Speaker 1: John Jones and Deja Ruiz had three children while working
Speaker 1: on their high school diplomas. After celebrating Deja's mother's birthday
Speaker 1: on March eighteen, the young family laid down to sleep,
Speaker 1: despite the expected waking and beating, and comes with six
Speaker 1: month old twins, the night was ordinary. When Deja left
Speaker 1: for school at eight am, John propped some bottles on
Speaker 1: a blanket near twins Jada and Jasmine and went back
Speaker 1: to sleep. Then, when John woke again at nine forty am,
Speaker 1: turned on cartoons for his son and went to attend
Speaker 1: to the twins. Jada was unresponsive in a panic. He
Speaker 1: called family and nine one one. The dispatcher coached him
Speaker 1: through CPR until first responders arrived and took over. He
Speaker 1: did everything a concerned father would do, But when testing
Speaker 1: was done at the hospital, doctors found what they mistakenly
Speaker 1: thought was conclusive evidence of lethal child abuse. However, over
Speaker 1: the next decade, the science that they used to support
Speaker 1: John's conviction has crumbled under the weight of reality. Had
Speaker 1: a jury heard all the other now logical explanations for
Speaker 1: the symptoms present in little Jada's body, John Jones never
Speaker 1: would have served a day of his fifteenth to life
Speaker 1: prison sentence. This is Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom. That's me, of course,
Speaker 1: your host, and today we're here to tell you the
Speaker 1: heartbreaking story of John Jones, who was just seventeen years
Speaker 1: old when his six month old daughter, Jada Ruise died,
Speaker 1: and shortly thereafter. The tragedy was compounded by the hubris
Speaker 1: of some in the medical establishment and legal system armed
Speaker 1: with the junk science of shaking baby syndrome. And today
Speaker 1: I'm joined by a phenomenal co host. Avid listeners will
Speaker 1: remember Greg Gloud from the Junk Science episode on roadside
Speaker 1: drug Testing. He is the criminal justice fellow at Americans
Speaker 1: for Prosperity. Greg, Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction. I appreciated Jason,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for allowing me to co host.
Speaker 1: You know, you and I have gotten close over the
Speaker 1: last couple of months. I've been working on criminal justice
Speaker 1: reform since about two thousand and fifteen now, and to
Speaker 1: be able to do this today and co host, is
Speaker 1: you know, really an honor? So no, I really thank
Speaker 1: you again. Well, I'm the one who really should feel
Speaker 1: honored and not just because you've joined us, but also
Speaker 1: because with us is one of the world's leading experts
Speaker 1: and one of the most troubling aspects of our criminal
Speaker 1: legal system, Shaking baby syndrome. Now, she was also featured
Speaker 1: on Wrongful Conviction Junk Science when we covered this subject.
Speaker 1: The executive director of the Center for Integrity and Forensic Sciences,
Speaker 1: Kate Judson, Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction. Hi, thank you
Speaker 1: so much, Jason, and Hi Greg. And last but not least,
Speaker 1: we have with us Staph attorney at the Ohio Innocence Project,
Speaker 1: the man who's representing John Jones, Donald Castor Donald. Welcome
Speaker 1: to Ronald Conviction. Thanks for being here. Hi Jason, thank
Speaker 1: you for having me on. And we'll be joined very
Speaker 1: soon by John Jones. Was going to be calling in
Speaker 1: from Lebanon Correctional Facility in Ohio. But first let's get
Speaker 1: a little background on what John was up against when
Speaker 1: Jada became unresponsive. Kate, can you get aig brief history
Speaker 1: on shaken baby syndrome. You know where it came from,
Speaker 1: this hypothesis, and then how did it start to enter
Speaker 1: its way into the criminal justice system as as a
Speaker 1: viable scientific theory. To convict caretakers of murder. Sure Greg
Speaker 1: Shaken baby syndrome was originally proposed as a hypothesis to
Speaker 1: explain a phenomenon that a pediatric neurosurgeon in Great Britain
Speaker 1: was seeing in his patients. He would sometimes have infants
Speaker 1: who died or were seriously ill without a clear cause
Speaker 1: and without external trauma, and yet the internal features looked
Speaker 1: a lot like kids who had suffered some kind of
Speaker 1: traumatic injury. So those findings were subdural hematoma, which is
Speaker 1: bleeding between the coverings of the brain, retinal hemorrhage, which
Speaker 1: is bleeding at the back of the eye, and en
Speaker 1: cephalopathy and Surrey brilladema, which sort of acts together as
Speaker 1: one leg of what sometimes people call the triad. Surrey
Speaker 1: brilladema his brain swelling, and en cephalopathy is brain dysfunction.
Speaker 1: And so Dr goth Kelch, this Pietric neurosurgeon, was seeing
Speaker 1: these findings and kids and they looked injured on the
Speaker 1: inside but not on the outside. And he thought that
Speaker 1: one reason for that might be a common disciplinary technique
Speaker 1: in his home of Northern England in the seventies, which
Speaker 1: was shaking. And so what Dr goth Kelch said is
Speaker 1: that these medical findings could be due to shaking. And
Speaker 1: Dr goth Kelch wasn't claiming to have the answers, but
Speaker 1: that rather that he was hypothesizing about what might be
Speaker 1: causing these findings. So that started to evolve. A radiologist
Speaker 1: in New York, John Caffey, built on that and he
Speaker 1: published articles saying the same thing, right, that parents should
Speaker 1: be until with infants. But neither of these doctors suggested
Speaker 1: that the medical findings that they associated with shaking were
Speaker 1: exclusively diagnostic to shaking, nor did they say that there
Speaker 1: was a reliable way to place blame on a caregiver
Speaker 1: when a child had these medical findings, right, And so
Speaker 1: where was the switch then, from this just being you know,
Speaker 1: a hypothesis or an unexplained phenomena to a verifiable medical
Speaker 1: diagnosis that actually began convicting visuals of murder of a child.
Speaker 1: And there's a little bit of a gap in understanding
Speaker 1: between the mid to late nineteen seventies and then when
Speaker 1: we start to see these cases appear in published appellate
Speaker 1: decisions in the late eighties, and we started to see
Speaker 1: prosecutors and pediatricians in particular also pathologists saying that when
Speaker 1: children had this collection of findings, which is sometimes called
Speaker 1: a triad of findings or a constellation of medical findings,
Speaker 1: that shaking could be diagnosed. And that's when it comes
Speaker 1: into the criminal legal system and we start to see
Speaker 1: the trajectory that we're on today where parents are wrongfully
Speaker 1: accused based on only the existence of a particular set
Speaker 1: of medical findings. And I mean to be totally clear,
Speaker 1: there's no debate about whether abusive shaking, violent shaking of
Speaker 1: an infant is dangerous. It is and no one should
Speaker 1: do it. The debate is really whether shaking reliably explains
Speaker 1: the findings that are often attributed to it, whether shaking
Speaker 1: can be diagnosed as the cause of those findings. And
Speaker 1: doing my research for this, there is a large concentration
Speaker 1: of these shaking baby syndrome cases in the state of Ohio,
Speaker 1: and so I just wanted to see if you had
Speaker 1: any explanation behind why Ohio kind of had a higher
Speaker 1: rate of shaking baby syndrome cases than than many other
Speaker 1: jurisdictions across the nation. Researchers aren't a d PC sure
Speaker 1: why some places have higher concentrations of diagnoses of SPS.
Speaker 1: Than others. It's probably a combination of factors, but some
Speaker 1: of those factors include prosecutors who are particularly aggressive in
Speaker 1: going after these are kinds of accusations, the media attention
Speaker 1: in certain cases receive in certain media markets, and the
Speaker 1: child abuse pediatricians or forensic pathologists who work on these cases,
Speaker 1: if they have a particular belief for bent, then there
Speaker 1: are more likely to be more accusations of shaking within
Speaker 1: you know that person's jurisdiction or area of control in
Speaker 1: Ohio is one of those places. And now we'll go
Speaker 1: to Lebanon Correctional Facility to speak with a young man
Speaker 1: who was doing his best as a young teenager to
Speaker 1: raise three kids while finishing high school in the third
Speaker 1: largest shaken baby syndrome epicenter in the country, Acron Ohio. Hello,
Speaker 1: this is a prepaid debit call from an inmate. It's
Speaker 1: a Lebanon Correctional facility to accept this call. Press zero
Speaker 1: to prevent This call is from a correction facility and
Speaker 1: is subject to monitoring and recording. Thank you for using GTL.
Speaker 1: I'm John. Yeah, this job John. Like I always say,
Speaker 1: I'm glad you're here with us, but I'm sorry because
Speaker 1: of the reason you're here, or more to the point,
Speaker 1: because of where you are. Thanks for having me. So
Speaker 1: I wanted you to take us back, if you will,
Speaker 1: to your life before this absolute horror happened. You were
Speaker 1: growing up in Akron. I grew up with four sisters
Speaker 1: who struggled. I grew up port and he moved around
Speaker 1: a lot. My mom had some struggles, struggle addition alcohol
Speaker 1: addition on. My father as well had the same struggles.
Speaker 1: Regardless of what she was going through her own personal problems.
Speaker 1: My mom always was around. She was always with us,
Speaker 1: but my grandmother end up getting customer on me when
Speaker 1: I was really young. She just put us on the
Speaker 1: path to try to be as successful as we could.
Speaker 1: Growing up, I did a real good of school. Always
Speaker 1: was like an honor roll school. Once I became a teenager,
Speaker 1: and that's when I came into contact with my child's mother.
Speaker 1: I met her December sixte my fourteenth birthday, and my
Speaker 1: son was conceived nine days later on Christmas Eve. Christmas Mike.
Speaker 1: So now on fourteen, I'm expecting a child on the way.
Speaker 1: I knew that I had a responsibility now, so school
Speaker 1: no longer was a priority. My bid what I needed
Speaker 1: to do to provide for him. As time to progress,
Speaker 1: me and her eventually began to establish a relationship get closer.
Speaker 1: A couple of years later, that's where my twins were
Speaker 1: and see Jada and jash Man. We ended up getting
Speaker 1: apartment together on our own. My grandmother was still technically
Speaker 1: my legal guardian, so I lived with them, but I
Speaker 1: spent most linths with my child's mother just to be
Speaker 1: around my children growing up. My father was always in
Speaker 1: my life, but like I said, he was a better
Speaker 1: one with addiction. But even though I loved him unconditioning,
Speaker 1: he just wasn't the best that he could have been.
Speaker 1: So that made me want to make sure I was
Speaker 1: the best I could have been. Regardless of how old
Speaker 1: I was, regardless of school, whatever I was going through,
Speaker 1: I was gonna be president every single day in their life,
Speaker 1: no matter what, regardless of the status of me and
Speaker 1: their mother's relationship, how healthy or how unhealthy it was,
Speaker 1: I was gonna make sure I was there my keys
Speaker 1: no matter what. And that's admirable. And so you, your
Speaker 1: children's mother, Deja, your son ty Sean, and the twins
Speaker 1: Jada and Jasmine all moved into an apartment together. Deja
Speaker 1: was eighteen, you're seventeen, and you were both finishing high
Speaker 1: school through an alternative school for young parents, and somehow
Speaker 1: you're making it work, which which brings us to March nine.
Speaker 1: The night before that morning it was actually her mother's birthday.
Speaker 1: Everybody spent some time together. It was it was a
Speaker 1: cool little vibe though. Everybody was on the same page.
Speaker 1: And we went to sleep like any other day. We
Speaker 1: slept down in the living room. I slept on the
Speaker 1: couch with my daughter Jack and she slept down on
Speaker 1: the floor with my daughter saying, and my son was
Speaker 1: down there with us as well. But throughout the night
Speaker 1: she was waking me up complaining about position in or
Speaker 1: meeting or you know, my daughter might have been hunger
Speaker 1: or whatever. She was waking me up to out the night,
Speaker 1: But it was it was just a typical day. And
Speaker 1: then that morning you had a test that she had
Speaker 1: to go take right and from what I understand, you
Speaker 1: both fed the twins at five am and then went
Speaker 1: back to sleep. Then Dasiah woke up at seven am
Speaker 1: to get ready for school and left around eight. So
Speaker 1: I get up walkers to the door, you know, wishing
Speaker 1: to look on her task, giver a kiss. She go out.
Speaker 1: At this point, my son still sleep, my daughters and
Speaker 1: around the couch day land down. Its early in the morning,
Speaker 1: so I'm still tired. I go up to my daughter's
Speaker 1: I popped the bottles. I learned later on now that
Speaker 1: this wasn't a smart thing to do, just because of
Speaker 1: the safety conscience with a with a novemarm, But at
Speaker 1: the time I really wasn't aware of it, and it
Speaker 1: was more like a convenient thing away of me going
Speaker 1: back to sleep, but also feeding them if they were hunting.
Speaker 1: So I placed the bottles up on the blanket, prop
Speaker 1: them up, so I put them right there, just so
Speaker 1: when they do wake up the bottle of be right there,
Speaker 1: they'll be able to feed. I can be able to
Speaker 1: sleep about another hour or two whatever. Then br everybody'd
Speaker 1: be cool. We did this every day munch of a time,
Speaker 1: so it was it was just another I said, it
Speaker 1: was another day. But it's at this point between eight
Speaker 1: and nine forty am that, according to the state's theory
Speaker 1: and what passed for expert testimony, that you allegedly abused
Speaker 1: your daughter Jada in such a way that it caused
Speaker 1: all of these supposed injuries or symptoms that were later
Speaker 1: observed at the hospital, the same ones that Kate had
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier that make up the triad of shaking baby syndrome.
Speaker 1: But as we now know, there are a myriad of
Speaker 1: medical conditions that can and do cause these symptoms in
Speaker 1: addition to an accidental or intentional traumatic event, and even
Speaker 1: in those events, it's important to note that a child
Speaker 1: may be lucid up to seventy two hours or even
Speaker 1: more before the symptoms or injuries become apparent, And in
Speaker 1: this case, they became apparent to you when you checked
Speaker 1: on Jada and Jasmine around nine am on that faithful,
Speaker 1: awful day. And you know, as a father myself, it's
Speaker 1: every as for a nightmare. So at forty am you
Speaker 1: woke up, put on cartoons for Tyshon and go to
Speaker 1: check on your daughters, only to find that Jada was unresponsive.
Speaker 1: That was the scariest moment in my life. That was
Speaker 1: the worst day of my life. I didn't know what
Speaker 1: to do in that moment. She wasn't breathing, she wasn't moved,
Speaker 1: when she wasn't responsive at all, I instantly get on
Speaker 1: the phone. My first reaction was to call our family,
Speaker 1: because my daughters were born with actually reflex when they
Speaker 1: when they feed, they would regret to take the food.
Speaker 1: It would come out of their modes. Sometimes will come
Speaker 1: with their mother. It didn't happen every time, but it
Speaker 1: happen frequently, So at first I was wondering if this
Speaker 1: was the case. So I actually called my mom and
Speaker 1: I tell him what's going on. But I'm panicked, so
Speaker 1: I didn't want to stay on the phone with them
Speaker 1: too long because I'm realizing she's not breathing or nothing.
Speaker 1: But I called her family as well to let them know.
Speaker 1: I get off the phone, I call nine one one,
Speaker 1: tell them the whole situation is. I'm listening to the
Speaker 1: nine one one operated. She explaining to me how to
Speaker 1: do the test confessions in the mouth to mouth. I
Speaker 1: tried did everything I could, and thatthing was working like
Speaker 1: So at this point, I'm becoming more here, more upset.
Speaker 1: I'm crying like and I'm just waiting to seem like
Speaker 1: a second, they finally arrived. They grab where they take
Speaker 1: her out, and I began to speak to detectives or whatever.
Speaker 1: I'm telling them everything pretty much that I'm telling you.
Speaker 1: Use my recollection of that night in the morning, let
Speaker 1: them really stood outside me. From that point, family members
Speaker 1: start arrive and everybody's gonna sire. We all head down
Speaker 1: to the hospital, and then a couple of hours later,
Speaker 1: that's when we hear the doctors a pea about what
Speaker 1: they believe was the cause of everything. When the first
Speaker 1: responders arrived, they didn't see any signs of any external injuries.
Speaker 1: They didn't see any bruising or obvious deformities or bone fractures.
Speaker 1: They were under the impression that Jana might have suffered
Speaker 1: from SIDS or sudden infant death syndrome. And the police
Speaker 1: see John doing what you would expect a distraught father
Speaker 1: to be doing. It's an officer named Dennis Bard starts
Speaker 1: taking pictures to the scene. There are blankets that are
Speaker 1: collect did um. One of the things that's not collected
Speaker 1: is the bottles that we're feeding to the children, and
Speaker 1: that becomes critical later on in the state the theory
Speaker 1: of the case. The bottles are important, at least according
Speaker 1: to the state, because one of the doctors who testified
Speaker 1: on behalf of the state told the jury that how
Speaker 1: much milk and formula was in the bottle would have
Speaker 1: been really important in establishing the timing of abuse, because
Speaker 1: according to the state's doctor, Jada wouldn't have been able
Speaker 1: to consume anything from the bottle after suffering the type
Speaker 1: of injuries that they believe Jada had suffered. And what
Speaker 1: we now know, and this is so important, is that
Speaker 1: a child can experience seventy two hours or more of
Speaker 1: lucidity after a traumatic event, whether accidental or intentional, which
Speaker 1: it's not entirely clear that this is in fact what
Speaker 1: happened to cause these symptoms. And I say symptoms because
Speaker 1: a myriad of medical conditions can cause what happened to
Speaker 1: Jada to happen. But it we're getting a little bit
Speaker 1: ahead of ourselves here. So the first responders see this
Speaker 1: situation as a non criminal death, not a homicide. So
Speaker 1: the bottle was just left there and the lead investigator,
Speaker 1: Detective Shady, drove John to the hospital. Detective Shady also
Speaker 1: does a very brief interview of John at the time.
Speaker 1: Detective Shady and John go to the hospital following the ambulance,
Speaker 1: and once they get to the hospital, they find out
Speaker 1: that Jada had been successfully resuscitated. John makes phone calls
Speaker 1: to family members to let them know that things were
Speaker 1: at least looking a little bit better now that they
Speaker 1: were at the hospital. And then doctors at the hospital
Speaker 1: start to do medical tests. They do a cat scan,
Speaker 1: other tests, and again, ultimately the doctors began to believe
Speaker 1: that there were actual injuries to Jada, and in fact,
Speaker 1: once they got to the hospital, John was confronted by
Speaker 1: a doctor who did not testify at trial, but a
Speaker 1: difficult to the case um, a doctor Darryl Steiner, who
Speaker 1: came in and told John and the detective that Jada
Speaker 1: had suffered from what he called non accidental injuries. The
Speaker 1: hospital staff also claimed that there were old injuries, insinuating
Speaker 1: that abuse had taken place for a significant period of time. So, John,
Speaker 1: you had just been through one of the most harrowing
Speaker 1: experiences that anyone can ever go through, and you were
Speaker 1: waiting to hear what the path forward might be for
Speaker 1: your daughter. And the doctors at a children's hospital, again
Speaker 1: the number three epicenter for shaking baby syndrome diagnoses and
Speaker 1: prosecutions in the country. Those doctors tell you the family
Speaker 1: and detectives their opinion that the medical facts observed in
Speaker 1: Jada retinal bleeding, subdural bleeding, and brain swelling as well
Speaker 1: as a series of fractures, that these could only have
Speaker 1: been the result of a non accidental traumatic event, in
Speaker 1: other words, child abuse, violent shaking by Jada's caretaker at
Speaker 1: the time that she went unresponsive. And again we now
Speaker 1: know that there are a slew of medical conditions that
Speaker 1: can cause these symptoms, and that children can experience seventy
Speaker 1: two hours or more of relatively normal behavior after such
Speaker 1: a traumatic event, if a traumatic event even ever occurred
Speaker 1: and was in fact what caused these symptoms. So back
Speaker 1: then many in the medical establishment, these doctors included, thought
Speaker 1: that they could diagnose a crime and the time of
Speaker 1: that crime, which we now know that they could not. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: your story has remained consistent ever since that faithful day,
Speaker 1: and nowhere in your recollection of events does even a
Speaker 1: minor frustration occur, let alone violent shaking. Never. Never, never.
Speaker 1: We all stay in the in the waiting room or
Speaker 1: in the area when they come in and they tell us, well,
Speaker 1: we believe that what's wrong with her was my accidental,
Speaker 1: was intentional, was caused by somebody, was caused by specifically
Speaker 1: somebody who was there. So then at that point I
Speaker 1: felt like I was being accused or even suspected of something.
Speaker 1: And the only other person that was there with me
Speaker 1: was your mother. I know I didn't do nothing to her.
Speaker 1: I never will, so a manion things running through my
Speaker 1: head at that moment. I'm scared first and foremost most
Speaker 1: supportent for my daughter. Now I'm questioning and like, why
Speaker 1: are they saying somebody did this? Why they said somebody causes?
Speaker 1: Like what happened? Like did she do something? So a
Speaker 1: conversation was had afterwards outside with just me and her,
Speaker 1: and you know, I asked her straight up, like did
Speaker 1: you do something? And she didn't not. You know, I
Speaker 1: didn't do nothing. I don't know what they're talking about,
Speaker 1: Like so now I didn't. I'm just confused, like I
Speaker 1: just don't know what. I don't know, But detectives continue
Speaker 1: to question me, they keep talking to me. My natural
Speaker 1: reaction was to wrop rate with you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: It is my baby, So however, I can help whatever
Speaker 1: I can say about the end the day, I don't
Speaker 1: know much. I don't know what's this thing. I'm confused
Speaker 1: like anybody else, everybody else, I don't know what happened.
Speaker 1: Must the finger was actually pointed and blame was cast
Speaker 1: and charges were brought a problem in indictments and couches
Speaker 1: placed on not That's when I started feeling like their
Speaker 1: intentions wasn't in the right place, because it they truly was,
Speaker 1: and you would have really sought out a real answerance
Speaker 1: that had just placed it all somebody simply because they
Speaker 1: were physically and the wrong. This episode is underwritten by
Speaker 1: Paul Weiss, Rifkin, Morton and Garrison, a leading international of firm.
Speaker 1: Paul Weiss has long had an unwavering commitment to providing impactful,
Speaker 1: pro bono legal assistance to the most vulnerable members of
Speaker 1: our society and in support of the public interest, including
Speaker 1: extensive work in the criminal justice area. So with misplaced conference,
Speaker 1: they attribute injuries or symptoms to actions and persons when
Speaker 1: the science barely even supported it back then, let alone now.
Speaker 1: The causes of Jada's symptoms range from accidental or intentional
Speaker 1: trauma to internal For instance, there's a well recognized condition
Speaker 1: where there's a little extra space in between the child's
Speaker 1: brain and skull that stretches the veins that bridge that space,
Speaker 1: which causes chronic subdural bleeding. It still hasn't been determined
Speaker 1: what causes this overlying condition, but birth trauma has been
Speaker 1: suggested as a potential cause, whether natural or cesarean and
Speaker 1: this condition usually manifests within the child second to six months. Jada,
Speaker 1: of course, was six months old when this occurred, and
Speaker 1: it's logical to think that being birth as a twin
Speaker 1: would probably be described as a traumatic event, an event
Speaker 1: that could cause limb fractures as well. In these shaking
Speaker 1: baby syndrome cases, CT scans and m r I s
Speaker 1: will usually show the chronics of dural bleeding as they
Speaker 1: found in this case, which will then be used as
Speaker 1: evidence of repeated abuse. Well, it's misused, but used anyway,
Speaker 1: when all along there's a legitimate and logical medical explanation.
Speaker 1: Other potential causes for symptoms like Jader's. I mean, there's
Speaker 1: you could write a medical textbook on this right. They
Speaker 1: include bleeding disorders, collagen disorders, copper disorders, genetic disorders, vitamin deficiencies,
Speaker 1: even your everyday average household slip and fall. But I
Speaker 1: seriously doubt whether the number three epicenter for diagnosing or
Speaker 1: misdiagnosing child abuse did a full genetic workup to rule
Speaker 1: out all of these potential causes before it's just sort
Speaker 1: of cavalierly sending John up the river. So the allegation
Speaker 1: was that Jada had a series of fractures and that
Speaker 1: perhaps those fractures were of different ages, and that, combined
Speaker 1: with the findings of bleeding and of brain swelling, were
Speaker 1: thought to indicate trauma, and specifically trauma from abuse. So, unfortunately,
Speaker 1: one of the things that we know happens in wrongful
Speaker 1: conviction cases all the time is that once the police
Speaker 1: and in this case, doctors start ahead in a certain direction,
Speaker 1: it begins to be very difficult for them to turn
Speaker 1: to a new path. And that's what happened here. The
Speaker 1: police and the doctors didn't look for any other causes.
Speaker 1: They seized on this diagnosis of shaking baby syndrome and
Speaker 1: that's where they went. It's one of the things that
Speaker 1: makes it harder for us. You successfully represent John not impossible.
Speaker 1: We think we'll be successful in this case ultimately, but
Speaker 1: it's one of the things that hampers our works some
Speaker 1: is that we don't have the medical records for Jada
Speaker 1: from Jada's births up until Arch nineteen, and the reason
Speaker 1: is that they were another gathered by either the medical
Speaker 1: investigators or the law enforcement investigators to look at and
Speaker 1: to determine whether there was other symptomology, other pathology, other
Speaker 1: things going on with Jada prior to March nineteenth instead
Speaker 1: of just the medical records from March nineteenth going forward,
Speaker 1: particularly SPS, we've seen over two cases overturned and a
Speaker 1: lot of these, you know, it seemed clear cut that
Speaker 1: there was abuse and later on it was either some
Speaker 1: sort of minor accident or some sort of genetic cause
Speaker 1: to this. And so, you know, I think people have
Speaker 1: this notion of what SPS is and then and we
Speaker 1: see clearly that there's a lot of varying reasons for
Speaker 1: that to potentially see these findings within a child and
Speaker 1: then they're just you know, initially ignored but then later
Speaker 1: come out um later on when you have a full
Speaker 1: examination or full medical history. Well, and there's a lot
Speaker 1: of overlap here, greg, because a lot of the factor
Speaker 1: is that caused children to have either have health problems
Speaker 1: or have their health problems not be appropriately diagnosed or treated.
Speaker 1: Are also the factors that doctors and child protection workers
Speaker 1: will look at too, to say that statistically a child
Speaker 1: is more likely to be abused. And so what I
Speaker 1: mean by that is parents who are young and parents
Speaker 1: who are people of color are both more likely to
Speaker 1: be accused of crimes and more likely to receive disparate
Speaker 1: treatment within the medical establishment. So those things actually worked
Speaker 1: together to create an unjust result in many cases. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's worth noting that, just as we record, a
Speaker 1: study was just published which showed that there is intense
Speaker 1: cognitive bias amongst medical examiners, so much so that when
Speaker 1: given the same exact evidence, two different groups and we're
Speaker 1: talking large groups of medical examiners look at exactly the
Speaker 1: same evidence of a three year old that was brought
Speaker 1: to the hospital with head trauma and died, were four
Speaker 1: times more likely to rule it a homicide when they
Speaker 1: were told that the child was black and that the
Speaker 1: child was brought in by the boyfriend of the mother,
Speaker 1: as opposed to the other group that was told with
Speaker 1: exactly the same evidence that the child was white, was
Speaker 1: brought in by a grandparent. So, just to really put
Speaker 1: a stamp on what you were saying, Kate, So let's
Speaker 1: turn to the arrest. So John was was not arrested
Speaker 1: right away, although it was clear that once Jada was
Speaker 1: taken off of life support and passed away that they
Speaker 1: were going to charge him with murder. John didn't have
Speaker 1: a lot of money as a teenager charged with a crime.
Speaker 1: He had counsel appointed to represent him, and then counsel
Speaker 1: got the court to provide some funds for an additional
Speaker 1: expert witness to help prepare for trial. So at trial,
Speaker 1: what was the state's theory, what was the evidence behind that,
Speaker 1: and then what did the defense put together to refute?
Speaker 1: So Dejah agreed with with everything that John had said
Speaker 1: previously about what happened um in the hour or so
Speaker 1: before Dejah left for school that day, So there was
Speaker 1: no inconsistency between what John has been saying and what
Speaker 1: Desia said happened. Desia, of course, claimed that she didn't
Speaker 1: do anything to any of the children. According to her
Speaker 1: testimony at trial, she believed John may have lied to
Speaker 1: her about any wrongdoing, but they's just being told by
Speaker 1: the people who were supposed to know what they're talking about.
Speaker 1: The John killed her child and Kate. What were the
Speaker 1: medical findings that the state witnesses had and what they concluded.
Speaker 1: The medical facts presented at trial in this case included
Speaker 1: a series of fractures, mostly fresh but at least one
Speaker 1: older fracture, retinal hemorrhaging, subdural hemorrhaging, signs of previous centeral hemorrhaging,
Speaker 1: and brains swelling. As I said before, this is the
Speaker 1: classic triad of shaking baby syndrome, and the state put
Speaker 1: on three medical witnesses. Dr Paul McPherson testified that the
Speaker 1: child would not have been able to suck any milk
Speaker 1: after sustaining these kinds of injuries. But we now know
Speaker 1: a child can experience seventy two hours of lucidity after
Speaker 1: the injuries associated with shaken baby syndrome, and that's what
Speaker 1: published case reports have shown us. It could be even
Speaker 1: greater than that. So Dr McPherson conceded that the injuries
Speaker 1: may have been sustained before John woke at eight am
Speaker 1: to give Jada a bottle. The injuries may not have
Speaker 1: been a parent and the state had to steal up
Speaker 1: that concession with Dr PAULA. Sunder, who testified that the
Speaker 1: causal injury could not have been sustained prior to eight am. Again,
Speaker 1: we now know that a child can experience seventy two
Speaker 1: hours of lucidity or more after the injuries associated with SPS.
Speaker 1: Their last medical witnesses testimony was based on the testimony
Speaker 1: of Detective Shady, who said that John told him in
Speaker 1: an unrecorded interview that Jada began to suck the bottle
Speaker 1: when he made it available by propping it on the
Speaker 1: blanket nearby. This is refuted by two other recorded interviews
Speaker 1: with John, as well as Deja's uncontested statement that Jada
Speaker 1: had drunk halfer bottle before Jasia left for school. So
Speaker 1: you can see that the state was trying to box
Speaker 1: the car of Jada's death into the window that Jada
Speaker 1: was under John's care alone. Summit County corner Dr. Lisa
Speaker 1: Cohler testified that, based on the secondhand information that the
Speaker 1: child drank a significant portion of the milk after eight am,
Speaker 1: the injuries were a result of being shaken, because if
Speaker 1: she could still muster the energy to drink milk after
Speaker 1: eight am, then the trauma must have been committed by
Speaker 1: John because to go unconscious. However, and I know that
Speaker 1: I sound like a broken record here, if there was
Speaker 1: causal trauma, it could have happened seventy two hours into
Speaker 1: the past from when Jada became unresponsive. So the state's
Speaker 1: case was completely undermined by what we now know about
Speaker 1: the junk science that they were relying on to convict John.
Speaker 1: The defense, however, called renowned forensic pathologist Dr John Arden,
Speaker 1: who agreed that these could have been injuries from abuse
Speaker 1: or not, and that they could have occurred between seven
Speaker 1: and nine am. However, the evidence available did not permit
Speaker 1: a medical opinion within degree of specificity regarding the timing
Speaker 1: of any of the fresh injuries, and that it is
Speaker 1: not medically reasonable to make any such determinations. Subdural hemorrhaging
Speaker 1: does not typically cause immediate incapacitation. So the way the
Speaker 1: state was trying to fence in this crime to that
Speaker 1: eight to nine forty a m window just doesn't hold water.
Speaker 1: Dr Arden testified that Jada's medical records corroborate John's telling
Speaker 1: of events to a reasonable degree of medical certainty. And
Speaker 1: Dr Arden, isn't you know, I'll say, for lack of
Speaker 1: a better term, one of these defense witness gun for
Speaker 1: higher that will that will kind of say you know
Speaker 1: what he wants. I mean, he was a believer of
Speaker 1: SPS for a very long time and he's mentioned very recently,
Speaker 1: like you said in more recent studies that doctors need
Speaker 1: to be very mindful of diagnosing this and they're really
Speaker 1: missing de facts. And Kate, you mentioned it, and I'll
Speaker 1: ask the tough question. I mean, you have fractures and
Speaker 1: limbs at least diagnosed by state's witnesses and other things
Speaker 1: at trial. Were there any explanations about where potentially these
Speaker 1: injuries may have come? Because you know you, I think
Speaker 1: you you're on a jury. You're seeing multiple fractures and
Speaker 1: and damage to the head and then also to the extremities.
Speaker 1: What is important to know about medical findings in these
Speaker 1: kinds of cases is that medical findings might look like abuse,
Speaker 1: but they might not necessarily be abuse, and that can
Speaker 1: happen for a few reasons. One is that injuries that
Speaker 1: are accidental can be misinterpreted by medical providers and investigators
Speaker 1: as abuse. And another is related to this assumption that
Speaker 1: sometimes medical providers make that because they don't know about
Speaker 1: the child's underlying medical conditions. If the child doesn't have
Speaker 1: any so maybe a child has a bone disorder, they
Speaker 1: might fracture very easily like The classic example of this
Speaker 1: is little babies in a neonatal intensive care unit who
Speaker 1: are born for example, very premature, and they can experience
Speaker 1: fractures with totally normal handling, changing their diaper, things like that.
Speaker 1: But that's not the only scenario in which children can
Speaker 1: have what appeared to be really serious injuries from little
Speaker 1: or no trauma. And because we don't know enough about
Speaker 1: Jada's medical condition, it's really hard for us to know
Speaker 1: what kind of actions were required for her to sustain
Speaker 1: the injuries that she had. So after the presentation of dueling,
Speaker 1: experts at Defense called John to the stand, who said
Speaker 1: what you've already heard here, that he did not hurt
Speaker 1: those children. Ever, that he did not see Jay to
Speaker 1: drink from the bottle after eight am, but simply propped
Speaker 1: up a half full bottle on a blanket, consistent with
Speaker 1: Deja's uncontested statement. And again, all this fucking nonsense about
Speaker 1: the bottle is completely irrelevant because current science supports that
Speaker 1: in the case of a traumatic event, it could have
Speaker 1: happened any time over the prior three days or even longer. So,
Speaker 1: whether it was intentional or an accident, Jada could have
Speaker 1: fallen off the couch the changing table. Knowing what we
Speaker 1: know now, one cannot maintain that those injuries could have
Speaker 1: only happened one way, the way that the state maintains
Speaker 1: still maintains violent shaking while Jada was alone in John's care.
Speaker 1: And that's if the cause even was a traumatic event
Speaker 1: rather than a pre existing medical condition. And like I've
Speaker 1: already mentioned here, there are and we've counted them. There
Speaker 1: are eight eight potential conditions that we know of so far,
Speaker 1: and the research is ongoing. Now. I want to quote
Speaker 1: the man that first hypothesized Jakeing baby syndrome back in
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies, Dr Norman guth Kelch. We mentioned him earlier,
Speaker 1: and he wrote an article in two thousand twelve. I'll
Speaker 1: never forget this that it was titled after forty years
Speaker 1: of Consideration, and that article was harshly critical of his
Speaker 1: very own hypothesis end everything that has happened since. And
Speaker 1: so in a two thousand and twelve interview, Dr goth
Speaker 1: Kelch said, and I quote, I think we need to
Speaker 1: go back to the drawing board and make a more
Speaker 1: thorough assessment of these fatal cases. And I'm going to
Speaker 1: bet that we are going to find in every or
Speaker 1: at least the large majority of cases, that the child
Speaker 1: had another severe illness of some sort which was missed
Speaker 1: until too late. End quote. I mean that's the man himself.
Speaker 1: But unfortunately that was two thousand twelve and John's trial
Speaker 1: was in two thousand eleven. So after hearing the state's
Speaker 1: witnesses up against John's witness and not knowing really a
Speaker 1: fraction of what we know now, John was convicted almost
Speaker 1: predictably and sentenced to fifteen years to life. John, can
Speaker 1: you take us back to that terrible moment when the
Speaker 1: jury came back in stand up, I'm listening to diverting
Speaker 1: how on how one was was the highest degree of
Speaker 1: mother sort? We find a defender. John Sotoun was not guilty.
Speaker 1: I actually turned back to my family and that the
Speaker 1: whole sense of feeling of relief just come over me,
Speaker 1: and I'm just like finally, like all the everything, just
Speaker 1: all the way everything just went away. I still greve
Speaker 1: me the loss of my daughter, but like the stress
Speaker 1: and the worry of the jail situation and all of this,
Speaker 1: it just went away because I heard the worst my guilty,
Speaker 1: not knowing that they got the whole arrest of the
Speaker 1: indictment to read. So how to murder As a result
Speaker 1: of fluenci thought, we find the defending John sounds guilty.
Speaker 1: It's just like all the life and my body just left. Antually.
Speaker 1: It was just tears. It was just like I can't
Speaker 1: even explain the villain, Like look at my mom, she crying.
Speaker 1: I just crying. Everybody crying, even my bay She's crying.
Speaker 1: And that moment on this new line, it's about to
Speaker 1: be the longest, hardest fight of my life. And they say,
Speaker 1: asked me to fifty years of life. Yeah, I'm here
Speaker 1: with grown, mean, some fresh a team. I'm here with
Speaker 1: convictive killers. I'm an air with people started all types
Speaker 1: of different type of clients, and I gotta survive. I
Speaker 1: started trying to educate myself. I got my TV. I
Speaker 1: just got to survive. I'm here now, so I gotta
Speaker 1: try to do everything I can to grow and like
Speaker 1: prosper the best that I can. I've seen a lot
Speaker 1: of here. I learned a lot of here. I grew up.
Speaker 1: I found myself in here. I was a kid when
Speaker 1: I came in on almost twenty nine out, and I
Speaker 1: learned a lot of here. I'm a whole another person.
Speaker 1: I'm perspected, my mentality, my outlook on life, everything is different. Done.
Speaker 1: What is being done now for this young man. Is
Speaker 1: there any other exculpatory evidence that we haven't already outlined here,
Speaker 1: or any evidence that the state head constitutional violations. In
Speaker 1: terms of constitutional violations, a defendant has a right not
Speaker 1: to be convicted on the basis of unreliable, quasi scientific evidence.
Speaker 1: And that's what happened in John's case, and that's what
Speaker 1: happens in the so called shaken Baby syndrome prosecutions around
Speaker 1: the country, and particularly in Ohio, and even more particularly
Speaker 1: in Summit County, which is where Akron is. As Kate
Speaker 1: pointed out near the beginning today, Ohio is a particular
Speaker 1: hotspot for these sorts of cases, and not just Ohio,
Speaker 1: but Summit County and Akron specifically. So either the people
Speaker 1: of Acron really like to abuse their children, or there's
Speaker 1: something going on at Acron Children's Hospital and in the
Speaker 1: Summit County Prosecutor's office with respect to their proclivity for
Speaker 1: jumping to the conclusion of child abuse and bringing these
Speaker 1: types of cases. We are preparing to bring post conviction
Speaker 1: litigation on John's path. We will argue that the science
Speaker 1: in this field has changed considerably over the last ten
Speaker 1: or eleven years that if a jury could have heard
Speaker 1: in what it could hear today, that a conviction simply
Speaker 1: wouldn't have happened. So really, what you have here, and
Speaker 1: taking a step back, is you have a horrible tragedy.
Speaker 1: You have a conviction based upon science that, if it
Speaker 1: was try today, would not be a viable theory, and
Speaker 1: you have a man still behind bars based upon that
Speaker 1: unreliable theory of shaking baby sitter correct. Absolutely so for
Speaker 1: our listeners, I'm sure you're feeling the same outrage that
Speaker 1: I'm feeling now. And what can people do? Um, I
Speaker 1: certainly think that people can start writing letters to the
Speaker 1: parole board. Um, John won't be eligible for parole until
Speaker 1: and hopefully by that time we'll have successfully completed litigation
Speaker 1: on his behalf and parole won't matter. But I certainly
Speaker 1: think that that people can start writing to the parole
Speaker 1: board about these issues, because John isn't the only person
Speaker 1: in Ohio who has to before a parole board ultimately
Speaker 1: and convince the parole board that shaking baby syndrome just
Speaker 1: shouldn't serve as the underpinning for a conviction that keeps
Speaker 1: someone in prison for the rest of their lives. So
Speaker 1: that's something that people can do. The other thing I
Speaker 1: would I would say that people should do, even apart
Speaker 1: from John's case, is be informed. If you get a
Speaker 1: jury duty summons, show up and then don't just believe
Speaker 1: what the government scientists tell you, think about it, decide
Speaker 1: whether or not what they're saying is credible and makes sense,
Speaker 1: and listen with open ears to the experts that defense
Speaker 1: counsel puts on the stand as well. And remember it's
Speaker 1: innocent until proven guilty, not the other way around. So
Speaker 1: with that, John, we're thinking of you all the time,
Speaker 1: and we're going to do everything weekend. You have an
Speaker 1: extraordinary team, not just on this call, but at the
Speaker 1: Ohio Innocence Project and throughout the innocence community. UM I
Speaker 1: encourage people to donate to the Ohio Innocence Project so
Speaker 1: that we can help John and so many others who
Speaker 1: have been wrongly convicted in the state of Ohio. So
Speaker 1: with that, now, of course it's a part of the
Speaker 1: show called Closing Arguments. First of all, I think are
Speaker 1: distinguished guests, even we'll call it a panel today, first
Speaker 1: time I've ever used that word in closing arguments. So
Speaker 1: from from Greg and I thanks again for being here, Greg,
Speaker 1: Thank you for co hosting with me as well. Thank
Speaker 1: you very much relying me to co host here Jason. Okay,
Speaker 1: and now we'll go to Donald and save Kate for
Speaker 1: last just because of alphabetical order, and then over to
Speaker 1: you John of course for the closing arguments. Thank you
Speaker 1: Jason and Gregg for having us on today and for
Speaker 1: talking about this really really important issue and this important
Speaker 1: part of the criminal justice system that hasn't gotten enough
Speaker 1: attention recently. When I work with my clients who have
Speaker 1: been convicted of child abuse through this shaking baby syndrome theory,
Speaker 1: and as I talked to their families, I alternate between
Speaker 1: sadness and anger. I'm angry, as is everybody be in
Speaker 1: the podcast today that people go to prison over cases
Speaker 1: that look like this, and I'm sad because of what
Speaker 1: it does to people and their families. John went to
Speaker 1: prison when he was a teenager, and if the State
Speaker 1: of all House has its way, he'll never get out
Speaker 1: again for something that wasn't a crime. It was a
Speaker 1: crime that never happened. These cases are enormously difficult to undo.
Speaker 1: I compare these cases sometimes to like trying to poke
Speaker 1: a hole through jello. It's easier to make a hole
Speaker 1: through a very solid object than it is through something
Speaker 1: that's weak and weakly it just closes up around the
Speaker 1: hole that you've just made, and trying to undo these
Speaker 1: shaken baby convictions can be exactly like that. We need
Speaker 1: to do better in our criminal justice system. We need
Speaker 1: to pay attention to the science. We need to make
Speaker 1: it a little bit easier to discover the evidence to
Speaker 1: undo these convictions after they happen. In Ohio, for instance,
Speaker 1: we really need the ability to do discover before we
Speaker 1: file an action so that we can get things like
Speaker 1: Jada's medical records from birth up until five months, so
Speaker 1: that we can put together the full medical history that
Speaker 1: we need to do the work in this kind of case.
Speaker 1: The prosecution of these types of cases are based on
Speaker 1: a laudable goal, and that's to protect children and protect
Speaker 1: the most vulnerable. Nobody wants child abuse, Nobody wants to
Speaker 1: see abuse at all. Unfortunately, what's happened is that doctors
Speaker 1: and other experts believe that in these cases they can
Speaker 1: do what's called air on the side of the child.
Speaker 1: They can accuse someone of abuse when they're not sure
Speaker 1: or when all of the science doesn't unerringly point to
Speaker 1: the defendant, and you can't air on the side of
Speaker 1: the child in these kinds of cases. It's impossible any
Speaker 1: error is going to harm both the child who may
Speaker 1: be a victim and everyone else involved in the case.
Speaker 1: And that's because when these cases are investigated improperly or
Speaker 1: charges our breath that are wrongful, that means that a
Speaker 1: child can be separated from a loving family, or that
Speaker 1: a grieving parent who's lost to child can be punished
Speaker 1: for something that they didn't do. And it also might
Speaker 1: mean that a child who is ill or who has
Speaker 1: had an accident might not get the right medical care
Speaker 1: for their illness. There's no way to air on the
Speaker 1: side of the child in these cases, and that's why
Speaker 1: we have to be so careful. We cannot have convictions
Speaker 1: that are premised on science that is shaky or science
Speaker 1: that is ambiguous. And that's why the Center for Integrity
Speaker 1: in Forensic Sciences exists because everybody's right to justice and
Speaker 1: a fair result depends on a fair process and a
Speaker 1: fair trial, and you can't have that when there is
Speaker 1: testimony or opinion introduced at the trial that is overstated
Speaker 1: or just playing wrong and now of course over to you, John.
Speaker 1: I just want to sign light unless it's a way
Speaker 1: to my own people to realize what I'm going through,
Speaker 1: and I'm not even only person going through this is
Speaker 1: possibly being accused of causing that everywhere children dudes our
Speaker 1: challenge science like nothing that's not even legit. It's a
Speaker 1: lot of whole theory and the whole theory and the
Speaker 1: whole concept of the same detentional. So I just want
Speaker 1: to share a night on that situation first and foremost,
Speaker 1: because I know that it's gonna get better. I know that.
Speaker 1: I don't know that. I know that because I know
Speaker 1: I deserve it. I know that truth gonna come out.
Speaker 1: I love my daughter conditionally, under all my children. I
Speaker 1: have three children, including my daughter. We cashed the way Presidente.
Speaker 1: I love them unconditionally, to do anything to them, will
Speaker 1: give my life for them. I gotta continue the pipe
Speaker 1: for my life and the pipe i'm afraid of them.
Speaker 1: I gotta continue the life of just from my daughter,
Speaker 1: because at the end of the day, that's who's truly about.
Speaker 1: When we find out the real cause of what happened,
Speaker 1: we're here, that's gonna automatically vindicate me that's at the
Speaker 1: mc auno ate me. But it's gonna also bring closure
Speaker 1: to my family, my child's mother's family. Everybody don't say
Speaker 1: because it's gonna give us the truth is, it's gonna
Speaker 1: let us know. It's gonna actually questions that we all
Speaker 1: got butt then of the days just about my notice
Speaker 1: about Jada, like it's all about Jada for Yeah, I
Speaker 1: want my freedom, Yeah I desire my freedom. But all
Speaker 1: will happened where in the closure that our family need.
Speaker 1: And then finally, Ben, when to get to a place
Speaker 1: where we can move forward because I've never really ever
Speaker 1: even been able to heal from me. I never filed
Speaker 1: closer because not only did I suffer one of the
Speaker 1: deepest losses that anybody on this earth can can suffers
Speaker 1: on the child, not only did I experience thing and
Speaker 1: have to deal with that I gotta deal with stay
Speaker 1: here every single day. Thank you for listening to Wrong
Speaker 1: for Conviction with Jason Flam. Please support your local innocence
Speaker 1: projects and go to the link in our bio to
Speaker 1: see how you can help. I'd like to thank our
Speaker 1: production team, Connor Hall, Jeff Clyburne and Kevin Warns. The
Speaker 1: music on the show, as always, is by three time
Speaker 1: OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us
Speaker 1: on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at Wrongful
Speaker 1: Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam is a production
Speaker 1: of Lava for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company
Speaker 1: Number one