By Imani Davenport
LOS ANGELES, CA – On Feb. 14, 2011, a man left a room that his girlfriend’s three year old child was in, and the child died shortly after, according to the Los Angeles Times, noting medical reports that indicate the serious internal injuries suffered by the child were the result of a “phenomenon called shaken baby syndrome.”
And, in 2014, the accused was convicted of assault “on a child under eight years resulting in death.” The accused was sentenced to 25 years to life.
But, last month, the man’s crime was vacated after attorneys “argued that new evidence suggests his prosecution was based on medical testimony that is now outdated and wrong,” according to the Times, adding, medical professionals have newly reasoned that “tumbling off a bed” or falling from short distances could also create the same injuries.
Lauryn Findley, a lawyer from the Northern California Innocence Project states that “the facts always showed the accused was innocent but the medicine needed time to catch up and prove it,” bringing into question those that have been wrongly convicted on the basis of faulty medical reports and findings.
The accused, and convicted person, was released this year.
However, said the Times, the accused is set to appear for a pretrial hearing on Oct. 31 because the prosecution continues to believe there is doubt in the argument that the accused did not commit the crime, claiming Physicians claim that the injuries the child suffered were “inconsistent with falling off a bed.”
There is no history of abuse for the accused man, nor did any witness account testify to bouts of anger or an angry altercation between the accused and the child, the Times writes.
Author of the article, Salvador Hernandez, notes the works of other medical examiners, stating “there were no ‘unique’ injuries that could be attributed to SBS, and that short falls could cause fatal intracranial injuries.”
Professionals argue there is “no evidence pointing to (the accused) other than the experts at trial,” the Times adds, writing It appears to many that the evidence supporting the murder of the child is faulty, and that from the findings we should be able to “indicate that an accident(al) fall from a jumping height is a reasonable and likely explanation,” for the child’s death.
This case is extremely contentious, considering that there is evidence that proves both the accidental death and purposeful death of the child in question. What makes this even more disputed than it already is, is the forthcoming evidence of a hole in the wall of a bedroom.
The Times explains this claim is disputed by the statement that “the hole in the wall had been made months before the incident, before (Isiah) and his mother had moved into the home.”
This case is not an anomaly – there have been multiple instances in which parents have been convicted of crimes based on past medical evidence that can be disputed, and even discredited, today, the Times notes.
For example, the Times adds, a man is set to be executed Oct. 17 for “the death of his daughter in 2022.” Many officials and medical examiners dispute the analogous claim of shaken baby syndrome, and are currently asking for an acquittal of the crime.
As stated in the Los Angeles Times, the executive director of the NCIP (Northern California Innocence Project), Todd Fries, has found that many cases of similar nature have “led to convictions based primarily on the opinions of medical experts, even though no other evidence pointed to abuse or violence.”
Multiple issues regarding the justice system and its foundations of what is considered hard and circumstantial evidence notes the NCIP.
The Times argues not only are accused persons discouraged as to arguing their innocence because of the medical reports that are found staggeringly more effective in a case than other forms of evidence, but the NCIP has also noted that “77 percent of cases where the race of the defendant has been identified… The accused was a person of color.”
A recent study, cites the Times, finds that forensic pathologists are “more likely to rule a death as a homicide, rather than an accident, when the child is Black compared with when the child is white.”
