September 19, 2018, by Radley Balko, The Washington Post

In 2002, Jeffrey Havard was convicted in Mississippi of sexually abusing and killing Chloe Britt, the 6-month-old daughter of Rebecca Britt, his girlfriend. He was sentenced to death. In the years since his conviction, multiple expert witnesses have sharply criticized the evidence used to convict him. Most notably, the medical examiner whose trial testimony put Havard on death row has since renounced one of his most damning claims and has contradicted another.

On Sept. 14, Adams County Circuit Judge Forrest A. Johnson ordered a new sentencing trial for Havard. But Johnson’s opinion didn’t go nearly far enough. It was sloppily written, wrong on the law and in many ways a cop-out. But it was also merely the latest of more than 15 years of court opinions that have failed Havard. 

For a full summary of the case, check out a piece that Tucker Carrington and I wrote for Reason, which is adapted from our recent book. But for the purposes of this post, and to understand why Johnson’s opinion is so misbegotten, here’s what you need to know:

According to Havard, on the night of Feb. 21, 2002, Rebecca Britt went out to get dinner for the two of them, leaving Chloe in Havard’s care. After the infant spit up on her clothes, Havard gave her a bath. As he lifted her from the tub to dry her off, Chloe slipped from his hands. She hit her head on the toilet on the way down. Havard admits that he initially lied to Britt and to emergency room doctors about dropping Chloe, claiming that he didn’t know what had caused her injuries. For that, he arguably should have faced a lesser criminal charge. Instead, he was charged with capital murder, convicted and sentenced to death.

To convict Havard of murder, Mississippi officials relied on the testimony of medical examiner Steven Hayne, has since been barred from doing autopsies by Mississippi prosecutors and declared “discredited” by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit. (He is also the subject of our book.) Hayne testified that Chloe had the telltale symptoms of Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS). The scientific validity of SBS and diagnoses of the condition have increasingly been called into question scientists and forensic analysts in recent years.

But for Havard to receive a death sentence, prosecutors had to show aggravating circumstances, beyond the murder. For this they again turned to Hayne, who testified that he found injuries to Chloe that were consistent with “penetration of the rectum by an object.” Prosecutors also put on testimony from the county coroner and emergency room personnel, some of whom gave graphic testimony about bleeding and tearing of the infant’s rectum…

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