WEBVTT - #410 Wrongful Conviction: Junk Science - Shaken Baby Syndrome 0:00:01.440 --> 0:00:04.160 Hey, folks, Kate Judson here. I'm a lawyer and the 0:00:04.200 --> 0:00:09.040 executive director of the Center for Integrity and Forensic Sciences. 0:00:10.360 --> 0:00:13.560 We're back with another episode of Junk Science, a series 0:00:13.600 --> 0:00:17.239 we first released in twenty twenty, but these stories are 0:00:17.440 --> 0:00:21.320 just as relevant as ever. This is the last episode 0:00:21.400 --> 0:00:24.240 of our series and one that's especially close to my heart. 0:00:24.760 --> 0:00:27.240 Shake and baby syndrome is one of the main focuses 0:00:27.240 --> 0:00:29.400 of my work, and I am interviewed in the episode 0:00:29.440 --> 0:00:32.519 you're about to hear. Shake and baby syndrome is a 0:00:32.520 --> 0:00:37.120 determination doctors make when a certain constellation of medical findings 0:00:37.280 --> 0:00:40.760 show up together in a child, and as we'll hear later, 0:00:41.159 --> 0:00:44.400 there are many reasons for these findings to show up together, 0:00:44.840 --> 0:00:51.680 not just child abuse. Shake and baby syndrome, also sometimes 0:00:51.720 --> 0:00:55.800 called abusive head trauma, isn't the only reliable science used 0:00:55.800 --> 0:00:58.680 to take kids away from their parents and lock up caregivers. 0:01:00.120 --> 0:01:04.679 Others similarly vague or poorly understood diagnoses have led to 0:01:04.680 --> 0:01:09.800 the separation and victimization of families. In these cases, the 0:01:09.959 --> 0:01:14.480 errors of medical and legal systems intertwine, creating a tangled 0:01:14.520 --> 0:01:17.399 mess that can be difficult to solve and heartbreaking for 0:01:17.560 --> 0:01:19.880 everyone involved. 0:01:24.040 --> 0:01:27.280 At six pm, and the usual controlled cast of the 0:01:27.360 --> 0:01:31.120 day is finally wound down. Most of your daylight hours 0:01:31.280 --> 0:01:34.520 are filled with the sounds of giggling kids and, yes, 0:01:34.600 --> 0:01:39.000 the occasional whining and tantrums. You've been a licensed childcare 0:01:39.000 --> 0:01:41.840 provider for the past fifteen years and you run a 0:01:41.920 --> 0:01:45.800 daycare center out of your house. You wave goodbye to 0:01:45.840 --> 0:01:48.080 the last toddler to get picked up by his dad 0:01:48.080 --> 0:01:52.120 from your doorway, then you head back inside. Your two 0:01:52.120 --> 0:01:55.520 middle schoolers are sitting at the kitchen table doing their homework, 0:01:55.960 --> 0:01:58.400 so you take advantage of the brief moment of quiet 0:01:58.600 --> 0:02:02.680 to start getting dinner ready. But the quiet doesn't last 0:02:02.720 --> 0:02:05.920 more than a few minutes. There's a knock on the door. 0:02:06.960 --> 0:02:09.080 You're sure it's one of the kid's parents picking up 0:02:09.120 --> 0:02:13.160 a missing toy, but your heart sinks to your stomach 0:02:13.600 --> 0:02:19.840 when you see that it's the police. You quickly open 0:02:19.919 --> 0:02:22.720 the door, worry that something might have happened to your husband, 0:02:22.800 --> 0:02:26.040 who hasn't gotten home from work yet. Hi, there is 0:02:26.200 --> 0:02:29.960 everything okay? You ask They ask you your name, and 0:02:30.000 --> 0:02:32.680 they say, ma'am, do you run a daycare out of 0:02:32.680 --> 0:02:36.600 this house? Yes? I do. What seems to be the 0:02:36.639 --> 0:02:41.360 problem you'll need to come with us. What do you 0:02:41.440 --> 0:02:44.040 mean I can right now. I'm getting dinner ready for 0:02:44.120 --> 0:02:47.359 my kids. Ma'am. You don't understand. You need to turn 0:02:47.440 --> 0:02:49.880 around and put your hands behind your back. You're under arrest. 0:02:50.919 --> 0:02:56.080 You'll feel the cold handcuffs tighten around your wrists. What 0:02:56.240 --> 0:02:59.880 is this all about. There's a child in your care name. 0:03:00.680 --> 0:03:04.160 You know who Maria is, ma'am. She died from brain 0:03:04.240 --> 0:03:06.799 injuries after spending the day in your care. So I'm 0:03:06.800 --> 0:03:13.040 gonna read you your rights. You're speechless, Maria, that little 0:03:13.120 --> 0:03:16.359 girl who spent one session at your daycare months ago. 0:03:17.080 --> 0:03:20.640 You can't compute, but you're a mom, and so you 0:03:20.720 --> 0:03:22.840 leap into action for your kids. You don't want to 0:03:22.880 --> 0:03:25.480 scare them, so you try to prevent your voice from 0:03:25.560 --> 0:03:28.760 cracking as you call them over. You tell your fourteen 0:03:28.800 --> 0:03:32.400 year old look after your little brother. Call your dad, 0:03:32.880 --> 0:03:35.400 he'll be here soon. Tell him not to worry, and 0:03:35.440 --> 0:03:38.119 you don't worry. This is all going to work out. 0:03:39.240 --> 0:03:41.600 You put on a brave face for them, and you 0:03:41.640 --> 0:03:44.200 try not to panic as one of the officers pushes 0:03:44.280 --> 0:03:47.280 your head down in that classic move that leads a 0:03:47.320 --> 0:03:50.880 suspect into the back of a police car. Your world 0:03:50.960 --> 0:03:55.000 has turned upside down in an instant. As the police 0:03:55.000 --> 0:03:58.800 car pulls away from your house and down the street 0:03:59.080 --> 0:04:11.200 toward the County gi you sit in jail before your 0:04:11.280 --> 0:04:14.040 trial and replay the events of the day. You watch 0:04:14.120 --> 0:04:18.640 Maria over and over again in your head. You were 0:04:18.680 --> 0:04:21.640 sitting on the carpet helping one of the little boys 0:04:21.720 --> 0:04:24.400 get a train rolling on its tracks when there was 0:04:24.400 --> 0:04:27.560 a knock at the door. You answered it and you 0:04:27.600 --> 0:04:30.000 saw a smiling baby in the arms of her mother. 0:04:31.320 --> 0:04:34.760 This must be Maria, you said, smiling at the toddler. 0:04:35.680 --> 0:04:38.080 You took Maria from her mother's arms and helped the 0:04:38.080 --> 0:04:40.840 little girl wave goodbye with her tiny hand while her 0:04:40.880 --> 0:04:45.120 mom pulled out of the driveway. Maria was happy and 0:04:45.200 --> 0:04:49.680 playful all day until about noon. She started crying, and 0:04:50.240 --> 0:04:53.839 you recognize that as the telltale sign of a tired baby. 0:04:54.720 --> 0:04:57.000 You put her down for a nap, and a few 0:04:57.040 --> 0:05:01.160 hours later Maria's mom came back. Maria was still sleeping. 0:05:02.080 --> 0:05:04.800 You watched her pick Maria up from the crib, trying 0:05:04.800 --> 0:05:08.320 not to wake her. Maria slept on her mom's shoulder 0:05:08.360 --> 0:05:10.960 the whole way to the car. You watched as they 0:05:10.960 --> 0:05:15.200 pulled out of the driveway. That's everything you can remember 0:05:15.240 --> 0:05:19.520 from that day, but that's not what happened. What you 0:05:19.680 --> 0:05:22.800 didn't know is that when Maria and her mother pulled 0:05:22.839 --> 0:05:25.880 up to their home, Maria was slumped over in her 0:05:25.920 --> 0:05:29.200 car seat, her head almost in her lap, and she'd 0:05:29.360 --> 0:05:33.960 thrown up all over herself. Maria wouldn't wake up, so 0:05:34.040 --> 0:05:35.880 her mom called nine to one one and she was 0:05:36.000 --> 0:05:39.520 rushed to the hospital. The doctor said that the baby's 0:05:39.560 --> 0:05:44.960 brain was bleeding and swollen, and her blood sugar was high. 0:05:45.320 --> 0:05:48.960 The doctors frantically worked on her, trying to revive her, 0:05:49.560 --> 0:05:54.000 but eventually Maria was put on life support. She died 0:05:54.040 --> 0:05:59.560 about a week later. Approximately two months after that, the 0:05:59.600 --> 0:06:04.520 police showed up at your house and arrested you. Sitting 0:06:04.560 --> 0:06:07.719 in your jail cell, you're paralyzed by the horror of 0:06:07.800 --> 0:06:12.120 all this. One family lost their baby, and your kids 0:06:12.120 --> 0:06:15.320 are at home wondering if their mother will be around 0:06:15.360 --> 0:06:22.120 to watch them grow up. Now it's the day of 0:06:22.160 --> 0:06:27.000 your trial. Your lawyer doesn't dispute that bleeding and swelling 0:06:27.000 --> 0:06:30.120 of Maria's brain caused her death, but there was no 0:06:30.200 --> 0:06:33.840 evidence that it was caused by anything you did. There 0:06:33.920 --> 0:06:38.039 was no evidence whatsoever that you abused Maria in any way. 0:06:39.000 --> 0:06:42.120 She didn't have any broken bones, no injuries to her 0:06:42.200 --> 0:06:46.000 neck or spinal column or anything like that. And there was, 0:06:46.040 --> 0:06:49.880 in fact another explanation for Maria's injuries. When she had 0:06:49.880 --> 0:06:52.640 been admitted to the hospital, her blood sugar level was 0:06:52.720 --> 0:06:55.719 four times higher than what was considered to be normal, 0:06:56.279 --> 0:06:59.440 and so it was possible that Maria's brain injuries may 0:06:59.480 --> 0:07:03.480 have been caused by an undiagnosed metabolic disorder like diabetes. 0:07:04.520 --> 0:07:07.880 But when the prosecution makes its case, the pain and 0:07:08.040 --> 0:07:12.080 mystery around Maria's death is sharpened to a fine point. 0:07:13.040 --> 0:07:16.400 A child abuse specialist takes the stand and tells the 0:07:16.480 --> 0:07:19.200 jury that Maria had bleeding and swelling in her brain 0:07:19.640 --> 0:07:23.239 and bleeding behind her eyes. Let me make it clear, 0:07:23.480 --> 0:07:27.720 the expert witness said, these injuries mean that Maria incurred 0:07:27.760 --> 0:07:31.520 physical abuse associated with trauma to the head. There is 0:07:31.560 --> 0:07:35.440 no other way these injuries could have occurred. You sit 0:07:35.520 --> 0:07:39.240 there next to your defense attorney and your heart starts 0:07:39.240 --> 0:07:43.560 beating fast, your sweating. You know what she's saying can't 0:07:43.600 --> 0:07:47.080 be true. You've been watching kids for your entire adult life. 0:07:47.600 --> 0:07:52.560 You would never, you have never hurt a child. And 0:07:52.640 --> 0:07:55.440 yet you know that if you were a member of 0:07:55.440 --> 0:07:59.280 that jury and you heard this testimony from this doctor, 0:08:00.080 --> 0:08:03.559 that you would probably believe it too. You would also 0:08:03.600 --> 0:08:05.800 want to be able to hold someone accountable for the 0:08:05.800 --> 0:08:11.320 death of this innocent child. When the jury goes into 0:08:11.360 --> 0:08:14.440 their deliberations, you're not just worried about the outcome of 0:08:14.480 --> 0:08:18.400 your trial. Your heart is also broken for Maria's family. 0:08:19.440 --> 0:08:21.240 You know you'll never be able to wrap your head 0:08:21.280 --> 0:08:24.440 around their grief, but you also know that putting an 0:08:24.440 --> 0:08:29.360 innocent person in prison won't bring their baby back. After 0:08:29.520 --> 0:08:32.680 just two days of deliberating, the jury comes back with 0:08:32.720 --> 0:08:36.360 a guilty verdict. You bury your face in your hands 0:08:36.520 --> 0:08:41.360 as the verdict has read. At your sentencing, the prosecution 0:08:41.520 --> 0:08:45.719 reads letters from Maria's family. Her mother had addressed one 0:08:45.760 --> 0:08:51.440 of them to you. It said, you killed my baby. Why? 0:08:51.720 --> 0:08:55.080 Why did you do this? I beg this chord to 0:08:55.120 --> 0:08:59.839 give you the maximum sentence possible. You are sentenced to 0:09:00.160 --> 0:09:09.920 fifteen years in prison for manslaughter. The story you just 0:09:09.960 --> 0:09:13.840 heard is loosely based on Stephanie Spurgeon's wrongful conviction in 0:09:13.840 --> 0:09:18.240 two thousand and eight. Innocent people have been convicted based 0:09:18.280 --> 0:09:22.920 on medical testimony, which claims that three symptoms bleeding of 0:09:22.960 --> 0:09:27.080 the brain, swelling of the brain, and bleeding behind the eyes, 0:09:27.679 --> 0:09:31.080 indicates a form of child abuse referred to as shaken 0:09:31.160 --> 0:09:36.240 baby syndrome, but this medical testimony has proven to be problematic. 0:09:37.480 --> 0:09:40.400 With the help of the Innocence Project and the Exoneration 0:09:40.600 --> 0:09:44.200 Project from the University of Chicago Law School, the evidence 0:09:44.240 --> 0:09:47.400 in Stephanie's case was re examined and she was released 0:09:47.400 --> 0:09:51.319 from prison in August twenty twenty. But many others are 0:09:51.360 --> 0:09:55.120 not as lucky and continue to serve sentences for crimes 0:09:55.120 --> 0:09:59.280 they did not commit. There's nothing more devastating than the 0:09:59.320 --> 0:10:02.640 death of a child. When a tragedy like that occurs, 0:10:02.679 --> 0:10:06.839 it's natural to want answers, how did this happen, who 0:10:06.880 --> 0:10:09.760 should we hold accountable for this, and what could have 0:10:09.800 --> 0:10:13.640 been done to prevent it. What might be most difficult 0:10:13.640 --> 0:10:17.359 for jurors to accept is that the death was completely accidental, 0:10:18.000 --> 0:10:20.760 that there was nothing anyone did to cause it, and 0:10:20.880 --> 0:10:26.560 nothing could have been done to stop it. I'm Josh Dubin, 0:10:26.840 --> 0:10:30.480 civil rights and criminal defense attorney, an Innocent ambassador to 0:10:30.520 --> 0:10:34.600 the Innocence Project in New York. Today on wrongful conviction, 0:10:34.760 --> 0:10:38.400 junk science we'll explore how what's known as shaken baby 0:10:38.440 --> 0:10:42.480 syndrome has been used to falsely implicate people in crimes 0:10:42.520 --> 0:10:46.280 that they did not commit. It turns out that shaken 0:10:46.360 --> 0:10:50.920 baby syndrome isn't a full proof diagnosis. There are many 0:10:50.960 --> 0:10:54.480 other causes for the symptoms of shaken baby syndrome that 0:10:54.559 --> 0:11:08.280 do not arise from intentionally shaking a baby. In nineteen 0:11:08.400 --> 0:11:12.960 sixty nine, two scientists put a live reciss monkey under 0:11:13.000 --> 0:11:17.000 anesthesia and strapped it to a chair made of fiberglass. 0:11:17.720 --> 0:11:20.960 The fiberglass chair was then attached to roller skate wheels. 0:11:22.080 --> 0:11:26.600 When the tiny car accelerated and then decelerated quickly, the 0:11:26.640 --> 0:11:31.400 passenger's head that is, the monkey's head, was flung backwards 0:11:31.760 --> 0:11:36.680 then quickly snapped forward. Scientists wanted to study the effect 0:11:36.720 --> 0:11:40.440 of whiplash during a car crash, so the tiny car 0:11:40.600 --> 0:11:43.800 with the little monkey passenger was designed to mimic the 0:11:43.840 --> 0:11:47.679 movement of a car during a rear end collision. Of 0:11:47.720 --> 0:11:50.560 the fifty monkeys that took a ride in the whiplash car, 0:11:51.400 --> 0:11:56.120 nineteen of them sustained a concussion. The study proved that 0:11:56.360 --> 0:11:59.679 direct impact from a hard surface to the head isn't 0:11:59.679 --> 0:12:04.200 necessary to cause traumatic brain injuries. The human brain can 0:12:04.280 --> 0:12:07.960 be injured just from a head being violently jerked back 0:12:08.000 --> 0:12:12.160 and forth, causing the brain to rattle around inside the skull. 0:12:13.440 --> 0:12:17.720 This study had important repercussions for car safety. It's part 0:12:17.760 --> 0:12:20.439 of the reason why cars are supposed to have headrests 0:12:20.760 --> 0:12:23.920 to prevent brain injuries due to whiplash during an accident. 0:12:24.920 --> 0:12:29.360 But this study also interested a British pediatric neurosurgeon named 0:12:29.400 --> 0:12:34.880 Norman Guthkelch. Now, Doctor Guthkelch had been noticing infants coming 0:12:34.920 --> 0:12:39.240 into his office with no outward signs of abuse, no bruising, 0:12:39.520 --> 0:12:43.280 no broken bones, but they had bleeding around their brain. 0:12:44.559 --> 0:12:47.920 He wondered if these children had been getting whiplash not 0:12:48.040 --> 0:12:52.920 from a car crash, but from their parents and caregivers. Now, 0:12:53.000 --> 0:12:56.360 at the time in Northern England, shaking babies was a 0:12:56.480 --> 0:13:01.320 socially acceptable way of calming, quieting, and even disciplining a 0:13:01.360 --> 0:13:05.920 fussy baby. In fact, when doctor Guthkelch saw children with 0:13:05.960 --> 0:13:09.439 bleeding around their brain, he asked parents if they sometimes 0:13:09.440 --> 0:13:14.120 shook their child. Many parents readily confess they would say yes. 0:13:14.559 --> 0:13:17.200 Johnny wouldn't stop crying, so I gave him a good 0:13:17.200 --> 0:13:22.880 shaking doctor guth Kelch suspected that shaking an infant mimicked 0:13:22.920 --> 0:13:27.000 the motion of whiplash, and so he wrote a short 0:13:27.120 --> 0:13:31.199 two page paper. It said that trauma to a baby's brain, 0:13:31.800 --> 0:13:34.600 even when no other signs of physical abuse were present, 0:13:35.320 --> 0:13:39.480 may in fact be caused by violent shaking. Doctor guth 0:13:39.559 --> 0:13:42.320 Kelch never claimed that there might not be other causes 0:13:42.320 --> 0:13:46.720 of bleeding around the brain. He simply hypothesized that shaking 0:13:47.040 --> 0:13:49.920 might be the cause of it. His hope was that 0:13:50.000 --> 0:13:53.040 doctors who read his study would help teach parents to 0:13:53.120 --> 0:13:58.040 handle their infants more gently to avoid accidental harm. After 0:13:58.120 --> 0:14:02.080 doctor guth Kelch's article was published, other doctors continue to 0:14:02.120 --> 0:14:06.280 research this issue. They found that three symptoms in particular 0:14:06.559 --> 0:14:11.920 were associated with shaking a baby. These symptoms were subdural hematoma, 0:14:12.640 --> 0:14:18.000 retinal hemorrhage, and cerebral edema that is bleeding around the brain, 0:14:18.679 --> 0:14:23.800 bleeding behind the eyes, and brain swelling. These three symptoms 0:14:23.880 --> 0:14:28.240 became known as the quote classic triad, the signs that 0:14:28.280 --> 0:14:31.240 are said to be an indicator of shaken baby syndrome. 0:14:32.320 --> 0:14:36.160 The problem is that these three symptoms became synonymous with 0:14:36.240 --> 0:14:40.680 shaken baby syndrome. If these three symptoms were present, it 0:14:40.760 --> 0:14:44.000 was thought that a parent or caretaker must have intentionally 0:14:44.040 --> 0:14:48.040 shaken their infant, and so when parents showed up to 0:14:48.080 --> 0:14:51.440 the hospital with a sick child who exhibited some or 0:14:51.600 --> 0:14:55.000 all of the symptoms of the triad, their children were 0:14:55.040 --> 0:14:58.640 taken away from them. The parents were put on trial, 0:14:59.160 --> 0:15:02.880 and they were sometimes convicted of abusing or even killing 0:15:02.920 --> 0:15:07.040 their own child. As parents started to be accused of 0:15:07.160 --> 0:15:11.080 child abuse based solely on the hypothesis of shaking baby syndrome, 0:15:11.640 --> 0:15:15.080 doctor Gothkelch knew he had to do something he never 0:15:15.120 --> 0:15:17.240 meant for his short paper to be used as a 0:15:17.280 --> 0:15:20.600 tool for prosecution. The whole point of his paper was 0:15:20.640 --> 0:15:25.640 to help parents, not criminalize them. Doctor Guthkelch continued to 0:15:25.680 --> 0:15:29.400 fight for wrongfully convicted parents and caregivers up until he 0:15:29.440 --> 0:15:33.440 died in twenty sixteen at the ripe age of one 0:15:33.520 --> 0:15:35.040 hundred and one years old. 0:15:40.640 --> 0:15:42.760 No one was really suggesting that this should be a 0:15:42.880 --> 0:15:48.440 mechanism for prosecuting anyone. They acknowledged, and you know, pretty 0:15:48.440 --> 0:15:52.520 clearly articulated that what they were talking about was a 0:15:52.600 --> 0:15:57.000 hypothesis about why children might have these findings. But it 0:15:57.080 --> 0:15:59.560 then started to be used as a paradigm for prosecution, 0:16:00.040 --> 0:16:04.280 and that's really where it runs into trouble because instead 0:16:04.440 --> 0:16:08.400 of continuing to research and look for answers, physicians and 0:16:08.480 --> 0:16:13.360 prosecutors started to accept it without looking further into the 0:16:13.400 --> 0:16:15.400 kinds of claims that experts were making about it. 0:16:16.520 --> 0:16:20.480 Today on our show, we're speaking with Kate Judson. Kate 0:16:20.760 --> 0:16:24.200 is the executive director for the Center for Integrity and 0:16:24.240 --> 0:16:27.160 Forensic Sciences, and she was one of the lawyers who 0:16:27.200 --> 0:16:31.720 represented Stephanie Spurgeon, whose story we discussed at the beginning 0:16:31.760 --> 0:16:35.400 of our show. So to start tell us about what 0:16:35.520 --> 0:16:41.000 we should understand about the difference between shaking baby syndrome 0:16:41.200 --> 0:16:45.120 as a hypothesis rather than as a diagnosis. 0:16:46.520 --> 0:16:48.240 I think there are a lot of ways in which 0:16:48.240 --> 0:16:54.000 it differs significantly from other medical diagnoses. So child abuse 0:16:54.120 --> 0:16:57.680 and particularly shaken baby syndrome is much more a determination 0:16:57.760 --> 0:17:02.080 of etiology of how somebody got the medical findings then 0:17:02.120 --> 0:17:05.840 the medical findings themselves. So the kinds of findings that 0:17:05.880 --> 0:17:08.400 are often attributed to child abuse in shaken baby syndrome 0:17:08.440 --> 0:17:11.280 and abusive head trauma cases can be due to trauma, 0:17:11.560 --> 0:17:14.320 but it isn't always, so there are medical conditions that 0:17:14.320 --> 0:17:17.199 can cause these kinds of medical findings as well, and 0:17:17.280 --> 0:17:22.680 so sometimes the evidence of actual innocence is new medical 0:17:22.760 --> 0:17:26.280 opinions that support the idea that the child had a 0:17:26.320 --> 0:17:28.840 disease or another kind of condition that led to their 0:17:28.880 --> 0:17:31.600 medical findings, rather than any kind of trauma or abuse. 0:17:32.240 --> 0:17:35.480 So let's back off for a second to when this 0:17:35.560 --> 0:17:38.800 first started to be used at trial. How did this 0:17:39.040 --> 0:17:44.959 diagnosis become something that prosecutors were able to weaponize against defendants. 0:17:46.280 --> 0:17:49.919 Part of what makes it seductive if you're trying to 0:17:50.000 --> 0:17:57.000 protect children and punish wrongdoing is that it seemed at 0:17:57.000 --> 0:18:02.560 the time very definitive. Pyusicians were saying, if a child 0:18:02.800 --> 0:18:05.959 has this set of injuries, they have been abused, and 0:18:06.000 --> 0:18:08.960 that abuse consisted of shaking, and we know that, and 0:18:09.000 --> 0:18:12.840 there are no exceptions, or very very few exceptions. I mean, 0:18:12.880 --> 0:18:15.160 in fact, at the time, there are plenty of transcripts 0:18:15.160 --> 0:18:19.000 available where physicians said nothing else causes this, right, and 0:18:19.119 --> 0:18:23.280 so it gives a very clear and definitive answer. No 0:18:23.320 --> 0:18:26.560 one has to wonder in the face of such an answer, 0:18:26.840 --> 0:18:29.480 what happened to a child who died, who previously would 0:18:29.480 --> 0:18:32.800 have no explanation for their death. It's definitive, it's clear 0:18:33.320 --> 0:18:37.399 and frankly, really effective in court, often resulting in a 0:18:37.400 --> 0:18:40.800 conviction almost all the time. So I think that it 0:18:41.400 --> 0:18:44.600 gave people who were involved in the criminal legal system 0:18:44.640 --> 0:18:49.760 the impression that they were successfully locking up people who 0:18:50.280 --> 0:18:53.280 were dangerous who had murdered a child. And it turns 0:18:53.280 --> 0:19:02.000 out it's not that straightforward. 0:19:07.000 --> 0:19:09.800 So tell us more about other ways a child can 0:19:09.840 --> 0:19:12.720 come to have the same kind of symptoms or the 0:19:12.760 --> 0:19:16.399 same sort of trauma that are usually associated with shaking 0:19:16.480 --> 0:19:17.240 baby syndrome. 0:19:18.480 --> 0:19:24.359 There are things like infection, serious infection, genetic disorders, problems 0:19:24.400 --> 0:19:28.679 with blood clotting, certain kinds of tumors, certain kinds of 0:19:28.720 --> 0:19:32.200 blood cloths, you know, like a pediatric stroke. There are 0:19:32.359 --> 0:19:36.200 cases where the medical findings are thought to have arisen 0:19:36.320 --> 0:19:41.640 after events like choking. But what really started to come 0:19:41.640 --> 0:19:46.160 to light in twenty sixteen there was a report done 0:19:46.160 --> 0:19:50.000 by the Swedish government that looked at medical literature that 0:19:50.080 --> 0:19:53.600 discussed you know what is colloquially called the triad that 0:19:53.880 --> 0:19:57.480 the combination of subdralhematoma, rental hemorrhage, and cerebral edema, and 0:19:58.000 --> 0:20:01.119 looked at children who were diagnosed as and studies of 0:20:01.240 --> 0:20:04.080 children who were diagnosed as being abused based on those findings. 0:20:04.359 --> 0:20:06.840 What they found was that the data was not there, 0:20:06.960 --> 0:20:09.280 that it was very incomplete, and they recommended that the 0:20:09.280 --> 0:20:13.160 Swedish government no longer prosecute people under that paradigm. And 0:20:13.359 --> 0:20:17.000 the reaction that that got from, you know, child advocates 0:20:17.000 --> 0:20:21.119 and child abust pediatricians was simply to attack the people 0:20:21.119 --> 0:20:25.359 who did the report. You know, there's been a real 0:20:25.600 --> 0:20:30.200 lack of serious engagement around the failings in the literature 0:20:30.240 --> 0:20:34.040 that everybody knows are there, and so that is really 0:20:34.040 --> 0:20:36.160 a shame and that's not how science progresses, and that's 0:20:36.240 --> 0:20:40.920 not how people get fair trials. People who who are 0:20:41.480 --> 0:20:46.960 admirably concerned about protecting children have unfortunately written things like 0:20:47.119 --> 0:20:53.120 editorials in journals engaging in personal attacks instead of trying 0:20:53.160 --> 0:20:57.480 to figure out how to best approach these kinds of cases. 0:20:58.119 --> 0:21:01.359 And that's part of what makes studies and being critical 0:21:01.800 --> 0:21:06.080 of the shaken baby hypothesis really difficult. People often assume 0:21:06.160 --> 0:21:09.240 that critics of shaken baby syndrome are trying to side 0:21:09.560 --> 0:21:14.800 with child abusers, and of course that's not the case. Researchers, doctors, 0:21:14.960 --> 0:21:18.240 lawyers who are critical of shaking baby syndrome are just 0:21:18.640 --> 0:21:22.560 trying to make sure that people don't get accused of 0:21:23.119 --> 0:21:27.679 crimes they didn't commit based on misleading evidence. And on 0:21:27.760 --> 0:21:30.560 the other side of this battle, there are well meaning 0:21:30.600 --> 0:21:35.399 people who are trying to protect children from abuse. I 0:21:35.480 --> 0:21:39.040 know that expert witnesses and cases involving child abuse are 0:21:39.080 --> 0:21:42.760 often doctors, So tell us more about that. Who are 0:21:42.840 --> 0:21:47.000 the doctors who testify during these cases for the prosecution 0:21:47.240 --> 0:21:48.119 as experts? 0:21:49.320 --> 0:21:53.400 So there are different kinds of physicians. They're not always 0:21:53.680 --> 0:21:57.080 child abuse pediatricians, but they frequently are child abuse pediatricians. 0:21:57.160 --> 0:22:00.800 There are about three hundred child abuse pediatricians in the 0:22:00.880 --> 0:22:05.520 United States. It's a new subspecialty. I believe the first 0:22:05.600 --> 0:22:08.480 child abuse pediatricians were board certified in twenty eleven, so 0:22:08.520 --> 0:22:12.440 it's quite new. So their job is to evaluate children 0:22:12.800 --> 0:22:15.679 in hospitals or clinics for child abuse and yes, to 0:22:15.760 --> 0:22:20.360 testify in cases or to create reports for law enforcement 0:22:20.359 --> 0:22:21.439 agencies for the courts. 0:22:21.880 --> 0:22:25.480 So that's interesting. I guess talking about biases, I could 0:22:25.480 --> 0:22:29.359 imagine that someone who's trained to look for child abuse 0:22:29.440 --> 0:22:32.719 could just start seeing abuse everywhere. It's what they know, 0:22:32.800 --> 0:22:35.760 it's what they study, it's what they look for. They think, 0:22:36.040 --> 0:22:38.080 you know, this is a symptom that comes up with 0:22:38.160 --> 0:22:41.920 people who are victims of abuse, so it must be abused. 0:22:41.920 --> 0:22:44.479 It's you know, becomes difficult to see outside of your 0:22:44.480 --> 0:22:48.679 own tunnel vision. And so when a medical specialty is 0:22:48.760 --> 0:22:52.960 geared directly towards one conclusion or looking out for one thing, 0:22:53.080 --> 0:22:57.200 of course, even with the best of intentions, it could 0:22:57.240 --> 0:23:01.080 be easy for these doctors to get tunnel vision right. 0:23:02.240 --> 0:23:06.879 That's a real concern when analysts are, for example, embedded 0:23:07.520 --> 0:23:10.080 with law enforcement. When the crime lab is part of 0:23:10.080 --> 0:23:14.040 the police department, for example, we see this role affects bias. 0:23:14.240 --> 0:23:16.720 Analysts start to see themselves as part of the law 0:23:16.800 --> 0:23:21.040 enforcement team rather than as an objective, independent scientist. But 0:23:21.119 --> 0:23:25.800 the same issue was present when child abuse pediatricians are 0:23:25.880 --> 0:23:29.960 part of a child abuse team, especially when those teams 0:23:31.040 --> 0:23:36.520 involve police and investigators and prosecutors and don't involve people, 0:23:36.560 --> 0:23:39.479 for example, from the defense bar. And since they're all 0:23:39.560 --> 0:23:42.400 human beings, it's not unreasonable to say that the same 0:23:42.440 --> 0:23:46.160 concerns we have about analysts housed within a police station 0:23:46.280 --> 0:23:49.119 or who work very closely with police and prosecutors, that 0:23:49.359 --> 0:23:52.160 other kinds of experts might be subject to those same biases. 0:23:52.840 --> 0:23:55.480 I think another reason that there are so many wrongful 0:23:55.480 --> 0:24:03.080 convictions when people are accused of abuse, is that everybody involved, jurors, lawyers, 0:24:03.440 --> 0:24:06.160 the doctors, they don't want to get it wrong because, 0:24:06.480 --> 0:24:10.199 let's just face it, setting a potential child abuse are 0:24:10.240 --> 0:24:13.720 free is a scary proposition. The stakes are very high 0:24:13.760 --> 0:24:14.560 in these cases. 0:24:15.880 --> 0:24:21.520 So really often I hear people respond to these concerns, 0:24:21.560 --> 0:24:25.159 particularly people who are who are working in kind of 0:24:25.160 --> 0:24:28.199 the child abuse field, respond to these concerns about wrongful 0:24:28.200 --> 0:24:30.679 convictions by saying, well, we just want to air on 0:24:30.800 --> 0:24:33.520 the side of the child, right, But in these kinds 0:24:33.520 --> 0:24:36.760 of cases there's really no way to do that. Any 0:24:36.920 --> 0:24:40.840 error is harmful. This idea that you can air safely 0:24:40.880 --> 0:24:43.000 on the side of the child is a false one. 0:24:43.040 --> 0:24:46.080 And that's because if you get this wrong. If a 0:24:46.160 --> 0:24:49.800 child is being diagnosed as or being determined to have 0:24:49.840 --> 0:24:52.560 been abused and they haven't been, a couple of things 0:24:52.640 --> 0:24:56.679 can happen. One is that a child can be deprived 0:24:56.720 --> 0:25:01.520 of a loving home and separated from loving parents and caregivers. 0:25:01.840 --> 0:25:04.960 And studies have shown over and over and over again 0:25:05.280 --> 0:25:09.199 that separating children from their family is traumatic. It is 0:25:09.640 --> 0:25:14.000 sometimes a necessary harm, but it is always harmful. 0:25:14.320 --> 0:25:17.880 Even for people who are just accused of child abuse 0:25:18.600 --> 0:25:21.640 and they don't get convicted, but just have to go 0:25:21.760 --> 0:25:27.520 through the trial. That in itself can be so damaging 0:25:27.640 --> 0:25:29.480 to children and their families. 0:25:30.520 --> 0:25:34.120 I mean it's anecdotal, but I pretty frequently hear from 0:25:34.160 --> 0:25:37.320 families who say, like, we're really grateful that nobody in 0:25:37.359 --> 0:25:39.640 our family was convicted, but our kids are still suffering 0:25:39.640 --> 0:25:42.199 all kinds of harm and problems from the trauma that 0:25:42.240 --> 0:25:46.080 was inflicted upon them just from even a brief separation. 0:25:46.840 --> 0:25:51.159 So there may very well be good reason reasons to 0:25:51.240 --> 0:25:54.720 separate families, But what we can't do is go to 0:25:54.800 --> 0:25:59.040 court and say that the abuse is more definitive than 0:25:59.040 --> 0:26:01.960 the science actually supp if that makes sense. The other 0:26:02.080 --> 0:26:06.680 problem is that when these cases are not medically investigated carefully, 0:26:06.960 --> 0:26:09.320 there is the chance that a child will be classified 0:26:09.320 --> 0:26:13.320 as having been abused when they actually have a serious illness, 0:26:13.920 --> 0:26:17.000 and that is also really problematic can potentially lead to 0:26:17.080 --> 0:26:20.440 more harm or even death because of that misdiagnosis. 0:26:21.080 --> 0:26:25.399 It seems almost unlikely that evidence in child abuse cases 0:26:25.440 --> 0:26:28.480 can be similar to other forensic disciplines that we've talked 0:26:28.480 --> 0:26:31.639 about on our show, But it turns out that the 0:26:31.680 --> 0:26:36.560 same tactics used to convict people based on faulty pattern 0:26:36.600 --> 0:26:40.680 matching evidence, for example, is really the same thing we're 0:26:40.720 --> 0:26:44.680 dealing with here. In instances of you know, alleged. 0:26:44.359 --> 0:26:48.240