PUBLISHER' NOTE: Dear readers: You can read the San Francisco Chronicle story by Bob Egelko on the 'Moore case' (September 8) further down in this post.
Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog;
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PASSAGE ONE OF THE DAY: "In October 2025, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals paused Roberson’s execution just days before he was set to be the first person in the U.S. to be executed for a conviction tied to “shaken baby syndrome.” The defense filed a new notice of new persuasive authority, citing a California appeals court decision to remand a shaken baby case back to the trial court."
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PASSAGE TWO OF THE DAY: "The Moore Decision notes that, only in 2020, did the American Academy of Pediatrics finally acknowledge that ‘short falls can be fatal and that there is no pattern of injury unique to.’ The Moore Decision also emphasizes that the ‘first and only systemic review of the evidence for [shaken baby syndrome] was conducted’ years after Moore’s (and Robert’s) trial and this study concluded that the evidence purportedly supporting the SBS/AHT hypothesis ‘is insufficient and unreliable, largely due to the circular reasoning in classifying cases and controls and other methodological flaws."----------------------------------------
PASSAGE THREE OF THE DAY: "This is the second such notice from Roberson’s attorneys. The first was on Aug. 10, citing another similar case, this time in Georgia."
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STORY: "Defense cites new case in Robert Roberson death row appeal," by Digital Content Manager Jeff Awtrey, published by KLTV, on September 10, 2026.
Defense compares cases
SUB-HEADING: "Attorneys file second notice of persuasive authority in shaken baby syndrome case."
PALESTINE, Texas (KLTV) - The defense team for a man on death row for the death of his child has cited a new case to support their claim that their client needs a new trial.
Robert Roberson, of Palestine, was convicted in 2003 of the 2002 murder of his daughter, Nikki.
In October 2025, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals paused Roberson’s execution just days before he was set to be the first person in the U.S. to be executed for a conviction tied to “shaken baby syndrome.”
The defense filed a new notice of new persuasive authority, citing a California appeals court decision to remand a shaken baby case back to the trial court.
PALESTINE, Texas (KLTV) - The defense team for a man on death row for the death of his child has cited a new case to support their claim that their client needs a new trial.
Robert Roberson, of Palestine, was convicted in 2003 of the 2002 murder of his daughter, Nikki.
In October 2025, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals paused Roberson’s execution just days before he was set to be the first person in the U.S. to be executed for a conviction tied to “shaken baby syndrome.”
The defense filed a new notice of new persuasive authority, citing a California appeals court decision to remand a shaken baby case back to the trial court.
Defense compares cases
“Mr. Moore, like Robert Roberson, was accused of child abuse after he sought medical care for his daughter. Moore’s daughter, like Robert’s daughter Nikki, experienced breathing apnea, turned blue, and went into cardiopulmonary arrest before she arrived at the hospital, where CT scans then revealed subdural bleeding, brain swelling, and retinal hemorrhage. In both cases, the child’s condition followed a short fall out of bed, which was the only explanation both men were able to provide, and which treating doctors rejected as insufficient to explain the child’s serious intracranial condition.”
“The Moore Decision notes that, only in 2020, did the American Academy of Pediatrics finally acknowledge that ‘short falls can be fatal and that there is no pattern of injury unique to.’ The Moore Decision also emphasizes that the ‘first and only systemic review of the evidence for [shaken baby syndrome] was conducted’ years after Moore’s (and Robert’s) trial and this study concluded that the evidence purportedly supporting the SBS/AHT hypothesis ‘is insufficient and unreliable, largely due to the circular reasoning in classifying cases and controls and other methodological flaws.’”
Second notice filed
This is the second such notice from Roberson’s attorneys. The first was on Aug. 10, citing another similar case, this time in Georgia.
https://www.kltv.com/2026/09/10/defense-cites-new-case-roberson-death-row-appeal/
“The Moore Decision notes that, only in 2020, did the American Academy of Pediatrics finally acknowledge that ‘short falls can be fatal and that there is no pattern of injury unique to.’ The Moore Decision also emphasizes that the ‘first and only systemic review of the evidence for [shaken baby syndrome] was conducted’ years after Moore’s (and Robert’s) trial and this study concluded that the evidence purportedly supporting the SBS/AHT hypothesis ‘is insufficient and unreliable, largely due to the circular reasoning in classifying cases and controls and other methodological flaws.’”
Second notice filed
This is the second such notice from Roberson’s attorneys. The first was on Aug. 10, citing another similar case, this time in Georgia.
https://www.kltv.com/2026/09/10/defense-cites-new-case-roberson-death-row-appeal/
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THE MOORE DECISION: The San Francisco Chronicle (Staff Writer Bob Egelko: September 8, 2026: : 'California father’s murder conviction overturned in shaken baby syndrome case.'
A California appeals court on Tuesday overturned the conviction of a Riverside man sent to prison for killing his child, citing new evidence that a short, accidental fall from bed was a more likely cause of her death.James M. Shannon/Hearst Connecticut Media
Jason Harley Moore has spent over a decade in prison for the death of his infant daughter after three doctors told a jury the child was violently struck or shaken to death by her father.
But medical science has changed since Moore’s 2014 trial, and on Tuesday, a state appeals court overturned the Riverside County man’s conviction and cited new evidence that a short, accidental fall from bed was a more likely cause of her death.
“We no longer have confidence in the outcome of Moore’s trial,” the 4th District Court of Appeal said. The court did not declare him to be innocent, but said the prosecution’s expert witnesses had presented “false evidence” that the 3½-month-old child could not have suffered fatal injuries in a short fall from her bed, the defense claim in the case.
It’s the latest of several cases addressing shaken baby syndrome, ascribed to parents who habitually and violently shake their young children. Medical scientists still agree that shaking can cause serious and even fatal brain injuries, but it has been challenged in cases like Moore’s when evidence emerges of other possible causes of harm.
Jason Harley Moore has spent over a decade in prison for the death of his infant daughter after three doctors told a jury the child was violently struck or shaken to death by her father.
But medical science has changed since Moore’s 2014 trial, and on Tuesday, a state appeals court overturned the Riverside County man’s conviction and cited new evidence that a short, accidental fall from bed was a more likely cause of her death.
“We no longer have confidence in the outcome of Moore’s trial,” the 4th District Court of Appeal said. The court did not declare him to be innocent, but said the prosecution’s expert witnesses had presented “false evidence” that the 3½-month-old child could not have suffered fatal injuries in a short fall from her bed, the defense claim in the case.
It’s the latest of several cases addressing shaken baby syndrome, ascribed to parents who habitually and violently shake their young children. Medical scientists still agree that shaking can cause serious and even fatal brain injuries, but it has been challenged in cases like Moore’s when evidence emerges of other possible causes of harm.
Carla Spain, spokesperson for the Northern California Innocence Project at Santa Clara University, which represents Moore, said his is the third case they’ve gotten the courts to overturn “based on changes in the science.”
“Jason’s case sets precedent about the underlying falsity of the testimony that was repeatedly used across the country to convict innocent caregivers for decades,” Spain said.
The Riverside County District Attorney’s Office did not respond to a request for comment.
The child, Charlotte, lived with her mother, Laura Morales, and Moore in the San Jacinto Valley town of Hemet, southeast of Riverside. Moore, then 31, called Morales at work one afternoon in July 2010 and said she should come home because Charlotte was not breathing. She died at a hospital about a week later.
Moore testified that he was taking a shower when he heard Charlotte crying, and he came out and found her on the floor. He said he picked her up and held her, but she soon stopped breathing, and he tried to revive her while calling 911 and her mother.
In an autopsy for the county coroner’s office, however, Dr. Mark McCormick said Charlotte had suffered a fractured skull and other brain injuries that were probably inflicted deliberately.
McCormick testified for the prosecution along with Dr. Mark Massi, who said he saw bleeding in the child’s brain that was “mainly caused by some sort of trauma such as shaking,” although he found no bruises or other evidence of shaking. Dr. Christina Stanley, a forensic pathologist, said an examination of Charlotte’s brain “suggested inflicted head trauma.”
A defense witness, Dr. Ronald Gabriel, said the child could have been fatally injured after a short fall from her bed. But jurors convicted Moore in 2014 of a fatal assault on his daughter, and Riverside County Superior Court Judge Timothy Freer sentenced him to 25 years to life in prison.
The state appeals court upheld Moore’s conviction in 2016. Tuesday’s ruling, however, was based on new evidence and legal arguments presented by his lawyers in 2022 in a motion for habeas corpus, a challenge to imprisonment due to developments since the trial.
They cited scientific studies finding that short accidental falls can cause serious or fatal injuries. In a 2020 report, the American Academy of Pediatrics found that “short falls can be fatal and that there is no pattern of injury unique to” abusive head trauma.
Dr. Gregory Reiber, a forensic pathologist with the Placer County sheriff and coroner’s office, said recent studies show that impacts from short falls can result in “hemorrhage and brain injury, while shaking alone does not.”
The prosecution’s expert witnesses stood by their testimony that Moore had killed his daughter. Their lawyers told the trial judge and the appeals court that the new defense evidence amounted only to “differences of opinion” that did not show the conviction was based on false testimony.
Freer, the trial judge in 2014, said in a recent ruling that some of the prosecution’s testimony had been false but that the defense had failed to show the conviction relied on falsehoods.
The appeals court disagreed.
“There is a reasonable probability the result of Moore’s trial would have been different had the jury not heard the testimony of these three medical experts that a short fall absolutely could not have caused Charlotte’s injuries,” Justice Jose Castillo wrote in the 3-0 ruling.
“There is no evidence Moore abused Charlotte on any other occasion,” Castillo said.
Morales, the child’s mother, “portrayed Moore as a devoted stay-at-home father to Charlotte and Morales’s two other children,” he wrote. “Nor was there any sign of other injury to Charlotte’s body from this incident that was suggestive of abuse.”
The court, however, did not order Moore to be immediately released from prison. First, Castillo said, the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office should decide whether to request a new trial or to drop the case and allow Moore to go free.
His lawyers will argue that Moore should be released and the charges dismissed, said Spain, the Northern California Innocence Project spokesperson.
“Based on the current understanding of his daughter’s injuries, the prosecution’s experts could not testify today the same way they did in 2014,” she told the Chronicle after Tuesday’s ruling. "
(Bob Egelko has been a reporter since June 1970. He spent 30 years with the Associated Press, covering news, politics and occasionally sports in Los Angeles, San Diego and Sacramento, and legal affairs in San Francisco from 1984 onward. He worked for the San Francisco Examiner for five months in 2000, then joined The Chronicle in November 2000.)
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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. 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. 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; 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
