May 15, 2018, by Matthew Clarke, Criminal Legal News

The term “junk science” does not quite cover the revolution in our understanding of the diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome. Medical experts now know that their belief in how to diagnose a clear sign of child abuse based upon a determination of shaken baby syndrome was mistaken. This new understanding may cast doubt on hundreds of murder, assault, and child abuse convictions…

[O]ver the past two decades, newer scientific research has proven that accidents, diseases, and genetic conditions can cause the damning triad and other symptoms associated with shaken baby syndrome. This has undermined faith in the credibility of a shaken baby syndrome diagnosis to the point that, in 2009, the American Academy of Pediatrics (“AAP”) recommended that doctors cease using the term, especially in light of the potential legal, both criminal and civil, ramifications of such a diagnosis. The AAP explained that “advances in the understanding of the mechanisms and clinical spectrum of injury associated with abusive head trauma compel us to modify our terminology to keep pace with our understanding of pathologic mechanisms.”

But what does that mean for the people who have been convicted of assault or murder based on the triad? In 2015, the Medhill Justice Project in the Journalism Department at Northwestern University complied data covering the previous 20 years. The data showed that over 3,000 criminal cases in the U.S. involved shaken baby syndrome. A Washington Post investigation turned up 1,600 shaken baby syndrome convictions of parents and caregivers since 2001, 16 of which were subsequently overturned. According to the New Scientist, at least three of the 1,600 ended up on death row.

Zavion Johnson was one of the 1,600. The then-18-year-old Sacramento, California, father called an ambulance on the afternoon of November 21, 2001, and reported that his daughter had stopped breathing. At the hospital, doctors found internal head injuries and a fractured skull. Suspecting abuse, they called police…

Although the ordeal cost Johnson 15 years of his life and so much more, he was eventually vindicated and set free. That’s the good news. The bad news is there are certainly more factually innocent men and women just like Johnson who are still in prison.  

That is all good for Johnson, but what about the thousands of other shaken baby convictions? Dr. Norman Guthkelch had said that it’s “high time every case of a parent in [prison] for this had his or her case reviewed” because “we went badly off the rails … on this matter.”

We at CLN couldn’t agree more. An automatic determination of abuse based on the presence of the so-call triad has been discredited by the medical community. Anyone convicted based upon the triad and in prison today should reach out to an innocence project, conviction integrity unit, or similar resource. In light of the medical and legal communities’ current understanding of shaken baby syndrome/abusive head trauma, people are listening and working to right the wrongs of the past. 

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