The Mississippi Supreme court has agreed to review the case of a man whose murder conviction was overturned last year. The court will decide whether to reinstate the conviction, order a new trial, or drop the charges entirely. The Crime In January 2008, Joshua Clark was left in charge of his infant daughter Kylie and […]
A Mississippi jury convicted Joshua Clark of murdering his four-month-old daughter, Kyllie Clark. That tragic death spawned a tragic prosecution that was based on the discredited diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome. The alleged “syndrome” has been debunked, a reality that too many prosecutors refuse to acknowledge. Prosecution experts continue to testify that they can confidently […]
The government, with its vast resources, has a distinct advantage when it brings criminal charges against all but the wealthiest defendants. Since poor defendants have the same right to a fair trial as wealthy defendants, the Supreme Court has held that the constitutional right to equal protection of the law demands that defendants not be […]
A New York appellate court recently called years of expert witness testimony on shaken baby syndrome into question by overturning a 2001 conviction due to insufficient scientific support for evidence supporting the prosecution’s case. Shaken baby syndrome prosecutions rely on expert witness testimony due to the medical science involved in connecting the victim’s injuries with the […]
Two Michigan men accused of killing infants have consulted expert witnesses to dispute allegations that the children died from Shaken Baby Syndrome. The cases, which have gone to trial, will serve as a critique of Shaken Baby Syndrome with both sides presenting experts to debate not only whether or not the condition explains the deaths, […]
A New York father has been acquitted of charges stemming from the tragic death of his 4-month old son, whose suspicious death led prosecutors to believe that Adrian Thomas had caused his child’s death by violently shaking him. As has become common in trials following suspicious death of infants, the Thomas verdict was heavily influenced […]
The tragic death of 4-month-old Lincoln Wilber in 2007, initially determined to be the result of child abuse, is getting a second look by a handful of nationally renowned medical expert witnesses. At the behest of Northwestern University’s Medill Justice Project, experts in abusive head trauma, pathology, and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) reviewed the […]
Chantal Thoss was convicted of felonious assault in an Ohio court. The only evidence supporting her conviction came from an expert witness. Because the expert overstepped the boundaries of acceptable expert testimony, the Ohio Court of Appeals reversed the conviction. Trial Evidence A police officer was dispatched to a home in response to a call […]
The medical examiners testifying in the aggravated manslaughter trial of Michael Marrara offered vastly different explanations for why his son died on March 26, 2012. Death of Andrew Marrara On March 26, 2012, Michael Marrara called 911 to report that he found his son blue and non-responsive. Andrew Marrara was pronounced dead a short time […]
As ExpertPages has reported, courts in Michigan, New York, Ohio, and other states have recognized that unsound expert testimony has placed innocent defendants at risk of conviction for shaking babies. In response to growing awareness that innocent people have been imprisoned because experts assured juries that evidence of abuse was undeniable, the American Academy of […]
