December 16, 2014, by Radley Balko, The Washington Post

In May and July of this year, I wrote about the case Brandon v. Mississippi, in which defendant Christopher Brandon was convicted of killing his girlfriend’s 15-month-old son. The case involved dubious testimony from the discredited, longtime Mississippi medical examiner Steven Hayne as well as the controversial Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS) diagnosis. Brandon was also denied funding to hire his own medical examiner. Over the summer, the state then filed a remarkable brief that would require one to believe that Hayne is capable of traveling through time. In August, the Mississippi Supreme Court ruled in Brandon’s favor on all of his claims but ordered an evidentiary hearing on Hayne’s credibility instead of granting him a new trial.

But last week, the Mississippi Supreme Court overturned a conviction in a remarkably similar case that could be a good sign for Brandon. Leevester Brown was convicted in 2002 of killing his infant son. The conviction was based entirely on Hayne’s diagnosis of SBS. Brown, too, was denied funding to hire his own medical examiner to review Hayne’s work. (Hayne was hired by Coahama County Coroner Scotty Meredith. For more on Meredith, read the transcript of my amusing phone conversation with him from a few years ago.)

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