Speaker 1: At six pm, and the usual controlled cast of the
Speaker 1: day is finally wound down. Most of your daylight hours
Speaker 1: or filled with the sounds of giggling kids and, yes,
Speaker 1: the occasional winding and tantrums. You've been a licensed childcare
Speaker 1: provider for the past fifteen years and you run a
Speaker 1: daycare center out of your house. You waved goodbye to
Speaker 1: the last toddler to get picked up by his dad
Speaker 1: from your doorway, then you head back inside. Your two
Speaker 1: middle schoolers are sitting at the kitchen table doing their homework,
Speaker 1: so you take advantage of the brief moment of quiet
Speaker 1: to start getting dinner ready. But the quiet doesn't last
Speaker 1: more than a few minutes. There's a knock on the door.
Speaker 1: You're sure it's one of the kid's parents picking up
Speaker 1: a missing toy, but your heart sinks to your stomach
Speaker 1: when you see that it's the police. You quickly opened
Speaker 1: the door, worried that something might have happened to your husband,
Speaker 1: who hasn't gotten home from work yet. Hi, there is
Speaker 1: everything okay. You ask They ask you your name, and
Speaker 1: they say, ma'am, do you run a daycare out of
Speaker 1: this house? Yes? I do. What seems to be the problem.
Speaker 1: You'll need to come with us. What do you mean
Speaker 1: I can't right now. I'm getting dinner ready for my kids, ma'am.
Speaker 1: You don't understand. You need to turn around and put
Speaker 1: your hands behind your back. You're under arrest. You'll feel
Speaker 1: the cold handcuffs tighten around your wrists. What is this
Speaker 1: all about. There's a child in your care named Maria.
Speaker 1: You know who Maria is, ma'am. She died from brain
Speaker 1: injuries after spending the day in your care. So I'm
Speaker 1: gonna read you your rights. You're speechless, Maria, that little
Speaker 1: girl who spent one session at your daycare months ago.
Speaker 1: You can't compute. But you're a mom, and so you
Speaker 1: leap into action for your kids. You don't want to
Speaker 1: scare them, so you try to prevent your voice from
Speaker 1: cracking as you call them over. You tell your fourteen
Speaker 1: year old look after your little brother. Call your dad,
Speaker 1: he'll be here soon. Tell him not to worry, and
Speaker 1: you don't worry. This is all gonna work out. You
Speaker 1: put on a brave face for them, and you try
Speaker 1: not to panic as one of the officers pushes your
Speaker 1: head down and that classic move that leads to suspect
Speaker 1: into the back of a police car. Your world has
Speaker 1: turned upside down in an instant. As the police car
Speaker 1: pulls away from your house and down the street towards
Speaker 1: the county jail. You sit in jail before your trial
Speaker 1: and replay the events of the day. You watch Maria
Speaker 1: over and over again in your head. You were sitting
Speaker 1: on the carpet helping one of the little boys get
Speaker 1: a train rolling on its tracks when there was a
Speaker 1: knock at the door. You answered it and you saw
Speaker 1: a smiling baby in the arms of her mother. This
Speaker 1: must be Maria, you said, smiling at the toddler. You
Speaker 1: took Maria from her mother's arms and helped the little
Speaker 1: girl wave goodbye with her tiny hand while her mom
Speaker 1: pulled out of the driveway. Maria was happy and playful
Speaker 1: all day and un till about noon she started crying,
Speaker 1: and you recognize that as the telltale sign of a
Speaker 1: tired baby. You put her down for a nap, and
Speaker 1: a few hours later Maria's mom came back. Maria was
Speaker 1: still sleeping. You watched her picked Maria up from the crib,
Speaker 1: trying not to wake her. Maria slept on her mom's
Speaker 1: shoulder the whole way to the car. You watched this
Speaker 1: they pulled out of the driveway. That's everything you can
Speaker 1: remember from that day, but that's not what happened. What
Speaker 1: you didn't know is that when Maria and her mother
Speaker 1: pulled up to their home, Maria was slumped over in
Speaker 1: her car seat, her head almost in her lap, and
Speaker 1: she's thrown up all over herself. Maria wouldn't wake up,
Speaker 1: so her mom called nine one one and she was
Speaker 1: rushed to the hospital. The doctor said that the baby's
Speaker 1: brain was bleeding and swollen, and her blood sugar was high.
Speaker 1: The doctor's frantically worked on her, trying to revive her,
Speaker 1: but eventually Maria was put on life support. She died
Speaker 1: about a week later. Approximately two months after that, the
Speaker 1: police showed up at your house and arrested you. Sitting
Speaker 1: in your jail cell, you're paralyzed by the horror of
Speaker 1: all this. One family lost their baby, and your kids
Speaker 1: are at home wondering if their mother will be around
Speaker 1: to watch them grow up. Now it's the day of
Speaker 1: your trial. Your lawyer doesn't dispute that bleeding and swelling
Speaker 1: of Maria's brain caused her death, but there was no
Speaker 1: evidence that it was caused by anything you did. There
Speaker 1: was no evidence whatsoever that you abused Maria in any way.
Speaker 1: She didn't have any broken bones, no injuries to her
Speaker 1: neck or spinal column or anything like that. And there was,
Speaker 1: in fact another explanation for Maria's injuries. When she had
Speaker 1: been admitted to the hospital, her blood sugar level was
Speaker 1: four times higher than what was considered to be normal,
Speaker 1: and so it was possible that Maria's brain injuries may
Speaker 1: have been caused by an undiagnosed metabolic disorder like diabetes.
Speaker 1: But when the prosecution makes its case, the pain and
Speaker 1: mystery around Maria's death is sharpened to a fine point.
Speaker 1: A child abused specialist takes the stand and tells the
Speaker 1: jury that Maria had bleeding and swelling in her brain
Speaker 1: and bleeding behind her eyes. Let me make it clear,
Speaker 1: the expert witness said, these injuries mean that Maria incurred
Speaker 1: physical abuse associated with trauma to the head. There's no
Speaker 1: other way these injuries could have occurred. You sit there
Speaker 1: next to your defense attorney and your heart starts beating fast.
Speaker 1: You're sweating. You know what she's saying can't be true.
Speaker 1: You've been watching kids for your entire adult life. You
Speaker 1: would never you have never heard a child, and yet
Speaker 1: you know that if you were a member of that
Speaker 1: jury and you heard this testimony from this doctor, that
Speaker 1: you would probably believe it too. You would also want
Speaker 1: to be able to hold someone accountable for the death
Speaker 1: of this innocent child. When the jury goes into their deliberations,
Speaker 1: you're not just worried about the outcome of your trial.
Speaker 1: Your heart is also broken from Maria's family. You know
Speaker 1: you'll never be able to wrap your head around their grief.
Speaker 1: But you all also know that putting an innocent person
Speaker 1: in prison won't bring their baby back. After just two
Speaker 1: days of deliberating, the jury comes back with a guilty verdict.
Speaker 1: You bury your face in your hands as the verdict
Speaker 1: has read. At your sentencing, the prosecution reads letters from
Speaker 1: Maria's family. Her mother had addressed one of them to you.
Speaker 1: It said, you killed my baby? Why? Why did you
Speaker 1: do this? I beg this court to give you the
Speaker 1: maximum sentence possible. You were sentenced to fifteen years in
Speaker 1: prison for manslaughter. The story you just heard is loosely
Speaker 1: based on Stephanie Spurgeon's wrongful conviction in two thousand and eight.
Speaker 1: Innocent people have been convicted based on medical testimony which
Speaker 1: claims that three symptoms bleeding of the brain, swelling of
Speaker 1: the brain, and bleeding behind the eyes indicates a form
Speaker 1: of child abuse referred to as shaken baby syndrome. But
Speaker 1: this medical testimony has proven to be problematic. With the
Speaker 1: help of the Innocence Project and the Exoneration Project from
Speaker 1: the University of Chicago Law School, the evidence in Stephanie's
Speaker 1: case was re examined and she was released from prison
Speaker 1: in August, but many others are not as lucky and
Speaker 1: continue to serve sentences for crimes they did not commit.
Speaker 1: There's nothing more devastating than the death of a child.
Speaker 1: When a tragedy like that occurs, it's natural to want answers,
Speaker 1: how did this happen, who should we hold accountable for this,
Speaker 1: and what could have been done to prevent it. What
Speaker 1: might be most difficult for juris to accept is that
Speaker 1: the death was completely accidental, that there was nothing anyone
Speaker 1: did to cause it and nothing could have been done
Speaker 1: to stop it. I'm Josh Duben, civil rights and criminal
Speaker 1: defense attorney and innocence Ambassador to the Innocence Project in
Speaker 1: New York. Today on wrongful conviction. Junk Science will explore
Speaker 1: how what's known as shaken baby syndrome has been used
Speaker 1: to falsely implicate people in crimes that they did not commit.
Speaker 1: It turns out that shaken baby syndrome isn't a full
Speaker 1: proof diagnosis. There are many other causes for the symptoms
Speaker 1: of shaking baby syndrome that do not arise from intentionally
Speaker 1: shaking a baby. In nine two scientists put a live
Speaker 1: recess monkey under anesthesia and strapped it to a chair
Speaker 1: made of fiberglass. The fiberglass chair was then attached to
Speaker 1: roller skate wheels. When the tiny car acceller rated and
Speaker 1: then decelerated quickly, the passenger's head that is, the monkey's head,
Speaker 1: was flung backwards then quickly snapped forward. Scientists wanted to
Speaker 1: study the effect of whiplash during a car crash, so
Speaker 1: the tiny car with the little monkey passenger was designed
Speaker 1: to mimic the movement of a car during a rear
Speaker 1: end collision. Of the fifty monkeys that took a ride
Speaker 1: in the whiplash car, nineteen of them sustained a concussion.
Speaker 1: The study proved that direct impact from a hard surface
Speaker 1: to the head isn't necessary to cause traumatic brain injuries.
Speaker 1: The human brain can be injured just from a head
Speaker 1: being violently jerked back and forth, causing the brain to
Speaker 1: rattle around inside the skull. This study had important repercussions
Speaker 1: for car safety. It's part of the reason why cars
Speaker 1: are supposed to have headrests to prevent brain injuries due
Speaker 1: to whiplash during an accident. But this study also interested
Speaker 1: a British pediatric neurosurgeon named Norman guth Kelch. Now. Dr
Speaker 1: guth Kelch had been noticing infants coming into his office
Speaker 1: with no outward signs of abuse, no bruising, no broken bones,
Speaker 1: but they had bleeding around their brain. He wondered if
Speaker 1: these children had been getting whiplash not from a car crash,
Speaker 1: but from their parents and caregivers. Now, at the time
Speaker 1: in Northern England, shaking babies was a socially acceptable way
Speaker 1: of calming, quieting, and even disciplining a fussy baby. In fact,
Speaker 1: when Dr guth Kelch saw children with bleeding around their brain,
Speaker 1: he asked parents if they sometimes shook their child. Many
Speaker 1: parents readily confessed they would say yes, Johnny wouldn't stop crying,
Speaker 1: so I gave him a good shaking. Dr guth Kelch
Speaker 1: suspected that shaking an infant mimic the motion of whiplash,
Speaker 1: and so he wrote a short two page paper. It
Speaker 1: said that trauma to a baby's brain, even when no
Speaker 1: other signs of physical abuse were present, may in fact
Speaker 1: be caused by violent shaking. Dr goth Kelch never claimed
Speaker 1: that there might not be other causes of bleeding around
Speaker 1: the brain. He simply hypothesized that shaking might be the
Speaker 1: cause of it. His hope was that doctors who read
Speaker 1: his study would help teach parents to handle their infants
Speaker 1: more gently to avoid accidental harm. After Dr goth Kelch's
Speaker 1: article was published, other doctors continue to research this issue.
Speaker 1: They found that three symptoms in particular were associated with
Speaker 1: shaking a baby. These symptoms were subdural humanitoma, retinal hemorrhage,
Speaker 1: and cerebral edema that is bleeding around the brain, bleeding
Speaker 1: behind the eyes, and brain swelling. These three ms became
Speaker 1: known as the quote classic triad, the signs that are
Speaker 1: said to be an indicator of shaken baby syndrome. The
Speaker 1: problem is that these three symptoms became synonymous with shaken
Speaker 1: baby syndrome. If these three symptoms were present, it was
Speaker 1: thought that a parent or caretaker must have intentionally shaken
Speaker 1: their infant, and so when parents showed up to the
Speaker 1: hospital with a sick child who exhibited some or all
Speaker 1: of the symptoms of the triad, their children were taken
Speaker 1: away from them. The parents were put on trial, and
Speaker 1: they were sometimes convicted of abusing or even killing their
Speaker 1: own child. As parents started to be accused of child
Speaker 1: abuse based solely on the hypothesis of shaken baby syndrome,
Speaker 1: Dr Gothkelch knew he had to do something. He never
Speaker 1: meant for his short paper to be used as a
Speaker 1: tool for prosecution. The whole point of his paper was
Speaker 1: to help parents, not criminalize them. Dr goth Kelch continued
Speaker 1: to fight for wrongfully convicted parents and caregivers up until
Speaker 1: he died in two thousand sixteen at the ripe age
Speaker 1: of a hundred and one years old. And no one
Speaker 1: was really suggesting that this should be a mechanism for
Speaker 1: prosecuting anyone. They acknowledged and and you know, pretty clearly
Speaker 1: articulated that what they were talking about was a hypothesis
Speaker 1: about why um children might have these findings. But it
Speaker 1: then started to be used as a paradigm for prosecution,
Speaker 1: and that's really where it runs into trouble because instead
Speaker 1: of continuing to research and look for answers, physicians and
Speaker 1: prosecutors started to accept it without you know, looking further
Speaker 1: into the kinds of claims that experts were making about it.
Speaker 1: Today on our show, we're speaking with Kate Judgson. Kate
Speaker 1: is the executive director for the Center or Integrity and
Speaker 1: Forensic Sciences, and she was one of the lawyers who
Speaker 1: represented Stephanie Spurgeon, whose story we discussed at the beginning
Speaker 1: of our show. So to start tell us about what
Speaker 1: we should understand about the difference between shaking baby syndrome
Speaker 1: as a hypothesis rather than as a diagnosis. I think
Speaker 1: there are a lot of ways in which it differs
Speaker 1: significantly from other medical diagnoses. So child abuse and particularly
Speaker 1: shaken baby syndrome is much more a determination of ideology
Speaker 1: of how somebody got the medical findings than than the
Speaker 1: medical findings themselves. So the kinds of findings that are
Speaker 1: often attributed to child abuse and shaken baby syndrome and
Speaker 1: abuse of head trauma cases can be due to trauma,
Speaker 1: but it isn't always, So there are medical conditions that
Speaker 1: can cause these kinds of medical findings as well, and
Speaker 1: so sometimes the evidence of actual innocence is new medical
Speaker 1: opinion that support the idea that the child had a
Speaker 1: disease or another kind of condition that led to their
Speaker 1: medical findings, rather than any kind of trauma or abuse.
Speaker 1: So let's back up for a second to when this
Speaker 1: first started to be used at trial. How did this
Speaker 1: diagnosis become something that prosecutors were able to weaponize against defendants.
Speaker 1: Part of what makes it seductive if you're trying to
Speaker 1: protect children and punish wrongdoing is that it seemed at
Speaker 1: the time very definitive. Physicians were saying, if a child
Speaker 1: has this set of injuries, they have been abused, and
Speaker 1: that abuse consisted of shaking, and we know that, and
Speaker 1: there are no exceptions, or very very few exceptions. I mean,
Speaker 1: in fact, at the time there are plenty of transcripts
Speaker 1: available where physicians said nothing else causes this, right, And
Speaker 1: so it gives a very clear and definitive answer no,
Speaker 1: and has to wonder, you know, in the face of
Speaker 1: such an answer, what happened to a child who died,
Speaker 1: who previously would have no explanation for their death. It's definitive,
Speaker 1: it's clear and frankly really effective in court, often resulting
Speaker 1: in a conviction almost all the time. So I think
Speaker 1: that it gave people who were involved in the criminal
Speaker 1: legal system the impression that they were successfully locking up
Speaker 1: people who were dangerous who had murdered a child, and
Speaker 1: it turns out it's not that straightforward. So tell us
Speaker 1: more about other ways a child can come to have
Speaker 1: the same kind of symptoms or the same sort of
Speaker 1: trauma that are usually associated with shaken baby syndrome. There
Speaker 1: are things like infection, serious infection, genetic disorders, problems with
Speaker 1: blood clotting, um certain kinds of tumors, certain kinds of
Speaker 1: blood cloths, you know, like a pediatric stroke. There are
Speaker 1: cases where the medical findings are thought to have arisen
Speaker 1: after events like choking um. But but what really started
Speaker 1: to come to light in there was a report done
Speaker 1: by the Swedish government that looked at medical literature that
Speaker 1: discussed you know what is colloquially called the triad that
Speaker 1: the combination of subdalhumatoma, retinal hemorrhage, and cerebral adema, and
Speaker 1: looked at children who are diagnosed as and studies of
Speaker 1: children who are diagnosed as being abused based on those findings.
Speaker 1: But they found was that the data was not there,
Speaker 1: that it was very incomplete, and they recommended that the
Speaker 1: Swedish government no longer prosecute people under that paradigm. And
Speaker 1: the reaction that that got from, you know, child advocates
Speaker 1: and child abuse pediatricians was simply to attack the people
Speaker 1: who did the report. Um. You know, there's been a
Speaker 1: real lack of serious engagement around the failings in the
Speaker 1: literature that everybody knows they're there, and so that is
Speaker 1: really a shame and that's not how science progresses, and
Speaker 1: that's not how people get fair trials. People who UM,
Speaker 1: who are admirably concerned about protecting children have unfortunately written
Speaker 1: things like editorials in in journals UM, engaging in personal
Speaker 1: attacks instead of trying to figure out how to best
Speaker 1: approach these kinds of cases. And that's part of what
Speaker 1: makes studying and being critical of the shaken baby hypothesis
Speaker 1: really difficult. People often assume that critics of shaken baby
Speaker 1: syndrome are trying to side with child abusers, and of
Speaker 1: course that's not the case. Researchers, doctors, lawyers who are
Speaker 1: critical of shaken baby syndrome. Are just trying to make
Speaker 1: sure that people don't get accused of cry they didn't
Speaker 1: commit based on misleading evidence. And on the other side
Speaker 1: of this battle, there are well meaning people who are
Speaker 1: trying to protect children from abuse. UM I know that
Speaker 1: expert witnesses and cases involving child abuse are often doctors,
Speaker 1: So tell us more about that. Who are the doctors
Speaker 1: who testify during these cases for the prosecution as experts?
Speaker 1: So there are different kinds of physicians. They're not always
Speaker 1: child abuse pediatricians, but they frequently our child abuse pediatricians.
Speaker 1: There are about three hundred child abuse pediatricians in the
Speaker 1: United States. It's a new subspecialty. I believe the first
Speaker 1: child abuse pediatricians were board certified in two thousand eleven,
Speaker 1: so it's quite new. So their job is to evaluate
Speaker 1: children in hospitals or clinics for child abuse and yes,
Speaker 1: to testify in cases or to create reports for law
Speaker 1: enforcement agencies for the courts. So that's interesting. I guess
Speaker 1: talking about biases, I could imagine that someone who's trained
Speaker 1: to look for child abuse could just start seeing abuse everywhere.
Speaker 1: It's what they know, it's what they study, it's what
Speaker 1: they look for. They think, you know, this is a
Speaker 1: symptom that comes up with people who are victims of abuse,
Speaker 1: so it must be abuse. It's you know, becomes difficult
Speaker 1: to see outside of your own tunnel vision. And so
Speaker 1: when a medical specialty is geared directly towards one conclusion
Speaker 1: or looking out for one thing, of course, UM, even
Speaker 1: with the best of intentions, it could be easy for
Speaker 1: these doctors to get tunnel vision, right. That's a real
Speaker 1: concern when analysts are, for example, embedded with law enforcement.
Speaker 1: When the crime lab is part of the police department,
Speaker 1: for example, we see this role effects bias. Analysts start
Speaker 1: to see themselves as part of the law enforcement team
Speaker 1: rather than as an objective, independent scientist. But the same
Speaker 1: issue was present when child abuse pediatricians are part of
Speaker 1: a child abuse team, especially when those teams involve UM
Speaker 1: police and investigators and prosecutors and don't involve people, for example,
Speaker 1: from the defense bar. And since they're all human beings,
Speaker 1: it's not unreasonable to say that the same concerns we
Speaker 1: have about analysts housed within a police station or who
Speaker 1: work very closely with police and prosecutors, that other kinds
Speaker 1: of experts might be subject to those same biases. I
Speaker 1: think another reason that there are so many wrongful convictions
Speaker 1: when people are accused of abuse is that everybody involved, jurors, lawyers,
Speaker 1: and the doctors, they don't want to get it wrong because,
Speaker 1: let's just face it, setting a potential child abuse are
Speaker 1: free is a scary proposition. The stakes are very high
Speaker 1: in these cases, so really often um I hear people
Speaker 1: respond to these concerns, particularly people who are who are
Speaker 1: you know, working in kind of the child abuse field
Speaker 1: respond to these concerns about wrongful convictions by saying, well,
Speaker 1: we just want to air on the side of the child, right,
Speaker 1: But in these kinds of cases there's really no way
Speaker 1: to do that. Any error is harmful. This idea that
Speaker 1: you can air safely on the on the side of
Speaker 1: the child is a false one. And that's because if
Speaker 1: you get this wrong. If a child is being diagnosed
Speaker 1: as having are being determined to have been abused and
Speaker 1: they haven't been, a couple of things can happen. One
Speaker 1: is that a child can be deprived of a loving
Speaker 1: home and separated from loving parents and caregivers. And studies
Speaker 1: have shown over and over and over again that separating
Speaker 1: children from their family is traumatic. It is sometimes a
Speaker 1: necessary harm, but it is always harmful, even for people
Speaker 1: who are just accused of child abuse and they don't
Speaker 1: get convicted but just have to go through the trial,
Speaker 1: that in itself can be so damaging to children and
Speaker 1: their families. I mean it's anecdotal, but I pretty frequently
Speaker 1: hear from families who say, like, we're really grateful that
Speaker 1: nobody in our family was convicted, but our kids are
Speaker 1: still suffering all kinds of harm and problems from the
Speaker 1: trauma that was inflicted upon them just from even a
Speaker 1: brief separation. So there may very well be good reason
Speaker 1: reasons to separate families, But what we can't do is
Speaker 1: go to court and say that the abuse is more
Speaker 1: definitive than the science actually supports, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1: The other problem is that when these cases are not
Speaker 1: medically investigated carefully, there is the chance that a child
Speaker 1: will be classified as having been abused when they actually
Speaker 1: have a serious illness, and that is also really problematic
Speaker 1: can potentially lead to more harm or even death because
Speaker 1: of that misdiagnosis. It seems almost unlikely that evidence and
Speaker 1: child abuse cases can be similar to other forensic disciplines
Speaker 1: that we've talked about on our show. But it turns
Speaker 1: out that the same tactics used to convict people based
Speaker 1: on faulty pattern matching evidence, for example, is really the
Speaker 1: same thing we're dealing with here In instances of you know,
Speaker 1: alleged child abuse, the kind of biases that we see
Speaker 1: in other kinds of forensic sciences are are certainly present here.
Speaker 1: And because there is no gold standard criteria, no simple
Speaker 1: or single test that allows anybody to make a diagnosis
Speaker 1: of child abuse, you end up having to fall back
Speaker 1: on so much subjectivity of the person examining the child
Speaker 1: and looking at the facts, and what we know from
Speaker 1: pattern matching disciplines in particular, but also things like ours investigation,
Speaker 1: is that the more subjectivity that is introduced into the system,
Speaker 1: the less reliable your result can be. Sometimes, when you
Speaker 1: look at the breakdown of cases where people get wrongfully
Speaker 1: convicted based on faulty forensic science, in a majority of them,
Speaker 1: part of the faulty forensic science is that the expert
Speaker 1: spoke to the jury with more certainty than the science warranted.
Speaker 1: The same is true in cases with medical testimony. So
Speaker 1: when a doctor says that a fracture or a subdural
Speaker 1: hematoma or a retinal hemorrhage can only be caused by
Speaker 1: child abuse, and there's no other explanation that is definitive.
Speaker 1: It is convincing that is stated with more certainty than
Speaker 1: the science can support, and that can certainly lead to
Speaker 1: an unfair trial and a wrongful conviction. So, in your opinion,
Speaker 1: when something as tragic as a baby dying happens, what
Speaker 1: can we do to make sure that the cause of
Speaker 1: death is determined correctly so that parents and caretakers stopp
Speaker 1: being wrongfully accused based on this shaken baby high apothesis,
Speaker 1: there really should be really rigorous testing in all of
Speaker 1: these cases, and not not every case out there gets
Speaker 1: the benefit of really careful, comprehensive testing. There's a there's
Speaker 1: actually kind of a famous case that a district attorney
Speaker 1: from Queens has used in a bunch of presentations where
Speaker 1: there was a videotaped fall. A child fell at a
Speaker 1: mall and and off of just a really short fall
Speaker 1: off of a piece of playground equipment and later died,
Speaker 1: and investigators embarked upon an extremely complex and comprehensive medical evaluation.
Speaker 1: And when they did that they found that there were
Speaker 1: potentially some blood disorders lurking within the family, and while
Speaker 1: the child who died never definitively tested positive for a
Speaker 1: bleeding disorder, her parents were carrying genes that suggested that
Speaker 1: she may have had one that may have contributed to
Speaker 1: her death. But I have to tell you that it's
Speaker 1: uncommon that that kind of testing is done. I have
Speaker 1: seen it become more common, and hopefully it will continue
Speaker 1: to become more common. But that's just a great example
Speaker 1: of a really thorough evaluation clarifying that a deceased child
Speaker 1: died because of a tragic accident, not because anybody hurt her.
Speaker 1: When I think about people convicted based on this type
Speaker 1: of evidence, it's usually a parent that we're talking about.
Speaker 1: Someone who has just lost their child, is going through
Speaker 1: this unimaginable tragedy, and then to be accused of being
Speaker 1: the one that actually inflicted this harm. It's a lot
Speaker 1: to wrap your head around. It's like too much to
Speaker 1: bear for parents who go through this. They have a
Speaker 1: double tragedy, right They have the loss of the life
Speaker 1: or health of their child, which is incredibly tragic, and
Speaker 1: then they have this prosecution which threatens their freedom often
Speaker 1: threatens their relationship with their other children UM. In some
Speaker 1: of these cases, parents might lose custody of other children
Speaker 1: in the family. It's horrifying. It's horrifying as a lawyer
Speaker 1: to it. It must be difficult to be watching this unfold. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's an incredibly emotional situation. And in fact, there are
Speaker 1: some lawyers who find these cases so disturbing and disruptive
Speaker 1: that they do one and they never want to do
Speaker 1: another one. You do care about that happening. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's not easy. It's always difficult. They are very emotional,
Speaker 1: they are very upsetting. It is difficult to be there
Speaker 1: for someone who has gone through like, like I said,
Speaker 1: this double tragedy, right where a child that you know
Speaker 1: that they loved and cared about UM is gone or
Speaker 1: very or very different, and then they've they've been accused
Speaker 1: of this crime they didn't commit. It's it's it's terrible.
Speaker 1: I think the only reason why I feel compelled to
Speaker 1: keep doing it is that what has happened to these
Speaker 1: folks is wrong and someone has to help them and
Speaker 1: stand up for them. It's not an easy thing, but
Speaker 1: I think it's a necessary one. When I agreed to
Speaker 1: host this podcast, I set out to expose some of
Speaker 1: the many flaws that exist in our criminal justice system. Specifically,
Speaker 1: what I wanted to do was address what goes wrong
Speaker 1: when jurors are presented with what they are told as
Speaker 1: science but actually turns out to be well junk. The
Speaker 1: harms of junk science go beyond innocent people having to
Speaker 1: endure the unthinkable nightmare of being accused and convicted of
Speaker 1: crimes they did not commit. The consequences extend even further
Speaker 1: than those people having to endure the rost and most
Speaker 1: cutting of human suffering, being torn from their life and
Speaker 1: locked in a cage. In addition to that human tragedy,
Speaker 1: junk science causes the moral fabric of our judicial system
Speaker 1: to wear and tear at the seems. It causes an
Speaker 1: entire institution of law and order and justice to be
Speaker 1: completely undermined. In examining the various disciplines of forensic science
Speaker 1: we've discussed this season, whether it was our sin or
Speaker 1: blood spatter, eyewitness identification, or, as in this episode, shaking
Speaker 1: baby syndrome, I knew it would be interesting and enlightening,
Speaker 1: but I never expected it to affect me in the
Speaker 1: profound manner that it has I have been in turns dumbfounded, angry, saddened,
Speaker 1: and even outraged. A trial is supposed to be a
Speaker 1: search for the truth the words science itself is defined
Speaker 1: as the study of the physical and natural world through
Speaker 1: observation and experiment. Our system of justice has been regarded
Speaker 1: as not perfect, but the best way to ensure that
Speaker 1: people who are accused of crimes get the fairest shake possible.
Speaker 1: So how is our system of justice veered so far
Speaker 1: off the tracks? How have we managed to bastardize and
Speaker 1: bludge in What science means? I don't know if we
Speaker 1: can ever arrive at a clear answer. There are probably
Speaker 1: many explanations. One thing I do know is that when
Speaker 1: human beings get involved in any endeavor, we bring our
Speaker 1: own biases, or thirst for financial gain, or hunches and
Speaker 1: quirks into the equation, and in the process we sometimes
Speaker 1: create such a mess that it becomes difficult to untangle
Speaker 1: the house and wise of it all. But I still
Speaker 1: managed to find hope and away forward. And here's why.
Speaker 1: If you've ever been fortunate enough to meet someone that
Speaker 1: has spent time in prison for a crime they didn't commit,
Speaker 1: one thing becomes apparent very quickly. They are the embodiment
Speaker 1: of all that is soaring and remarkable about the human condition.
Speaker 1: They are a special combination of resilience, hope, forgiveness, and strength.
Speaker 1: They are quite simply a force of nature. So I
Speaker 1: will continue to pour my energy, every cell in my
Speaker 1: body into helping those who are still behind bars for
Speaker 1: crimes they did not commit. I will fight to restore
Speaker 1: signs to its proper definition in our courtrooms. I am
Speaker 1: propelled by these men and women that represent the triumph
Speaker 1: of the human soul. To restore one's life and freedom
Speaker 1: is perhaps the highest service to your fellow human being.
Speaker 1: I can't even find the words to describe what it's
Speaker 1: like to walk someone out of a nightmare of a
Speaker 1: prison cell and into the bright light of freedom, to
Speaker 1: restore a life. The only way I can articulate it
Speaker 1: is that, aside from marrying my wife and the birth
Speaker 1: of my children, it is and always will be my
Speaker 1: most important contribution to my fellow human beings. There's nothing
Speaker 1: I have done in this life or could ever fathom doing,
Speaker 1: that can ever come close. No material gain, no drug,
Speaker 1: no drink, nothing at all that can approach the state
Speaker 1: of nirvana that consumes your soul when you have helped
Speaker 1: save a life, and I think that says a lot
Speaker 1: about who we are at our essence. We are meant
Speaker 1: to be of service to one another, to heal each other,
Speaker 1: to restore each other. Not a bad message, if I
Speaker 1: do say so myself, at a time when it seems
Speaker 1: like we could really use it. I encourage all of
Speaker 1: you to continue to keep your voices up, write those
Speaker 1: letters to your local prosecutors and judges, be a more
Speaker 1: conscientious jure, pitching in any way that you can. Together
Speaker 1: we can ensure that one day there will be no
Speaker 1: more wrongful convictions. Based on Junk Science. Wrongful Conviction Junk
Speaker 1: Science is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and
Speaker 1: association with Signal Company Number One. Thanks to our executive
Speaker 1: producer Jason Flom and the team, it's Signal Company number
Speaker 1: One executive producer Kevin Wardis and senior producers Kara corn
Speaker 1: Abor and Britt Spanglin. Our music was composed by j Ralph.
Speaker 1: You can follow me on Instagram at Dubin dot Josh.
Speaker 1: Follow the Wrongful Conviction podcast on Facebook and on Instagram
Speaker 1: at Wrongful Conviction and on Twitter at wrong Conviction