsel's failure to reasonably investigate the facts that the State alleged resulted in William's
death.
Significantly, the Court held that without the false evidence, and with effective counsel, there is a reasonable probability that the outcome of Mr. Kaiser's trial would have been different, and that he therefore met his burden entitling him to a new trial.
The decision was later affirmed by the Minnesota Court of Appeals on February 13, 2023.
Numerous convictions involving AHT or “shaken baby syndrome” are drawing a second look
Mr. Kaiser’s case is one of the many convictions related to AHT drawing scrutiny by attorneys and medical experts as
possible wrongful convictions.
Shaken baby syndrome (SBS), now often referred to as abusive head trauma (AHT) is a
hypothesis asserting that after an infant is violently shaken, a triad of symptoms will result very soon after the abuse— subdural hemorrhage, retinal bleeding, and hypoxic encephalopathy—and that these symptoms can only be the result of AHT.
However, the hypothesis ignores the many other causal, non-abusive explanations that can lead to such symptoms.
When medical experts testify that AHT is the only cause of these symptoms and juries are not presented with alternative, non-abusive causes, they often conclude the most recent caregiver of the deceased infant must have caused the death by
violently shaking the child.
A search on the National Registry of Exonerations for “shaken baby” lists 26 cases in which a person was exonerated after being found guilty of murdering a child by violently shaking them and the Innocence Network has filed numerous amicus briefs citing issues with AHT diagnosis leading to convictions.
The medical examiner, Dr. Michael McGee who testified as to William’s cause of death in Mr. Kaiser’s trial was found to have given false medical evidence in the 2006 conviction of Michael Hansen for the murder of his infant daughter.
In part because of Dr. McGee’s false testimony, Mr. Hansen, a GNIP client, was eventually exonerated and compensated by the state after spending six years in prison for a crime he did not commit.
Dr. McGee was also found by the Minnesota Conviction Review Unit to have provided unsupported and improper testimony at the murder trial of GNIP client Thomas Rhodes, who was released from prison in January 2023.
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The entire release can be read at:
(KNSI) — The Minnesota Supreme Court Wednesday upheld a lower court’s decision overturning the murder conviction of an Albany man accused of killing his son.
Court papers say in August of 2014, Robert John Kaiser was caring for his two-month-old baby William. During the day, the child became pale, sweaty, fussy, and eventually unresponsive. He was brought to the hospital and was suffering seizures. Doctors gave William Propofol while they tried to determine the cause of the seizures.
William was examined at the hospital, and CT scans showed a brain bleed, bleeding behind the eyes, but no skull fracture. As the days wore on, the child showed stomach issues, and his condition continued to deteriorate. He died on September 3rd, 2014.
Kaiser said hospital staff went back and forth, unsure whether it was shaken baby syndrome or an underlying medical condition that caused the injuries. Kaiser was eventually arrested and charged with one count of first degree murder and two counts of second degree murder.
During the trial, six doctors who examined and treated William testified that there was no way the child could have sustained those injuries except for violent shaking. Another medical expert testified and said William’s injuries were older, and the absence of skull or neck trauma “weighed against but did not preclude a diagnosis” of abusive head trauma. A neonatologist also testified prolonged exposure to Propofol caused William to develop a bowel issue, which ultimately caused his death.
Kaiser testified in his own defense, saying the baby fell out of his stroller a month before and had “suffered a bout of prolonged vomiting” before being admitted to the hospital.
The jury found Kaiser guilty in 2016 of two counts of murder, and he was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Kaiser appealed his conviction, and his attorneys had several independent medical experts look at the evidence who said there was a medical cause for William’s injuries, and there was no criminal element to it.
William had an undiagnosed medical condition known as cerebral venous thrombosis, which causes clotting in the brain’s venous system. Kaiser’s attorneys argued none of the State’s medical witnesses disclosed the presence of CVT and insisted that the baby could only have died due to abuse at the hands of his father. That included Dr. Jeffrey Lynch, an ophthalmologist who examined William’s eyes while he was critically ill.
Dr. Lynch originally testified for the State that he observed macular schisis in the child’s left eye. He then explained the link between macular schisis and abusive head trauma and that there “really isn’t any other type of cause of that, that I’ve seen in my career.”
Court papers say the medical evidence showing William’s condition, flawed testimony, and ineffective advice from counsel was enough to support the claim that Kaiser was deprived of his constitutional right to a fair trial. In a nine day evidentiary hearing, Dr. Lynch said there are numerous causes of macular schisis, and head trauma is not the only cause, and macular schisis on its own is not diagnostic of abusive head trauma. Evidence was also presented that cerebral venous thrombosis appeared on William’s brain scans. Kaiser’s experts presented medical literature, finding that the condition can “mimic” the symptoms of abusive head trauma, whether or not any trauma occurred.
A Stearns County judge vacated the conviction, a move that the Stearns County Prosecutor’s Office appealed.
The Minnesota Court of Appeals issued an opinion in February of 2023, affirming the district court’s decision to vacate the conviction. Stearns County prosecutors appealed to the Minnesota Supreme Court and argued their case before the panel in September.
The opinion issued Wednesday states, “Here, the State’s experts made statements of medical fact to the jury that proved crucial in establishing Kaiser’s guilt. The district court conducted a thorough 9-day evidentiary hearing and gathered the facts necessary to conclude that the trial testimony was false. And the State’s own witness, in effect, recanted his trial testimony by saying later that it was incorrect.”
The panel said on the record they agree with the lower court’s ruling that Kaiser’s right to a fair trial “requires postconviction relief in this difficult case.”
The ruling concluded by saying, “We recognize the tragedy that comes with the death of a child and the pain a surviving family and community endure in experiencing such an unthinkable loss. We do not affirm the reversal of a murder conviction lightly, and we make our decision realizing a new trial will cause renewed pain for William’s family.”
In response to the Court’s decision, Great Northern Innocense Project’s attorney Jim Mayer emailed a statement to KNSI News, saying, “Robert Kaiser was already behind bars in 2014 when he learned that his son had died in the hospital, and he would remain behind bars for the next eight years of his life – based on a conviction that three courts have now held to have been deeply flawed. We fervently hope that today’s unanimous
decision will allow the family, all of whom have suffered immensely, to put this tragedy behind them.”
Stearns County can still decide to retry Kaiser since the case does not fall under the double jeopardy statute. Mayer says he doesn’t understand why prosecutors would go that route, considering three courts have now ruled his conviction should be vacated. He also mentioned the considerable cost to Stearns County taxpayers, and that Kaiser had served much of the sentence imposed upon him by the court.
Kaiser was released on bail from Stearns County Jail on May 16th, 2022, after the Stearns County District Court vacated his original conviction."
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/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985
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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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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;