WEBVTT - #215 Jason Flom with Greg Glod on John Jones 0:00:02.040 --> 0:00:05.320 John Jones and Deja Ruiz had three children while working 0:00:05.320 --> 0:00:09.240 on their high school diplomas. After celebrating Deja's mother's birthday 0:00:09.280 --> 0:00:12.800 on March eighteenth, twenty ten, the young family laid down 0:00:12.840 --> 0:00:17.160 to sleep. Despite the expected waking and feeding that comes 0:00:17.160 --> 0:00:20.720 with six month old twins, the night was ordinary. When 0:00:20.760 --> 0:00:23.599 Deja left for school at eight am, John propped some 0:00:23.640 --> 0:00:26.840 bottles on a blanket near twins Jada and Jasmine and 0:00:26.920 --> 0:00:30.440 went back to sleep. Then, when John woke again at 0:00:30.520 --> 0:00:33.360 nine forty am, turned on cartoons for his son and 0:00:33.479 --> 0:00:37.159 went to attend to the twins. Jada was unresponsive in 0:00:37.200 --> 0:00:40.680 a panic. He called family and nine one one. The 0:00:40.720 --> 0:00:44.400 dispatcher coached him through CPR until first responders arrived and 0:00:44.440 --> 0:00:48.040 took over. He did everything a concerned father would do, 0:00:48.159 --> 0:00:51.320 But when testing was done at the hospital, doctors found 0:00:51.400 --> 0:00:57.240 what they mistakenly thought was conclusive evidence of lethal child abuse. However, 0:00:57.560 --> 0:01:00.680 over the next decade, the science that they used to 0:01:00.720 --> 0:01:04.360 support John's conviction has crumbled under the weight of reality. 0:01:04.680 --> 0:01:08.679 Had a jury heard all the other now logical explanations 0:01:08.720 --> 0:01:12.520 for the symptoms present in little Jada's body, John Jones 0:01:12.720 --> 0:01:15.640 never would have served a day of his fifteen to 0:01:15.720 --> 0:01:32.039 life prison sentence. This is Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom. 0:01:32.200 --> 0:01:34.840 Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom. That's me, 0:01:34.959 --> 0:01:37.640 of course, your host, and today we're here to tell 0:01:37.680 --> 0:01:40.840 you the heartbreaking story of John Jones, who was just 0:01:41.000 --> 0:01:43.960 seventeen years old when his six month old daughter, Jada 0:01:44.080 --> 0:01:48.760 Ruiz died, and shortly thereafter, the tragedy was compounded by 0:01:48.800 --> 0:01:52.559 the hubris of some in the medical establishment and legal 0:01:52.600 --> 0:01:56.480 system armed with the junk science of shaken baby syndrome. 0:01:56.800 --> 0:02:00.360 And today I'm joined by a phenomenal co host. Avid 0:02:00.400 --> 0:02:03.560 Listeners will remember Greg Glod from the Junk Science episode 0:02:03.600 --> 0:02:07.280 on Roadside drug Testing. He is the Criminal Justice Fellow 0:02:07.320 --> 0:02:11.720 at Americans for Prosperity. Greg. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction. 0:02:12.280 --> 0:02:14.600 I appreciate it. Jason, thank you so much for allowing 0:02:14.639 --> 0:02:17.280 me to co host. You and I have gotten close 0:02:17.320 --> 0:02:19.000 over the last couple of months. I've been working on 0:02:19.080 --> 0:02:22.600 Criminal Justice Reformed since about twenty fifteen now, and to 0:02:22.600 --> 0:02:24.360 be able to do this today and co host is, 0:02:24.400 --> 0:02:26.800 you know, really an honor. So I really thank you again. 0:02:27.160 --> 0:02:29.040 Well, I'm the one who really should feel honored, and 0:02:29.080 --> 0:02:31.800 not just because you've joined us, but also because with 0:02:32.040 --> 0:02:35.320 us is one of the world's leading experts in one 0:02:35.360 --> 0:02:37.880 of the most troubling aspects of our criminal legal system, 0:02:38.040 --> 0:02:41.760 shaken baby syndrome. Now, she was also featured on Wrongful 0:02:41.760 --> 0:02:45.359 Conviction Junk Science when we covered this subject. The executive 0:02:45.400 --> 0:02:49.720 director of the Center for Integrity and Forensic Sciences, Kate Judson, 0:02:50.040 --> 0:02:51.600 Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction. 0:02:52.160 --> 0:02:54.520 Hi, thank you so much, Jason, and Hi Greg. 0:02:55.280 --> 0:02:57.920 And last but not least, we have with us staff 0:02:57.919 --> 0:03:01.560 attorney at the Ohio Innocence Project, the man who's representing 0:03:01.639 --> 0:03:06.200 John Jones, Donald Caster. Donald, Welcome to ronfel Conviction. Thanks 0:03:06.200 --> 0:03:06.760 for being. 0:03:06.639 --> 0:03:08.760 Here, Hi, Jason, thank you for having me on. 0:03:09.280 --> 0:03:12.239 And we'll be joined very soon by John Jones. Was 0:03:12.280 --> 0:03:15.480 going to be calling in from Lebanon Correctional Facility in Ohio. 0:03:15.560 --> 0:03:18.440 But first let's get a little background on what John 0:03:18.560 --> 0:03:21.280 was up against when Jada became unresponsive. 0:03:21.680 --> 0:03:26.280 Kate, can you give a brief history on shaken baby syndrome. 0:03:26.600 --> 0:03:30.079 You know where it came from, this hypothesis, and then 0:03:30.120 --> 0:03:32.800 how did it start to enter its way into the 0:03:32.840 --> 0:03:38.320 criminal justice system as a viable scientific theory to convict caretakers. 0:03:38.400 --> 0:03:39.360 Of murder. 0:03:39.400 --> 0:03:42.600 Sure Greg Shaking baby syndrome was originally proposed as a 0:03:42.680 --> 0:03:47.160 hypothesis to explain a phenomenon that a pediatric neurosurgeon in 0:03:47.200 --> 0:03:49.760 Great Britain was seeing in his patients. He would sometimes 0:03:49.760 --> 0:03:52.440 have infants who died or were seriously ill without a 0:03:52.440 --> 0:03:55.960 clear cause and without external trauma, and yet the internal 0:03:56.000 --> 0:04:00.160 features looked a lot like kids who had suffered some 0:04:00.240 --> 0:04:03.680 kind of traumatic injury. So those findings were subdural hematoma, 0:04:03.840 --> 0:04:07.080 which is bleeding between the coverings of the brain, retinal hemorrhage, 0:04:07.120 --> 0:04:08.880 which is bleeding at the back of the eye, and 0:04:09.400 --> 0:04:13.000 encephalopathy and cerebral edema, which sort of acts together as 0:04:13.040 --> 0:04:16.799 one leg of what sometimes people call the triad. Cerebral 0:04:16.920 --> 0:04:20.760 edema is brain swelling and encephalopathy is brain dysfunction. And 0:04:20.800 --> 0:04:24.520 so doctor guth Kelch, the piatric neurosurgeon, was seeing these 0:04:24.560 --> 0:04:27.080 findings in kids and they looked injured on the inside 0:04:27.080 --> 0:04:29.440 but not on the outside. And he thought that one 0:04:29.480 --> 0:04:33.599 reason for that might be a common disciplinary technique in 0:04:33.680 --> 0:04:37.080 his home of Northern England in the seventies, which was shaking. 0:04:37.400 --> 0:04:41.000 And so what doctor goth Kelch said is that these 0:04:41.160 --> 0:04:43.960 medical findings could be due to shaking, and doctor goth 0:04:44.000 --> 0:04:46.720 Kelch wasn't claiming to have the answers, but rather that 0:04:46.800 --> 0:04:50.360 he was hypothesizing about what might be causing these findings. 0:04:50.520 --> 0:04:54.039 So that started to evolve. A radiologist in New York, 0:04:54.160 --> 0:04:57.440 John Caffey, built on that and he published articles saying 0:04:57.640 --> 0:05:00.800 the same thing, right, that parents should be with infants. 0:05:00.839 --> 0:05:04.200 But neither of these doctors suggested that the medical findings 0:05:04.200 --> 0:05:08.440 that they associated with shaking were exclusively diagnostic to shaking, 0:05:08.640 --> 0:05:11.880 nor did they say that there was a reliable way 0:05:11.920 --> 0:05:15.080 to place blame on a caregiver when a child had 0:05:15.120 --> 0:05:16.760 these medical findings. 0:05:16.360 --> 0:05:19.719 Right, and so where was the switch then, from this 0:05:19.920 --> 0:05:23.200 just being you know, a hypothesis or an unexplained phenomena 0:05:23.320 --> 0:05:29.719 to a verifiable medical diagnosis that actually began convicting visuals 0:05:29.839 --> 0:05:30.880 of murder of a child. 0:05:30.920 --> 0:05:33.240 And there's a little bit of a gap in understanding 0:05:33.279 --> 0:05:35.880 between the mid to late nineteen seventies and then when 0:05:35.920 --> 0:05:39.680 we start to see these cases appear in published appellate 0:05:39.720 --> 0:05:42.320 decisions in the late eighties, and we started to see 0:05:42.480 --> 0:05:47.600 prosecutors and pediatricians in particular also pathologists saying that when 0:05:47.680 --> 0:05:50.480 children had this collection of findings, which is sometimes called 0:05:50.720 --> 0:05:53.600 a triad of findings or a constellation of medical findings 0:05:53.880 --> 0:05:56.560 that shaking could be diagnosed. And that's when it comes 0:05:56.600 --> 0:05:59.040 into the criminal legal system and we start to see 0:05:59.279 --> 0:06:02.880 the trajector that we're on today where parents are wrongfully 0:06:02.960 --> 0:06:05.880 accused based on only the existence of a particular set 0:06:05.880 --> 0:06:08.880 of medical findings. And I mean to be totally clear, 0:06:09.080 --> 0:06:12.760 there's no debate about whether abusive shaking, violent shaking of 0:06:12.760 --> 0:06:14.880 an infant is dangerous. It is, and no one should 0:06:14.920 --> 0:06:19.839 do it. The debate is really whether shaking reliably explains 0:06:19.960 --> 0:06:22.719 the findings that are often attributed to it, whether shaking 0:06:22.760 --> 0:06:25.719 can be diagnosed as the cause of those findings. 0:06:26.040 --> 0:06:28.240 Kate, and doing my research for this, there is a 0:06:28.320 --> 0:06:32.720 large concentration of these shaking baby syndrome cases in the 0:06:32.760 --> 0:06:35.600 state of Ohio, and so I just wanted to see 0:06:35.600 --> 0:06:38.440 if you had any explanation behind why Ohio kind of 0:06:38.440 --> 0:06:41.440 had a higher rate of shaking baby syndrome cases than 0:06:41.440 --> 0:06:43.080 many other jurisdictions across the nation. 0:06:43.360 --> 0:06:46.280 Researchers aren't one hundred percent sure why some places have 0:06:46.520 --> 0:06:50.760 higher concentrations of diagnoses of SPS than others. It's probably 0:06:50.800 --> 0:06:53.640 a combination of factors, but some of those factors include 0:06:53.880 --> 0:06:57.520 prosecutors who are particularly aggressive in going after these are 0:06:57.640 --> 0:07:01.480 kinds of accusations, the media attention in certain cases receive 0:07:01.560 --> 0:07:05.800 in certain media markets, and the child abuse pediatricians or 0:07:05.960 --> 0:07:08.839 forensic pathologists who work on these cases. If they have 0:07:08.920 --> 0:07:11.760 a particular belief or bent, then there are more likely 0:07:11.800 --> 0:07:16.720 to be more accusations of shaking within that person's jurisdiction 0:07:16.800 --> 0:07:20.200 or area of control. And Ohio is one of those places. 0:07:20.520 --> 0:07:24.120 And now we'll go to Lebanon Correctional Facility to speak 0:07:24.160 --> 0:07:26.800 with a young man who was doing his best as 0:07:26.840 --> 0:07:30.480 a young teenager to raise three kids while finishing high 0:07:30.520 --> 0:07:35.880 school in the third largest shaken baby syndrome epicenter in 0:07:35.920 --> 0:07:37.880 the country, Akron, Ohio. 0:07:38.920 --> 0:07:44.080 Hello, this is a prepaid debit call from an inmate. 0:07:44.120 --> 0:07:48.840 It's e Lebanon Correctional Facility. To accept this call, press 0:07:49.320 --> 0:07:53.440 zero to prevent This call is from a correction facility 0:07:53.520 --> 0:07:55.800 and is subject to monitoring and recording. 0:07:56.720 --> 0:07:58.200 Thank you for using GTL. 0:08:00.880 --> 0:08:01.160 John. 0:08:01.960 --> 0:08:03.280 Yeah, this is John John. 0:08:03.520 --> 0:08:06.280 Like I always say, I'm glad you're here with us, 0:08:06.320 --> 0:08:09.080 but I'm sorry because of the reason you're here, or 0:08:09.120 --> 0:08:11.000 more to the point, because of where you are. 0:08:11.480 --> 0:08:12.320 Thanks for having me. 0:08:12.840 --> 0:08:15.640 So I wanted you to take us back, if you will, 0:08:15.720 --> 0:08:18.920 to your life before this absolute horror happened. You were 0:08:18.920 --> 0:08:19.880 growing up an Akron. 0:08:20.040 --> 0:08:22.440 I grew up with four sisters who struggled. I grew 0:08:22.520 --> 0:08:24.680 up poor, he moved around a lot. My mom had 0:08:24.720 --> 0:08:28.840 some struggles drug addiction, alcohol addiction. My father as well 0:08:28.920 --> 0:08:31.200 had the same struggles, regardless of what she was going 0:08:31.240 --> 0:08:33.720 through her own personal problems. My mom always was around, 0:08:33.840 --> 0:08:35.720 she was always with us, but my Grandmather ended up 0:08:35.760 --> 0:08:37.920 getting custody on me when I was real young. She 0:08:38.080 --> 0:08:39.600 just put us on a path to try to be 0:08:39.760 --> 0:08:42.200 as successful as we could growing love. I did real 0:08:42.240 --> 0:08:44.320 good at school, always was like an honor roll student. 0:08:44.440 --> 0:08:46.679 Once I became a teenager, and that's when I came 0:08:46.880 --> 0:08:51.280 into contact with my child's mother. I met her December sixteenth, 0:08:51.559 --> 0:08:55.960 my fourteenth birthday, and my son was conceived nine days 0:08:56.040 --> 0:09:01.000 later on Christmas Eve, Christmas night. So now I'm fourteen, 0:09:01.440 --> 0:09:04.319 I'm expecting a child on the way. I knew that 0:09:04.360 --> 0:09:08.640 I had a responsibility now, so school no longer was 0:09:08.679 --> 0:09:11.160 a priority. My bid what I needed to do to 0:09:11.200 --> 0:09:14.560 provide for him as time progressed, me and her eventually 0:09:14.679 --> 0:09:18.480 began to establish a relationship get closer. A couple of 0:09:18.520 --> 0:09:21.959 years later, that's when my twins were and see Jada 0:09:21.960 --> 0:09:25.120 and jazz Man. We ended up getting an apartment together 0:09:25.440 --> 0:09:28.920 on our own. My grandmother was still technically my legal guardian, 0:09:29.000 --> 0:09:32.040 so I lived with them, but I spent most nights 0:09:32.080 --> 0:09:35.080 with my child's mother just to be around my children. 0:09:35.320 --> 0:09:37.719 Growing up. My father was always in my life, but 0:09:37.760 --> 0:09:40.240 like I said, he was a battling with addiction. But 0:09:40.360 --> 0:09:43.000 even though I loved him unconditionally, he just wasn't the 0:09:43.040 --> 0:09:45.200 best that he could have been. So that made me 0:09:45.280 --> 0:09:46.680 want to make sure I was the best I could 0:09:46.720 --> 0:09:49.319 have been. Regardless of how old I was, regardless of school, 0:09:49.360 --> 0:09:50.800 whatever I was going through, I was going to be 0:09:50.920 --> 0:09:53.040 present every single day in their life no matter what, 0:09:53.280 --> 0:09:56.200 regardless of the status of me and their mother's relationship, 0:09:56.600 --> 0:09:59.120 how healthy or how unhealthy it was, I was going 0:09:59.200 --> 0:09:59.959 to make sure I was there. 0:10:00.120 --> 0:10:03.080 My key is no matter what, and that's admirable. And 0:10:03.400 --> 0:10:07.760 so you, your children's mother, Desa, your son Tyshan, and 0:10:07.800 --> 0:10:11.920 the twins Jada and Jasmine all moved into an apartment together. 0:10:12.120 --> 0:10:15.840 Dajo was eighteen. You're seventeen, and you were both finishing 0:10:15.920 --> 0:10:19.040 high school through an alternative school for young parents, and 0:10:19.240 --> 0:10:23.439 somehow you're making it work, which brings us to March nineteenth, 0:10:23.679 --> 0:10:24.280 twenty ten. 0:10:24.559 --> 0:10:27.640 The night before that morning it was actually her mother's birthday. 0:10:27.880 --> 0:10:30.400 Everybody spent some time together. It was a cool little 0:10:30.480 --> 0:10:33.720 vibe though. Everybody was on the same page. And we 0:10:33.760 --> 0:10:36.319 went to sleep like any other day. We slept down 0:10:36.360 --> 0:10:39.000 in the living room. I slept on the couch with 0:10:39.000 --> 0:10:40.880 my daughter Jazz, and she slept down on the floor 0:10:40.960 --> 0:10:44.120 with my daughter at Lana, and my son was down 0:10:44.120 --> 0:10:46.960 there with us as well. But throughout the night she 0:10:47.080 --> 0:10:52.040 was waking me up, complaining about positioning or beating or 0:10:52.120 --> 0:10:53.920 you know, my daughter might have been hungry or whatever. 0:10:53.960 --> 0:10:56.160 She was looking me up throughout the night. But it 0:10:56.280 --> 0:11:00.120 was just a typical day. And then that morning she 0:11:00.200 --> 0:11:02.360 had a test that she had to go take right 0:11:02.440 --> 0:11:02.959 and from what. 0:11:02.960 --> 0:11:06.200 I understand, you both fed the twins at five am 0:11:06.320 --> 0:11:09.040 and then went back to sleep. Then Dasia woke up 0:11:09.080 --> 0:11:11.839 at seven am to get ready for school and left 0:11:11.840 --> 0:11:12.360 around eight. 0:11:12.840 --> 0:11:15.360 So I get up walking through the door, you know, 0:11:15.720 --> 0:11:17.600 wishing a look on her task, give her a kiss. 0:11:17.760 --> 0:11:20.320 She go out at this point, my son's still asleep, 0:11:20.720 --> 0:11:23.160 my daughter's around the couch, they laying down. It's early 0:11:23.160 --> 0:11:26.400 in the morning, so I'm still tired. I go up 0:11:26.400 --> 0:11:28.560 to my daughter's I popped the bottles. I learned later 0:11:28.640 --> 0:11:30.760 on now that this wasn't a smart thing to duel, 0:11:30.880 --> 0:11:33.600 just because of the safety concerns with a new warm 0:11:33.679 --> 0:11:35.959 but at the time I really wasn't aware of it, 0:11:36.000 --> 0:11:39.199 and it was more of like a convenient thing away 0:11:39.200 --> 0:11:41.040 of me going back to sleep, but also feeding them 0:11:41.040 --> 0:11:44.440 if they were having So I placed the bottles up 0:11:44.480 --> 0:11:46.719 on the blanket and I prop them up, so I 0:11:46.800 --> 0:11:48.760 put them right there, just so when they do wake up, 0:11:49.320 --> 0:11:51.040 the bottle be right there, they'll be able to feed. 0:11:51.200 --> 0:11:52.959 I can be able to sleep about another hour or 0:11:52.960 --> 0:11:56.520 two whatever, They'd be all right, everybody'd be cool. We 0:11:56.559 --> 0:11:59.280 did this every day, multiple time, so it was just 0:11:59.280 --> 0:12:00.920 another I said day. 0:12:00.960 --> 0:12:05.000 But it's at this point, between eight and nine forty 0:12:05.040 --> 0:12:08.480 am that, according to the state's theory and what passed 0:12:08.520 --> 0:12:13.160 for expert testimony, that you allegedly abused your daughter Jada 0:12:13.280 --> 0:12:15.520 in such a way that it caused all of these 0:12:15.679 --> 0:12:19.800 supposed injuries or symptoms that were later observed at the hospital, 0:12:20.559 --> 0:12:23.920 the same ones that Kate had mentioned earlier that make 0:12:24.040 --> 0:12:27.560 up the triad of shaken baby syndrome. But as we 0:12:27.679 --> 0:12:31.480 now know, there are a myriad of medical conditions that 0:12:31.600 --> 0:12:35.679 can and do cause these symptoms in addition to an 0:12:35.720 --> 0:12:40.120 accidental or intentional traumatic event, and even in those events, 0:12:40.200 --> 0:12:42.800 it's important to note that a child may be lucid 0:12:43.040 --> 0:12:45.320 up to seventy two hours or even more before the 0:12:45.400 --> 0:12:48.240 symptoms or injuries become a parent. And in this case, 0:12:49.160 --> 0:12:51.800 they became apparent to you when you checked on Jada 0:12:51.880 --> 0:12:55.760 and Jasmine at around nine forty am on that faithful, 0:12:55.840 --> 0:12:59.520 awful day. And you know, as a father myself, it's 0:12:59.600 --> 0:13:03.480 every p's worst nightmare. So at nine am you woke up, 0:13:03.760 --> 0:13:07.160 put on cartoons for Tyshan, and go to check on 0:13:07.200 --> 0:13:11.040 your daughters, only to find that Jada was unresponsive. 0:13:11.320 --> 0:13:13.080 That was the scariest moment in my life. That was 0:13:13.080 --> 0:13:15.800 the worst day of my life. I didn't know what 0:13:15.840 --> 0:13:18.440 to do in that moment. She wasn't breathing, she wasn't moving, 0:13:18.480 --> 0:13:22.199 she wasn't responsors at all. I instantly get on the phone. 0:13:22.240 --> 0:13:24.920 My first reaction was to call our family because my 0:13:25.000 --> 0:13:28.640 daughters were born with acid reflex. They when they feed, 0:13:28.679 --> 0:13:31.080 they would regurgitate the food. It would come up their moths. 0:13:31.120 --> 0:13:32.760 Sometimes it would come up their mouth. It didn't happen 0:13:32.800 --> 0:13:35.920 every time, but it happened frequently. So at first I 0:13:36.040 --> 0:13:37.880 was wondering if this was the case. So I actually 0:13:37.880 --> 0:13:40.280 called my mom and I tell them what's going on. 0:13:40.360 --> 0:13:41.640 But I'm panickings, So I didn't want to stay on 0:13:41.640 --> 0:13:43.400 the phone with them too long because I'm realizing she's 0:13:43.440 --> 0:13:45.720 not breathing or nothing. But I called her family as 0:13:45.720 --> 0:13:47.400 well to let them know. I get off the phone. 0:13:47.440 --> 0:13:49.719 I called nine one one tell them the whole situation is. 0:13:49.760 --> 0:13:52.200 I'm listening to the nine one one operator. She explained 0:13:52.320 --> 0:13:54.360 to me how to do the test compressions and the 0:13:54.400 --> 0:13:56.559 mouth to mouth. I tried. I did everything I could, 0:13:56.559 --> 0:13:58.520 and nothing was working. Like so at this point, I'm 0:13:58.520 --> 0:14:03.880 becoming more here, more upset. I'm crying, and I'm just 0:14:03.920 --> 0:14:06.120 waiting to seem like a second for ever. They finally arrived. 0:14:06.440 --> 0:14:08.840 They grab her, they take her out, and I began 0:14:08.920 --> 0:14:10.960 to speak to the detectives or whatever. I'm telling them. 0:14:11.040 --> 0:14:13.480 Everything pretty much that I'm telling you is my recognition 0:14:13.559 --> 0:14:16.360 that that night in the morning, nothing really stood out 0:14:16.400 --> 0:14:19.720 to me. From that point, family members thought arrived and 0:14:19.760 --> 0:14:22.840 everybody's time. We all head down to the hospital, and 0:14:22.880 --> 0:14:25.440 then a couple hours later, that's when we hear the 0:14:25.560 --> 0:14:30.800 doctor's opinion about what they believed was the cause of everything. 0:14:31.800 --> 0:14:35.280 When the first responders arrived, they didn't see any signs 0:14:35.320 --> 0:14:38.520 of any external injuries. They didn't see any bruising or 0:14:38.560 --> 0:14:43.440 obvious deformities or bone fractures. They were under the impression 0:14:43.720 --> 0:14:46.680 that Jada might have suffered from sins or sudden infant 0:14:46.760 --> 0:14:51.000 death syndrome. And the police see John doing what you 0:14:51.040 --> 0:14:55.160 would expect a distraught father to be doing. It's an 0:14:55.160 --> 0:14:58.360 officer named Dennis Bard starts taking pictures to the scene. 0:14:58.400 --> 0:15:01.400 There are blankets that are collect One of the things 0:15:01.440 --> 0:15:04.920 that's not collected is the bottles that were feeding two 0:15:04.920 --> 0:15:05.920 of the children. 0:15:05.600 --> 0:15:08.440 And that becomes critical later on in the state's theory 0:15:08.440 --> 0:15:08.880 of the case. 0:15:09.160 --> 0:15:11.520 The bottles are important, at least according to the state, 0:15:11.800 --> 0:15:14.800 because one of the doctors who testified on behalf of 0:15:14.840 --> 0:15:19.000 the state told the jury that how much milk and 0:15:19.040 --> 0:15:21.920 formula was in the bottle would have been really important 0:15:21.960 --> 0:15:25.200 in establishing the timing of abuse. Because, according to the 0:15:25.240 --> 0:15:29.400 state's doctor, Jada wouldn't have been able to consume anything 0:15:29.480 --> 0:15:33.840 from the bottle after suffering the type of injuries that 0:15:34.000 --> 0:15:35.640 they believe Jada had suffered. 0:15:36.200 --> 0:15:38.880 And what we now know, and this is so important, 0:15:38.920 --> 0:15:42.280 is that a child can experience seventy two hours or 0:15:42.320 --> 0:15:47.000 more of lucidity after a traumatic event, whether accidental or intentional, 0:15:47.280 --> 0:15:50.080 which it's not entirely clear that this is in fact 0:15:50.120 --> 0:15:53.000 what happened to cause these symptoms. And I say symptoms 0:15:53.440 --> 0:15:58.160 because a myriad of medical conditions can cause what happened 0:15:58.200 --> 0:16:01.520 to Jada to happen. We're getting a little bit of 0:16:01.520 --> 0:16:04.480 ahead of ourselves here. So the first responders see this 0:16:04.600 --> 0:16:08.920 situation as a non criminal death, not a homicide. So 0:16:08.960 --> 0:16:12.160 the bottle was just left there and the lead investigator, 0:16:12.200 --> 0:16:14.720 Detective Shady, drove John to the hospital. 0:16:15.160 --> 0:16:20.160 Detective Shady also does a very brief interview of John 0:16:20.400 --> 0:16:23.040 at the time. Detective Shady and John go to the 0:16:23.080 --> 0:16:26.920 hospital following the ambulance, and once they get to the hospital, 0:16:27.320 --> 0:16:31.640 they find out that Jada had been successfully resuscitated. John 0:16:31.720 --> 0:16:34.920 makes phone calls to family members to let them know 0:16:35.400 --> 0:16:37.960 that things were at least looking a little bit better 0:16:38.040 --> 0:16:41.320 now that they were at the hospital. And then doctors 0:16:41.360 --> 0:16:43.920 at the hospital start to do medical tests. They do 0:16:44.000 --> 0:16:47.920 a cat scan, other tests, and again, ultimately the doctors 0:16:48.000 --> 0:16:52.160 began to believe that there were actual injuries to Jada, 0:16:52.600 --> 0:16:55.360 and in fact, once they got to the hospital, John 0:16:55.560 --> 0:16:59.320 was confronted by a doctor who did not testify at 0:16:59.320 --> 0:17:02.960 trial dificant to the case, a doctor Darryl Steiner, who 0:17:03.040 --> 0:17:06.760 came in and told John and the detective that Jada 0:17:06.840 --> 0:17:10.679 had suffered from what he called non accidental injuries. The 0:17:10.720 --> 0:17:15.040 hospital staff also claimed that there were old injuries, insinuating 0:17:15.080 --> 0:17:18.840 that abuse had taken place for a significant period of time. 0:17:19.320 --> 0:17:22.080 So, John, you had just been through one of the 0:17:22.119 --> 0:17:26.480 most harrowing experiences that anyone can ever go through, and 0:17:26.520 --> 0:17:30.480 you were waiting to hear what the path forward might 0:17:30.520 --> 0:17:34.959 be for your daughter. And the doctors at ACUN Children's Hospital, 0:17:35.000 --> 0:17:38.880 again the number three epicenter for shaking baby syndrome diagnoses 0:17:38.880 --> 0:17:43.480 and prosecutions in the country. Those doctors tell you, the 0:17:43.640 --> 0:17:49.080 family and detectives their opinion that the medical facts observed 0:17:49.119 --> 0:17:53.720 in Jata retinal bleeding, subdual bleeding and brain swelling, as 0:17:53.760 --> 0:17:56.600 well as a series of fractures, that these could only 0:17:56.640 --> 0:17:59.879 have been the result of a non accidental traumatic event, 0:18:00.200 --> 0:18:04.800 in other words, child abuse, violent shaking by Jada's caretaker 0:18:04.880 --> 0:18:08.600 at the time that she went unresponsive. And again, we 0:18:08.960 --> 0:18:13.280 now know that there are a slew of medical conditions 0:18:13.359 --> 0:18:17.760 that can cause these symptoms, and that children can experience 0:18:18.480 --> 0:18:22.760 seventy two hours or more of relatively normal behavior after 0:18:22.880 --> 0:18:27.440 such a traumatic event, if a traumatic event even ever 0:18:27.520 --> 0:18:30.560 occurred and was in fact what caused these symptoms. So 0:18:31.080 --> 0:18:34.720 back then many in the medical establishment, these doctors included, 0:18:34.800 --> 0:18:38.280 thought that they could diagnose a crime and the time 0:18:38.359 --> 0:18:42.080 of that crime, which we now know that they could not. Meanwhile, 0:18:42.160 --> 0:18:45.800 your story has remained consistent ever since that fateful day, 0:18:45.880 --> 0:18:49.119 and nowhere in your recollection of events does even a 0:18:49.280 --> 0:18:52.920 minor frustration occur, let alone violent shaking. 0:18:53.440 --> 0:18:57.640 Never. Never, never. We all sit in a waiting room 0:18:57.760 --> 0:18:59.919 or in the area when they come in and they 0:19:00.080 --> 0:19:03.320 tell us, well, we believe that what's wrong with her 0:19:03.480 --> 0:19:06.920 was my accident and was intentional, was caused by somebody, 0:19:07.440 --> 0:19:10.040 was caused by specifically somebody who was there. 0:19:10.200 --> 0:19:10.960 So then at that. 0:19:10.920 --> 0:19:15.040 Point I felt like I was being accused or even 0:19:15.600 --> 0:19:18.199 suspected of something, and the only other person that was 0:19:18.200 --> 0:19:21.800 there with me was their mother. I know I didn't 0:19:21.840 --> 0:19:25.440 do nothing to her. I never would so a man, 0:19:25.520 --> 0:19:27.520 things running through my head at that moment. I'm scared 0:19:27.760 --> 0:19:31.199 first and foremost most completely for my daughter. Now I'm questioning, like, 0:19:31.480 --> 0:19:33.119 why are they saying somebody did this? Why did they 0:19:33.119 --> 0:19:34.840 say somebody calls? It's like, what happened? Like did she 0:19:34.920 --> 0:19:39.040 do something? So a conversation was had afterward outside with 0:19:39.240 --> 0:19:42.159 just me and her, and you know, I asked her 0:19:42.240 --> 0:19:45.200 straight up, like did you do something? And she did not. 0:19:45.359 --> 0:19:47.320 You know, I didn't do nothing. I don't know what 0:19:47.320 --> 0:19:51.400 they're talking about. Like, so now now I'm just confused, 0:19:51.440 --> 0:19:53.600 like I just don't know what I don't know, But 0:19:54.880 --> 0:19:57.520 detectives continue to question me. They keep talking to me. 0:19:57.960 --> 0:20:00.240 My natural reaction was to corrop right with you know 0:20:00.280 --> 0:20:01.920 what I'm saying, it's my baby, So however I can 0:20:01.920 --> 0:20:03.159 help whatever I can say. But at the end of 0:20:03.200 --> 0:20:05.000 the day, I don't know much. I don't know what's 0:20:05.000 --> 0:20:07.680 to say. I'm confused like anybody else, everybody else, I 0:20:07.680 --> 0:20:11.280 don't know what happened. Must the finger was actually pointed 0:20:11.440 --> 0:20:16.640 and Blaine was cast and charges were brought. Apartment indictments 0:20:16.680 --> 0:20:19.040 and handcuts's place on them not. That's when I started 0:20:19.040 --> 0:20:23.000 feeling like their intentions wasn't in the right place, because 0:20:23.000 --> 0:20:25.680 it a truly lost and you would have really sought 0:20:25.760 --> 0:20:28.280 out a real answer instead had just placed it all 0:20:28.880 --> 0:20:33.920 somebody simply because they were physically and the wrong. 0:20:46.119 --> 0:20:50.440 This episode is underwritten by Paul Weiss, Rifkin, Porton and Garrison, 0:20:50.600 --> 0:20:54.120 a leading international law firm. Paul Weiss has long had 0:20:54.160 --> 0:20:58.440 an unwavering commitment to providing impactful, pro bono legal assistance 0:20:58.480 --> 0:21:01.000 to the most vulnerable members of our society and in 0:21:01.040 --> 0:21:04.800 support of the public interest, including extensive work in the 0:21:04.840 --> 0:21:17.040 criminal justice area. So with misplaced conference, they attribute injuries 0:21:17.119 --> 0:21:20.280 or symptoms to actions and persons, when the science barely 0:21:20.320 --> 0:21:23.360 even supported it back then, let alone now. The causes 0:21:23.359 --> 0:21:26.840 of Jada's symptoms range from accidental or intentional trauma to 0:21:27.040 --> 0:21:30.960 internal For instance, there's a well recognized condition where there's 0:21:31.040 --> 0:21:33.639 a little extra space in between the child's brain and 0:21:33.680 --> 0:21:36.800 skull that stretches the veins that bridge that space, which 0:21:36.920 --> 0:21:40.879 causes chronic subdural bleeding. It still hasn't been determined what 0:21:41.040 --> 0:21:45.560 causes this overlying condition, but birth trauma has been suggested 0:21:45.560 --> 0:21:49.080 as a potential cause, whether natural or cesarean, and this 0:21:49.200 --> 0:21:53.600 condition usually manifests within the child second to six months. Jada, 0:21:53.920 --> 0:21:56.439 of course, was six months old when this occurred, and 0:21:56.800 --> 0:21:59.440 it's logical to think that being birthed as a twin 0:22:00.040 --> 0:22:02.960 would probably be described as a traumatic event, an event 0:22:03.000 --> 0:22:07.000 that could cause limb fractures as well. In these shaking 0:22:07.119 --> 0:22:11.520 baby syndrome cases, CT scans and MRIs will usually show 0:22:11.600 --> 0:22:14.960 the chronic subdural bleeding as they found in this case, 0:22:15.000 --> 0:22:18.359