PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "This is not an isolated reckoning. It is part of a larger pattern—how unvalidated or overstated forensic methods become institutionalized, not because they are reliable, but because they are useful. Once embedded, they are defended by inertia, authority, and repetition—long after scientific doubt emerges. We have seen this before:• Bite-mark analysis • Microscopic hair comparison • Certain arson indicators • And now SBS / Abusive Head Trauma Each followed the same arc: early adoption → courtroom certainty → scientific collapse → delayed accountability. Which brings us to EIA hair testing."
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PASSAGE TWO OF THE DAY: "Both SBS and EIA hair testing:• Convert screening tools into determinative evidence • Shift the burden onto the accused to disprove a scientific claim • Are insulated by institutional reliance rather than continuous validation - Disproportionately harm people of color • Persist long after peer-reviewed science raises red flags And in both contexts, law lags science—sometimes by decades."
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COMMENTARY: "When "science becomes a shortcut to conviction," by Civil Rights Attorney Eric Sanders, published on X, on December 29, 2025. (Eric Sanders civil rights practice has included sexual harassment and police misconduct cases, His publication credits include CBS, CNN, NBC and The NY Times.)
GIST: Last month, the New Jersey Supreme Court did something rare—and overdue. In State v. Nieves, it barred “Shaken Baby Syndrome” (SBS) testimony from criminal trials, holding that the theory is not generally accepted by the scientific community. In plain terms: speculation dressed up as science can no longer be used to take someone’s liberty.
That ruling matters far beyond New Jersey.
For decades, SBS operated as a prosecutorial shortcut. A triad of symptoms was treated as dispositive proof of violent shaking—often without eyewitnesses, without corroboration, and without meaningful biomechanical support. Caregivers who sought medical help became suspects. Jurors were told the science was settled. It wasn’t.
Now courts are finally catching up.
This is not an isolated reckoning. It is part of a larger pattern—how unvalidated or overstated forensic methods become institutionalized, not because they are reliable, but because they are useful. Once embedded, they are defended by inertia, authority, and repetition—long after scientific doubt emerges.
We have seen this before:
• Bite-mark analysis
• Microscopic hair comparison
• Certain arson indicators
• And now SBS / Abusive Head Trauma
Each followed the same arc: early adoption → courtroom certainty → scientific collapse → delayed accountability.
Which brings us to EIA hair testing.
In the Frankie F. Palaguachi case, employment consequences were imposed by the NYPD based on [unscientific, unverified, not generally accepted in the scientific community] enzyme immunoassay (EIA) screening results—a methodology that, like SBS, is often treated as conclusive despite serious questions about specificity, contamination, environmental exposure, and racial bias in hair structure and melanin binding.
The parallel is not rhetorical. It is structural.
Both SBS and EIA hair testing:
• Convert screening tools into determinative evidence
• Shift the burden onto the accused to disprove a scientific claim
• Are insulated by institutional reliance rather than continuous validation
• Disproportionately harm people of color
• Persist long after peer-reviewed science raises red flags
And in both contexts, law lags science—sometimes by decades.
The New Jersey Supreme Court said the quiet part out loud:
Convictions must rest on reliable, well-supported scientific evidence. Not tradition. Not consensus by repetition. Not expert confidence unmoored from data.
That principle does not stop at criminal courtrooms. It applies wherever liberty, livelihood, or dignity turns on forensic claims—including employment testing regimes that impose career-ending consequences without meeting rigorous scientific standards.
The lesson is simple but uncomfortable:
Institutions do not abandon bad science voluntarily. They abandon it only when courts, advocates, and the record make continued reliance untenable.
SBS is falling. Other forensic shortcuts will follow.
The question is not whether. It’s how many lives are affected before the law finally catches up."
The entire commentary can be read at:
https://x.com/esq_sanders/status/2005752708339261692?s=20
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;
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