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 eighteenth, twenty ten, the young family laid down
Speaker 1: to sleep. Despite the expected waking and feeding that comes
Speaker 1: with six month old twins, the night was ordinary. When
Speaker 1: Deja left for school at eight am, John propped some
Speaker 1: bottles on a blanket near twins Jada and Jasmine and
Speaker 1: went back to sleep. Then, when John woke again at
Speaker 1: nine forty am, turned on cartoons for his son and
Speaker 1: went to attend to the twins. Jada was unresponsive in
Speaker 1: a panic. He called family and nine one one. The
Speaker 1: dispatcher coached him through CPR until first responders arrived and
Speaker 1: took over. He did everything a concerned father would do,
Speaker 1: But when testing was done at the hospital, doctors found
Speaker 1: what they mistakenly thought was conclusive evidence of lethal child abuse. However,
Speaker 1: over the next decade, the science that they used to
Speaker 1: support John's conviction has crumbled under the weight of reality.
Speaker 1: Had a jury heard all the other now logical explanations
Speaker 1: for the symptoms present in little Jada's body, John Jones
Speaker 1: never would have served a day of his fifteen to
Speaker 1: life prison sentence. This is Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom. That's me,
Speaker 1: of course, your host, and today we're here to tell
Speaker 1: you the heartbreaking story of John Jones, who was just
Speaker 1: seventeen years old when his six month old daughter, Jada
Speaker 1: Ruiz died, and shortly thereafter, the tragedy was compounded by
Speaker 1: the hubris of some in the medical establishment and legal
Speaker 1: system armed with the junk science of shaken baby syndrome.
Speaker 1: And today I'm joined by a phenomenal co host. Avid
Speaker 1: Listeners will remember Greg Glod from the Junk Science episode
Speaker 1: on Roadside drug Testing. He is the Criminal Justice Fellow
Speaker 1: at Americans for Prosperity. Greg. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction.
Speaker 2: I appreciate it. Jason, thank you so much for allowing
Speaker 2: me to co host. You and I have gotten close
Speaker 2: over the last couple of months. I've been working on
Speaker 2: Criminal Justice Reformed since about twenty fifteen now, and to
Speaker 2: be able to do this today and co host is,
Speaker 2: you know, really an honor. So I really thank you again.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm the one who really should feel honored, and
Speaker 1: not just because you've joined us, but also because with
Speaker 1: us is one of the world's leading experts in one
Speaker 1: of the most troubling aspects of our criminal legal system,
Speaker 1: shaken baby syndrome. Now, she was also featured on Wrongful
Speaker 1: Conviction Junk Science when we covered this subject. The executive
Speaker 1: director of the Center for Integrity and Forensic Sciences, Kate Judson,
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction.
Speaker 3: Hi, thank you so much, Jason, and Hi Greg.
Speaker 1: And last but not least, we have with us staff
Speaker 1: attorney at the Ohio Innocence Project, the man who's representing
Speaker 1: John Jones, Donald Caster. Donald, Welcome to ronfel Conviction. Thanks
Speaker 1: for being.
Speaker 4: Here, Hi, Jason, thank you for having me on.
Speaker 1: And we'll be joined very soon by John Jones. Was
Speaker 1: going to be calling in from Lebanon Correctional Facility in Ohio.
Speaker 1: But first let's get a little background on what John
Speaker 1: was up against when Jada became unresponsive.
Speaker 2: Kate, can you give a brief history on shaken baby syndrome.
Speaker 2: You know where it came from, this hypothesis, and then
Speaker 2: how did it start to enter its way into the
Speaker 2: criminal justice system as a viable scientific theory to convict caretakers.
Speaker 2: Of murder.
Speaker 3: Sure Greg Shaking baby syndrome was originally proposed as a
Speaker 3: hypothesis to explain a phenomenon that a pediatric neurosurgeon in
Speaker 3: Great Britain was seeing in his patients. He would sometimes
Speaker 3: have infants who died or were seriously ill without a
Speaker 3: clear cause and without external trauma, and yet the internal
Speaker 3: features looked a lot like kids who had suffered some
Speaker 3: kind of traumatic injury. So those findings were subdural hematoma,
Speaker 3: which is bleeding between the coverings of the brain, retinal hemorrhage,
Speaker 3: which is bleeding at the back of the eye, and
Speaker 3: encephalopathy and cerebral edema, which sort of acts together as
Speaker 3: one leg of what sometimes people call the triad. Cerebral
Speaker 3: edema is brain swelling and encephalopathy is brain dysfunction. And
Speaker 3: so doctor guth Kelch, the piatric neurosurgeon, was seeing these
Speaker 3: findings in kids and they looked injured on the inside
Speaker 3: but not on the outside. And he thought that one
Speaker 3: reason for that might be a common disciplinary technique in
Speaker 3: his home of Northern England in the seventies, which was shaking.
Speaker 3: And so what doctor goth Kelch said is that these
Speaker 3: medical findings could be due to shaking, and doctor goth
Speaker 3: Kelch wasn't claiming to have the answers, but rather that
Speaker 3: he was hypothesizing about what might be causing these findings.
Speaker 3: So that started to evolve. A radiologist in New York,
Speaker 3: John Caffey, built on that and he published articles saying
Speaker 3: the same thing, right, that parents should be with infants.
Speaker 3: But neither of these doctors suggested that the medical findings
Speaker 3: that they associated with shaking were exclusively diagnostic to shaking,
Speaker 3: nor did they say that there was a reliable way
Speaker 3: to place blame on a caregiver when a child had
Speaker 3: these medical findings.
Speaker 2: Right, and so where was the switch then, from this
Speaker 2: just being you know, a hypothesis or an unexplained phenomena
Speaker 2: to a verifiable medical diagnosis that actually began convicting visuals
Speaker 2: of murder of a child.
Speaker 3: And there's a little bit of a gap in understanding
Speaker 3: between the mid to late nineteen seventies and then when
Speaker 3: we start to see these cases appear in published appellate
Speaker 3: decisions in the late eighties, and we started to see
Speaker 3: prosecutors and pediatricians in particular also pathologists saying that when
Speaker 3: children had this collection of findings, which is sometimes called
Speaker 3: a triad of findings or a constellation of medical findings
Speaker 3: that shaking could be diagnosed. And that's when it comes
Speaker 3: into the criminal legal system and we start to see
Speaker 3: the trajector that we're on today where parents are wrongfully
Speaker 3: accused based on only the existence of a particular set
Speaker 3: of medical findings. And I mean to be totally clear,
Speaker 3: there's no debate about whether abusive shaking, violent shaking of
Speaker 3: an infant is dangerous. It is, and no one should
Speaker 3: do it. The debate is really whether shaking reliably explains
Speaker 3: the findings that are often attributed to it, whether shaking
Speaker 3: can be diagnosed as the cause of those findings.
Speaker 2: Kate, and doing my research for this, there is a
Speaker 2: large concentration of these shaking baby syndrome cases in the
Speaker 2: state of Ohio, and so I just wanted to see
Speaker 2: if you had any explanation behind why Ohio kind of
Speaker 2: had a higher rate of shaking baby syndrome cases than
Speaker 2: many other jurisdictions across the nation.
Speaker 3: Researchers aren't one hundred percent sure why some places have
Speaker 3: higher concentrations of diagnoses of SPS than others. It's probably
Speaker 3: a combination of factors, but some of those factors include
Speaker 3: prosecutors who are particularly aggressive in going after these are
Speaker 3: kinds of accusations, the media attention in certain cases receive
Speaker 3: in certain media markets, and the child abuse pediatricians or
Speaker 3: forensic pathologists who work on these cases. If they have
Speaker 3: a particular belief or bent, then there are more likely
Speaker 3: to be more accusations of shaking within that person's jurisdiction
Speaker 3: or area of control. And Ohio is one of those places.
Speaker 1: And now we'll go to Lebanon Correctional Facility to speak
Speaker 1: with a young man who was doing his best as
Speaker 1: a young teenager to raise three kids while finishing high
Speaker 1: school in the third largest shaken baby syndrome epicenter in
Speaker 1: the country, Akron, Ohio.
Speaker 5: Hello, this is a prepaid debit call from an inmate.
Speaker 5: It's e Lebanon Correctional Facility. To accept this call, press
Speaker 5: zero to prevent This call is from a correction facility
Speaker 5: and is subject to monitoring and recording.
Speaker 2: Thank you for using GTL.
Speaker 1: John.
Speaker 6: Yeah, this is John John.
Speaker 1: Like I always say, I'm glad you're here with us,
Speaker 1: but I'm sorry because of the reason you're here, or
Speaker 1: more to the point, because of where you are.
Speaker 6: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: So 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 an Akron.
Speaker 6: I grew up with four sisters who struggled. I grew
Speaker 6: up poor, he moved around a lot. My mom had
Speaker 6: some struggles drug addiction, alcohol addiction. My father as well
Speaker 6: had the same struggles, regardless of what she was going
Speaker 6: through her own personal problems. My mom always was around,
Speaker 6: she was always with us, but my Grandmather ended up
Speaker 6: getting custody on me when I was real young. She
Speaker 6: just put us on a path to try to be
Speaker 6: as successful as we could growing love. I did real
Speaker 6: good at school, always was like an honor roll student.
Speaker 6: Once I became a teenager, and that's when I came
Speaker 6: into contact with my child's mother. I met her December sixteenth,
Speaker 6: my fourteenth birthday, and my son was conceived nine days
Speaker 6: later on Christmas Eve, Christmas night. So now I'm fourteen,
Speaker 6: I'm expecting a child on the way. I knew that
Speaker 6: I had a responsibility now, so school no longer was
Speaker 6: a priority. My bid what I needed to do to
Speaker 6: provide for him as time progressed, me and her eventually
Speaker 6: began to establish a relationship get closer. A couple of
Speaker 6: years later, that's when my twins were and see Jada
Speaker 6: and jazz Man. We ended up getting an apartment together
Speaker 6: on our own. My grandmother was still technically my legal guardian,
Speaker 6: so I lived with them, but I spent most nights
Speaker 6: with my child's mother just to be around my children.
Speaker 6: Growing up. My father was always in my life, but
Speaker 6: like I said, he was a battling with addiction. But
Speaker 6: even though I loved him unconditionally, he just wasn't the
Speaker 6: best that he could have been. So that made me
Speaker 6: want to make sure I was the best I could
Speaker 6: have been. Regardless of how old I was, regardless of school,
Speaker 6: whatever I was going through, I was going to be
Speaker 6: present every single day in their life no matter what,
Speaker 6: regardless of the status of me and their mother's relationship,
Speaker 6: how healthy or how unhealthy it was, I was going
Speaker 6: to make sure I was there.
Speaker 1: My key is no matter what, and that's admirable. And
Speaker 1: so you, your children's mother, Desa, your son Tyshan, and
Speaker 1: the twins Jada and Jasmine all moved into an apartment together.
Speaker 1: Dajo was eighteen. You're seventeen, and you were both finishing
Speaker 1: high school through an alternative school for young parents, and
Speaker 1: somehow you're making it work, which brings us to March nineteenth,
Speaker 1: twenty ten.
Speaker 6: The night before that morning it was actually her mother's birthday.
Speaker 6: Everybody spent some time together. It was a cool little
Speaker 6: vibe though. Everybody was on the same page. And we
Speaker 6: went to sleep like any other day. We slept down
Speaker 6: in the living room. I slept on the couch with
Speaker 6: my daughter Jazz, and she slept down on the floor
Speaker 6: with my daughter at Lana, and my son was down
Speaker 6: there with us as well. But throughout the night she
Speaker 6: was waking me up, complaining about positioning or beating or
Speaker 6: you know, my daughter might have been hungry or whatever.
Speaker 6: She was looking me up throughout the night. But it
Speaker 6: was just a typical day. And then that morning she
Speaker 6: had a test that she had to go take right
Speaker 6: and from what.
Speaker 1: I understand, you both fed the twins at five am
Speaker 1: and then went back to sleep. Then Dasia woke up
Speaker 1: at seven am to get ready for school and left
Speaker 1: around eight.
Speaker 6: So I get up walking through the door, you know,
Speaker 6: wishing a look on her task, give her a kiss.
Speaker 6: She go out at this point, my son's still asleep,
Speaker 6: my daughter's around the couch, they laying down. It's early
Speaker 6: in the morning, so I'm still tired. I go up
Speaker 6: to my daughter's I popped the bottles. I learned later
Speaker 6: on now that this wasn't a smart thing to duel,
Speaker 6: just because of the safety concerns with a new warm
Speaker 6: but at the time I really wasn't aware of it,
Speaker 6: and it was more of like a convenient thing away
Speaker 6: of me going back to sleep, but also feeding them
Speaker 6: if they were having So I placed the bottles up
Speaker 6: on the blanket and I prop them up, so I
Speaker 6: put them right there, just so when they do wake up,
Speaker 6: the bottle be right there, they'll be able to feed.
Speaker 6: I can be able to sleep about another hour or
Speaker 6: two whatever, They'd be all right, everybody'd be cool. We
Speaker 6: did this every day, multiple time, so it was just
Speaker 6: another I said day.
Speaker 1: But it's at this point, between eight and nine forty
Speaker 1: am that, according to the state's theory and what passed
Speaker 1: for expert testimony, that you allegedly abused your daughter Jada
Speaker 1: in such a way that it caused all of these
Speaker 1: supposed injuries or symptoms that were later observed at the hospital,
Speaker 1: the same ones that Kate had mentioned earlier that make
Speaker 1: up the triad of shaken baby syndrome. But as we
Speaker 1: now know, there are a myriad of medical conditions that
Speaker 1: can and do cause these symptoms in addition to an
Speaker 1: accidental or intentional traumatic event, and even in those events,
Speaker 1: it's important to note that a child may be lucid
Speaker 1: up to seventy two hours or even more before the
Speaker 1: symptoms or injuries become a parent. And in this case,
Speaker 1: they became apparent to you when you checked on Jada
Speaker 1: and Jasmine at around nine forty am on that faithful,
Speaker 1: awful day. And you know, as a father myself, it's
Speaker 1: every p's worst nightmare. So at nine am you woke up,
Speaker 1: put on cartoons for Tyshan, and go to check on
Speaker 1: your daughters, only to find that Jada was unresponsive.
Speaker 6: That was the scariest moment in my life. That was
Speaker 6: the worst day of my life. I didn't know what
Speaker 6: to do in that moment. She wasn't breathing, she wasn't moving,
Speaker 6: she wasn't responsors at all. I instantly get on the phone.
Speaker 6: My first reaction was to call our family because my
Speaker 6: daughters were born with acid reflex. They when they feed,
Speaker 6: they would regurgitate the food. It would come up their moths.
Speaker 6: Sometimes it would come up their mouth. It didn't happen
Speaker 6: every time, but it happened frequently. So at first I
Speaker 6: was wondering if this was the case. So I actually
Speaker 6: called my mom and I tell them what's going on.
Speaker 6: But I'm panickings, So I didn't want to stay on
Speaker 6: the phone with them too long because I'm realizing she's
Speaker 6: not breathing or nothing. But I called her family as
Speaker 6: well to let them know. I get off the phone.
Speaker 6: I called nine one one tell them the whole situation is.
Speaker 6: I'm listening to the nine one one operator. She explained
Speaker 6: to me how to do the test compressions and the
Speaker 6: mouth to mouth. I tried. I did everything I could,
Speaker 6: and nothing was working. Like so at this point, I'm
Speaker 6: becoming more here, more upset. I'm crying, and I'm just
Speaker 6: waiting to seem like a second for ever. They finally arrived.
Speaker 6: They grab her, they take her out, and I began
Speaker 6: to speak to the detectives or whatever. I'm telling them.
Speaker 6: Everything pretty much that I'm telling you is my recognition
Speaker 6: that that night in the morning, nothing really stood out
Speaker 6: to me. From that point, family members thought arrived and
Speaker 6: everybody's time. We all head down to the hospital, and
Speaker 6: then a couple hours later, that's when we hear the
Speaker 6: doctor's opinion about what they believed was the cause of everything.
Speaker 4: When the first responders arrived, they didn't see any signs
Speaker 4: of any external injuries. They didn't see any bruising or
Speaker 4: obvious deformities or bone fractures. They were under the impression
Speaker 4: that Jada might have suffered from sins or sudden infant
Speaker 4: death syndrome. And the police see John doing what you
Speaker 4: would expect a distraught father to be doing. It's an
Speaker 4: officer named Dennis Bard starts taking pictures to the scene.
Speaker 4: There are blankets that are collect One of the things
Speaker 4: that's not collected is the bottles that were feeding two
Speaker 4: of the children.
Speaker 2: And that becomes critical later on in the state's theory
Speaker 2: of the case.
Speaker 4: The bottles are important, at least according to the state,
Speaker 4: because one of the doctors who testified on behalf of
Speaker 4: the state told the jury that how much milk and
Speaker 4: formula was in the bottle would have been really important
Speaker 4: in establishing the timing of abuse. Because, according to the
Speaker 4: state's doctor, Jada wouldn't have been able to consume anything
Speaker 4: from the bottle after suffering the type of injuries that
Speaker 4: they believe Jada had suffered.
Speaker 1: And what we now know, and this is so important,
Speaker 1: is that a child can experience seventy two hours or
Speaker 1: more of lucidity after a traumatic event, whether accidental or intentional,
Speaker 1: which it's not entirely clear that this is in fact
Speaker 1: what happened to cause these symptoms. And I say symptoms
Speaker 1: because a myriad of medical conditions can cause what happened
Speaker 1: to Jada to happen. We're getting a little bit of
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.
Speaker 4: Detective Shady also does a very brief interview of John
Speaker 4: at the time. Detective Shady and John go to the
Speaker 4: hospital following the ambulance, and once they get to the hospital,
Speaker 4: they find out that Jada had been successfully resuscitated. John
Speaker 4: makes phone calls to family members to let them know
Speaker 4: that things were at least looking a little bit better
Speaker 4: now that they were at the hospital. And then doctors
Speaker 4: at the hospital start to do medical tests. They do
Speaker 4: a cat scan, other tests, and again, ultimately the doctors
Speaker 4: began to believe that there were actual injuries to Jada,
Speaker 4: and in fact, once they got to the hospital, John
Speaker 4: was confronted by a doctor who did not testify at
Speaker 4: trial dificant to the case, a doctor Darryl Steiner, who
Speaker 4: came in and told John and the detective that Jada
Speaker 4: had suffered from what he called non accidental injuries. The
Speaker 4: hospital staff also claimed that there were old injuries, insinuating
Speaker 4: that abuse had taken place for a significant period of time.
Speaker 1: So, John, you had just been through one of the
Speaker 1: most harrowing experiences that anyone can ever go through, and
Speaker 1: you were waiting to hear what the path forward might
Speaker 1: be for your daughter. And the doctors at ACUN Children's Hospital,
Speaker 1: again the number three epicenter for shaking baby syndrome diagnoses
Speaker 1: and prosecutions in the country. Those doctors tell you, the
Speaker 1: family and detectives their opinion that the medical facts observed
Speaker 1: in Jata retinal bleeding, subdual bleeding and brain swelling, as
Speaker 1: well as a series of fractures, that these could only
Speaker 1: have been the result of a non accidental traumatic event,
Speaker 1: in other words, child abuse, violent shaking by Jada's caretaker
Speaker 1: at the time that she went unresponsive. And again, we
Speaker 1: now know that there are a slew of medical conditions
Speaker 1: that can cause these symptoms, and that children can experience
Speaker 1: seventy two hours or more of relatively normal behavior after
Speaker 1: such a traumatic event, if a traumatic event even ever
Speaker 1: occurred and was in fact what caused these symptoms. So
Speaker 1: back then many in the medical establishment, these doctors included,
Speaker 1: thought that they could diagnose a crime and the time
Speaker 1: of that crime, which we now know that they could not. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: your story has remained consistent ever since that fateful day,
Speaker 1: and nowhere in your recollection of events does even a
Speaker 1: minor frustration occur, let alone violent shaking.
Speaker 6: Never. Never, never. We all sit in a waiting room
Speaker 6: or in the area when they come in and they
Speaker 6: tell us, well, we believe that what's wrong with her
Speaker 6: was my accident and was intentional, was caused by somebody,
Speaker 6: was caused by specifically somebody who was there.
Speaker 1: So then at that.
Speaker 6: Point I felt like I was being accused or even
Speaker 6: suspected of something, and the only other person that was
Speaker 6: there with me was their mother. I know I didn't
Speaker 6: do nothing to her. I never would so a man,
Speaker 6: things running through my head at that moment. I'm scared
Speaker 6: first and foremost most completely for my daughter. Now I'm questioning, like,
Speaker 6: why are they saying somebody did this? Why did they
Speaker 6: say somebody calls? It's like, what happened? Like did she
Speaker 6: do something? So a conversation was had afterward outside with
Speaker 6: just me and her, and you know, I asked her
Speaker 6: straight up, like did you do something? And she did not.
Speaker 6: You know, I didn't do nothing. I don't know what
Speaker 6: they're talking about. Like, so now now I'm just confused,
Speaker 6: like I just don't know what I don't know, But
Speaker 6: detectives continue to question me. They keep talking to me.
Speaker 6: My natural reaction was to corrop right with you know
Speaker 6: what I'm saying, it's my baby, So however I can
Speaker 6: help whatever I can say. But at the end of
Speaker 6: the day, I don't know much. I don't know what's
Speaker 6: to say. I'm confused like anybody else, everybody else, I
Speaker 6: don't know what happened. Must the finger was actually pointed
Speaker 6: and Blaine was cast and charges were brought. Apartment indictments
Speaker 6: and handcuts's place on them not. That's when I started
Speaker 6: feeling like their intentions wasn't in the right place, because
Speaker 6: it a truly lost and you would have really sought
Speaker 6: out a real answer instead had just placed it all
Speaker 6: somebody simply because they were physically and the wrong.
Speaker 1: This episode is underwritten by Paul Weiss, Rifkin, Porton and Garrison,
Speaker 1: a leading international law firm. Paul Weiss has long had
Speaker 1: an unwavering commitment to providing impactful, pro bono legal assistance
Speaker 1: to the most vulnerable members of our society and in
Speaker 1: support of the public interest, including extensive work in the
Speaker 1: criminal justice area. So with misplaced conference, they attribute injuries
Speaker 1: or symptoms to actions and persons, when the science barely
Speaker 1: even supported it back then, let alone now. The causes
Speaker 1: of Jada's symptoms range from accidental or intentional trauma to
Speaker 1: internal For instance, there's a well recognized condition where there's
Speaker 1: a little extra space in between the child's brain and
Speaker 1: skull that stretches the veins that bridge that space, which
Speaker 1: causes chronic subdural bleeding. It still hasn't been determined what
Speaker 1: causes this overlying condition, but birth trauma has been suggested
Speaker 1: as a potential cause, whether natural or cesarean, and this
Speaker 1: 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 birthed 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 MRIs will usually show
Speaker 1: the chronic subdural bleeding as they found in this case,
Speaker 1: which will then be used as evidence of repeated abuse. Well,
Speaker 1: it's misused, but used anyway, when all along there's a
Speaker 1: legitimate and logical medical explanation. Other potential causes for symptoms
Speaker 1: like Jada's. I mean, you could write a medical textbook
Speaker 1: on this right. They include bleeding disorders, collagen disorders, copper disorders,
Speaker 1: genetic disorders, vitamin deficiencies, even your everyday average household slip
Speaker 1: and fall. But I seriously doubt whether the number three
Speaker 1: Epicenter for diagnosing or misdiagnosing child abuse did a full
Speaker 1: genetic work up to rule out all of these potential
Speaker 1: causes before. It's just sort of cavalierly sending John up
Speaker 1: the river.
Speaker 3: So the deligation was that Jada had a series of
Speaker 3: fractures and that perhaps those fractures were of different ages,
Speaker 3: and that, combined with the findings of bleeding and of
Speaker 3: brain swelling, were thought to indicate trauma, and specifically trauma
Speaker 3: from abuse.
Speaker 4: So, unfortunately, one of the things that we know happens
Speaker 4: in wrongful conviction cases all the time is that once
Speaker 4: the police and in this case, doctors start to head
Speaker 4: in a certain direction, it begins to be very difficult
Speaker 4: for them to turn to a new path. And that's
Speaker 4: what happened here. The police and the doctors didn't look
Speaker 4: for any other causes. They seized on this diagnosis of
Speaker 4: shaking baby syndrome and that's where they went. It's one
Speaker 4: of the things that makes it harder for us to
Speaker 4: successfully represent John. Not impossible. We think we'll be successful
Speaker 4: in this case ultimately, but it's one of the things
Speaker 4: that hampers our work some is that we don't have
Speaker 4: the medical records Jata from Jada's birth up unto March nineteenth,
Speaker 4: and the reason is that they were never gathered by
Speaker 4: either the medical investigators or the law enforcement investigators to
Speaker 4: look at and to determine whether there was other symptomology,
Speaker 4: other pathology, other things going on with Jada prior to
Speaker 4: March nineteenth, instead of just the medical records from March
Speaker 4: nineteenth going forward.
Speaker 2: Particularly with SBS, we've seen you know, over two hundred
Speaker 2: cases overturned, and a lot of these, you know, it
Speaker 2: seemed clear cut that there was abuse, and later on
Speaker 2: it was either some sort of minor accident or some
Speaker 2: sort of genetic cause to this. And so, you know,
Speaker 2: I think people have this notion of what SBS is,
Speaker 2: and we see clearly that there's a lot of varying
Speaker 2: reasons for that to potentially see these findings within a
Speaker 2: child and then they're just you know, initially ignored, but
Speaker 2: then later come out later on when you have a
Speaker 2: full examination or full medical history.
Speaker 3: Well, and there's a lot of overlap here, greg because
Speaker 3: a lot of the factor that caused children to have
Speaker 3: either have health problems or have their health problems not
Speaker 3: be appropriately diagnosed or treated are also the factors that
Speaker 3: doctors and child protection workers will look at to say
Speaker 3: that statistically a child is more likely to be abused.
Speaker 3: And so what I mean by that is parents who
Speaker 3: are young and parents who are people of color are
Speaker 3: both more likely to be accused of crimes and more
Speaker 3: likely to receive disparate treatment within the medical establishment. So
Speaker 3: those things actually work together to create an unjust result
Speaker 3: in many cases.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's worth noting that, just as we record,
Speaker 1: a study was just published which showed that there is
Speaker 1: intense cognitive bias amongst medical examiners, so much so that
Speaker 1: when given the same exact evidence, two different groups and
Speaker 1: we're talking large groups of medical examiners look at exactly
Speaker 1: the same evidence of a three year old that was
Speaker 1: brought to the hospital with head trauma and died, were
Speaker 1: four times more likely to rule it a homicide when
Speaker 1: they were told that the child was black and that
Speaker 1: the 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 and
Speaker 1: was brought in by a grandparent. So, just to really
Speaker 1: put a stamp on what you were saying, Kate, So
Speaker 1: let's turn to the arrest.
Speaker 4: So John was not arrested right away, although it was
Speaker 4: clear that once Jada was taken off of life support
Speaker 4: and passed away, that they were going to charge him
Speaker 4: with murder. John didn't have a lot of money. As
Speaker 4: a teenager charged with a crime, he had counsel appointed
Speaker 4: to represent him, and then counsel got the court to
Speaker 4: provide some funds for an additional expert witness to help
Speaker 4: prepare for trial.
Speaker 2: So at trial, what was the state's theory, what was
Speaker 2: the evidence behind that, and then what did the defense
Speaker 2: put together to refute?
Speaker 4: So Deja agreed with everything that John had said previously
Speaker 4: about what happened in the hour or so before Dejah
Speaker 4: left for school that day, So there was no inconsistency
Speaker 4: between what John's been saying and what Desa said happened. Desa,
Speaker 4: of course, claimed that she didn't do anything to any
Speaker 4: of the children. According to her testimony at trial, she
Speaker 4: believed John may have lied to her about any wrongdoing,
Speaker 4: but days just being told by the people who are
Speaker 4: supposed to know what they're talking about the John killed
Speaker 4: her child and Kate.
Speaker 2: What were the medical findings that the state witnesses had
Speaker 2: and what they concluded.
Speaker 3: The medical facts presented at trial in this case included
Speaker 3: a series of fractures, mostly fresh but at least one
Speaker 3: older fracture, retinal hemorrhaging, subdural hemorrhaging, signs of previous subdural
Speaker 3: hemorrhaging and brain swelling. As I said before, this is
Speaker 3: the classic triad of shaken baby syndrome. Then the state
Speaker 3: put on three medical witnesses. Doctor Paul McPherson testified that
Speaker 3: the child would not have been able to suck any
Speaker 3: milk after sustaining these kinds of injuries. But we now
Speaker 3: know but a child can experience seventy two hours of
Speaker 3: lucidity after the injuries associated with shaken baby syndrome, and
Speaker 3: that's what published case reports have shown us. It could
Speaker 3: be even greater than that. So doctor macpherson conceded that
Speaker 3: the injuries may have been sustained before John woke at
Speaker 3: eight am to give Jada a bottle. The injuries may
Speaker 3: not have been a parent and the state had to
Speaker 3: seal up that concession with doctor Paul Besunder, who testified
Speaker 3: that the causal injury could not have been sustained prior
Speaker 3: to eight am. Again, we now know that a child
Speaker 3: can experience seventy two hours of lucidity or more after
Speaker 3: the injuries associated with SPS. Their last medical witnesses testimony
Speaker 3: was based on the testimony of Detective Shady, who said
Speaker 3: that John told him in an unrecorded interview that Jada
Speaker 3: began to suck the bottle when he made it available
Speaker 3: by propping it on the blanket nearby. This is refuted
Speaker 3: by two other recorded interviews with John, as well as
Speaker 3: Deja's uncontested statement that Jada had drunk half a bottle
Speaker 3: before Daja left for school. So you can see that
Speaker 3: the state was trying to box the call cause of
Speaker 3: Jada's death into the window that Jada was under John's
Speaker 3: care alone. Summit County Coroner doctor Lisa Kohler testified that,
Speaker 3: based on the secondhand information that the child drank a
Speaker 3: significant portion of the milk after eight am, the injuries
Speaker 3: were a result of being shaken, because if she could
Speaker 3: still muster the energy to drink milk after eight am,
Speaker 3: then the trauma must have been committed by John to
Speaker 3: be causer to go unconscious. However, and I know that
Speaker 3: I sound like a broken record here, if there was
Speaker 3: causal trauma, it could have happened seventy two hours into
Speaker 3: the past from when Jada became unresponsive.
Speaker 1: So the state's case was completely undermined by what we
Speaker 1: now know about the junk science that they were relying
Speaker 1: on to convict John. The defense, however, called renowned forensic
Speaker 1: pathologist doctor John Arden, who agreed that these could have
Speaker 1: been injuries from abuse or not, and that they could
Speaker 1: have occurred between seven and nine to forty five am. However,
Speaker 1: the evidence available did not permit a medical opinion within
Speaker 1: any degree of specificity regarding the timing of any of
Speaker 1: the fresh injuries, and that it is not medically reasonable
Speaker 1: to make any such determinations. Subdural hemorrhaging does not typically
Speaker 1: cause immediate incapacitation, So the way the state was trying
Speaker 1: to fence in this crime to that eight to nine
Speaker 1: am window just doesn't hold water. Doctor Arden testified that
Speaker 1: Jada's medical records corroborate John's telling of events to a
Speaker 1: reasonable degree of medical certainty.
Speaker 2: And doctor Arden isn't you know, I'll say, for lack
Speaker 2: of a better term, one of these defense witness gun
Speaker 2: for hire that'll kind of say, you know.
Speaker 1: What he wants.
Speaker 2: I mean, he was a believer of SBS for a
Speaker 2: very long time, and he's mentioned very recent like you said,
Speaker 2: in more recent studies that doctors need to be very
Speaker 2: mindful of diagnosing this and they're really missing key facts,
Speaker 2: and Kate, you mentioned it, and I'll ask the tough question.
Speaker 2: I mean, you have fractures and limbs at least diagnosed
Speaker 2: by state's witnesses and other things at trial. Were there
Speaker 2: any explanations about where potentially these injuries may have come
Speaker 2: because you know, I think you're on a jury you're
Speaker 2: seeing multiple fractures and damage to the head and then
Speaker 2: also to the extremities.
Speaker 3: What is important to know about medical findings in these
Speaker 3: kinds of cases is that medical findings might look like abuse,
Speaker 3: but they might not necessarily be abuse, and that can
Speaker 3: happen for a few reasons. One is that injuries that
Speaker 3: are accidental can be misinterpreted by medical providers and investigators
Speaker 3: as abuse. And another is related to this assumption that
Speaker 3: sometimes medical providers make that because they don't know about
Speaker 3: the child's underlying medical conditions. If the child doesn't have
Speaker 3: any so maybe a child has a bone disorder, they
Speaker 3: might fracture very easily. The classic example of this is
Speaker 3: little babies in a neonatal intensive care unit who are born,
Speaker 3: for example, very premature, and they can experience fractures with
Speaker 3: totally normal handling, changing their diaper, things like that. But
Speaker 3: that's not the only scenario in which children can have
Speaker 3: what appear to be really serious injuries from little or
Speaker 3: no trauma. And because we don't know enough about Jada's
Speaker 3: medical condition, it's really hard for us to know what
Speaker 3: kind of actions were required for her to sustain the
Speaker 3: injuries that she had.
Speaker 1: So after the presentation of dueling experts, the defense called
Speaker 1: John to the stand, who said what you've already heard here,
Speaker 1: that he did not hurt those children. Ever, that he
Speaker 1: did not see Jada drink from the bottle after eight am,
Speaker 1: but simply propped up a half full bottle on a blanket,
Speaker 1: consistent with Daja's uncontested statement. And again, all this fucking
Speaker 1: nonsense about the bottle is completely irrelevant because current science
Speaker 1: supports that in the case of a traumatic event, it
Speaker 1: could have had happened any time over the prior three
Speaker 1: days or even longer. So, whether it was intentional or
Speaker 1: an accident, Jada could have fallen off the couch the
Speaker 1: changing table. Knowing what we know now, one cannot maintain
Speaker 1: that those injuries could have only happened one way. The
Speaker 1: way that the state maintains still maintains violent shaking. While
Speaker 1: Jada was alone in John's care. And that's if the
Speaker 1: cause even was a traumatic event rather than a pre
Speaker 1: existing medical condition. And like I've already mentioned here, there
Speaker 1: are and we've counted them. There are eighty eight potential
Speaker 1: conditions that we know of so far, and the research
Speaker 1: is ongoing. Now. I want to quote the man that
Speaker 1: first hypothesized shake and baby syndrome back in the nineteen seventies,
Speaker 1: doctor Norman Guthkelch. We mentioned him earlier, and he wrote
Speaker 1: an article in twenty twelve. I'll never forget this that
Speaker 1: it was titled after forty Years of Consideration, and that
Speaker 1: article was harshly critical of his very own hypothesis and
Speaker 1: everything that has happened since. And so in a twenty
Speaker 1: twelve interview, doctor Guthkelch said, and I quote, I think
Speaker 1: we need to go back to the drawing board and
Speaker 1: make a more thorough assessment of these fatal cases. And
Speaker 1: I'm going to bet that we are going to find
Speaker 1: in every or at least the large majority of cases,
Speaker 1: that the child had another severe illness of some sort
Speaker 1: which was missed until too late. End the quote, I mean,
Speaker 1: that's the man himself. But unfortunately that was twenty twelve
Speaker 1: and John's trial was in twenty eleven. So after hearing
Speaker 1: the state's witnesses up against John's witness and not knowing
Speaker 1: really a fraction of what we know now, John was
Speaker 1: convicted almost predictably and sentenced to fifteen years to life. John,
Speaker 1: can you take us back to that terrible moment when
Speaker 1: the jury came back.
Speaker 6: In, I stand up. I'm listening to the Verdi Kawawan
Speaker 6: was the highest degree of mother source. We finally defended
Speaker 6: Johnson's not guilty. I actually turned back to my family
Speaker 6: and that the whole sense and feeling of relief just
Speaker 6: come over me, and I'm just like, finally, like everything
Speaker 6: just all the way, everything just went away. I still
Speaker 6: agreev with the loss of my daughter, but like the
Speaker 6: stress and the worry of the jail situation and all
Speaker 6: of this, it just went away because I heard the
Speaker 6: words not guilty, not knowing that they got the whole
Speaker 6: rest of them indictment to read so how to murder
Speaker 6: as a result of fluxus, So we find that defending
Speaker 6: downtown is guilty. It's just like all the life in
Speaker 6: my body just left unitiately. It was just tears. It
Speaker 6: was just like I can't even explain the feeling like
Speaker 6: I look at my mind, she crying, everybody crying, even
Speaker 6: my band mind, she's crying. At that moment, I just
Speaker 6: knew life. You know, it's about to be the longest,
Speaker 6: hardest part of my life. And it makes sense me
Speaker 6: to fifteen years of life. I'm in here with grown
Speaker 6: men from fresh eighteen. I'm here with convicted killers. I'm
Speaker 6: in here with people start all type of different type
Speaker 6: of clients, and I gotta survive. I started trying to
Speaker 6: educate myself. I got my ged I just got to survive.
Speaker 6: I'm here now, so I got to try to do
Speaker 6: everything I can to grow in prosper dimension that I can.
Speaker 6: I've seen a lot of here. I learned a lot
Speaker 6: of here. I grew up. I found myself in here.
Speaker 6: I was a kid when I came in. I'm almost
Speaker 6: twenty nine. I learned a lot of here. I'm a
Speaker 6: whole another person. I respective, my mentality, my outlook on life.
Speaker 6: Everything is different.
Speaker 1: Don, What is being done now for this young man?
Speaker 1: Is there any other exculpatory evidence that we haven't already
Speaker 1: outlined here, or any evidence that the state head constitutional violations.
Speaker 4: In terms of constitutional violations. A defendant has a right
Speaker 4: not to be convicted on the basis of unreliable, quasi
Speaker 4: scientific evidence, and that's what happened in John's case, and
Speaker 4: that's what happens in these so called shaken Baby syndrome
Speaker 4: prosecutions around the country, and particularly in Ohio, and even
Speaker 4: more particularly in Summit County, which is where Akron is.
Speaker 4: As Kate pointed out near the beginning, today, Ohio is
Speaker 4: a particular hotspot for these sorts of cases, and not
Speaker 4: just Ohio, but Summit County and Akron specifically. So either
Speaker 4: the people of Akron really like to abuse their children,
Speaker 4: or there's something going on at Akron Children's Hospital and
Speaker 4: in the Summit County Prosecutor's office with respect to their
Speaker 4: proclivity for jumping to the conclusion of child abuse and
Speaker 4: bringing these types of cases. We are preparing to bring
Speaker 4: post conviction litigation on John's path. We will argue that
Speaker 4: the science in this field has changed considerably over the
Speaker 4: last ten or eleven years that if a jury could
Speaker 4: have heard in twenty ten what it could hear today,
Speaker 4: that a conviction simply wouldn't have happened.
Speaker 2: So, really, what you have here and taking a step
Speaker 2: back is you have a horrible tragedy, you have a
Speaker 2: conviction based upon science that if it was tried today,
Speaker 2: would not be a viable theory, and you have a
Speaker 2: man still behind bars based upon that unreliable theory of
Speaker 2: shaking babysitcreme correct.
Speaker 1: Absolutely So for our listeners, I'm sure you're feeling the
Speaker 1: same outrage that I'm feeling now. And what can people do?
Speaker 4: I certainly think that people can start writing letters to
Speaker 4: the parole board. John won't be eligible for parole until
Speaker 4: twenty twenty five, and hopefully by that time will have
Speaker 4: successfully completed litigation on his behalf in parole won't matter.
Speaker 4: But I certainly think that people can start writing to
Speaker 4: the parole board about these issues, because John isn't the
Speaker 4: only person in Ohio who has to before a parole
Speaker 4: board ultimately and convince the parole board that shaking baby
Speaker 4: syndrome just shouldn't serve as the underpinning for a conviction
Speaker 4: that keeps someone in prison for the rest of their lives.
Speaker 4: So that's something that people can do. The other thing
Speaker 4: I would say that people should do, even apart from
Speaker 4: John's case, is be informed. If you get a jury
Speaker 4: duty summons, show up and then don't just believe what
Speaker 4: the government scientists tell you. Think about it, decide whether
Speaker 4: or not what they're saying is credible and makes sense,
Speaker 4: and listen with open ears to the experts that Defense
Speaker 4: Council puts on the stand as well.
Speaker 1: And remember, it's innocent until proven guilty, not the other
Speaker 1: way around. So with that, John, we're thinking of you
Speaker 1: all the time, and we're going to do everything we can.
Speaker 5: 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. I encourage
Speaker 1: people to donate to the Ohio Innocence Project so that
Speaker 1: we can help John and so many others who have
Speaker 1: been wrongfully convicted in the state of Ohio. So with that, now,
Speaker 1: of course, it's the part of the show called closing arguments.
Speaker 1: First of all, I think our distinguished guests even we'll
Speaker 1: call it a panel today. First time I've ever used
Speaker 1: that word of closing arguments. So from Greg and I,
Speaker 1: thanks again for being here. Greg, thank you for co
Speaker 1: hosting with me as well.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much for allowing me to co host here.
Speaker 1: Jason Okay, and now we'll go to Donald and save
Speaker 1: Kate for last just because of alphabetical order, and then
Speaker 1: over to you John of course for the closing arguments.
Speaker 4: Thank you Jason and Greg for having us on today
Speaker 4: and for talking about this really really important issue and
Speaker 4: this important part of the criminal justice system that hasn't
Speaker 4: gotten enough attention recently. When I work with my clients
Speaker 4: who have been convicted of child abuse through the shaken
Speaker 4: baby syndrome theory, and as I talk to their families,
Speaker 4: I alternate between sadness and anger. I'm angry, as is
Speaker 4: everybody in the podcast today, that people go to prison
Speaker 4: over cases that looked like this, and I'm sad because
Speaker 4: of what it does to people and their families. John
Speaker 4: went to prison when he was teenager, and if the
Speaker 4: State of Ohiouse has its way, he'll never get out
Speaker 4: again for something that wasn't a crime. It was a
Speaker 4: crime that never happened. These cases are enormously difficult to undo.
Speaker 4: I compare these cases sometimes to like trying to poke
Speaker 4: a hole through jello. It's easier to make a hole
Speaker 4: through a very solid object than it is through something
Speaker 4: that's weak, and weekly it just closes up around the hole.
Speaker 4: That you've just made and trying to undo these shaken
Speaker 4: baby convictions can be exactly like that. We need to
Speaker 4: do better in our criminal justice system. We need to
Speaker 4: pay attention to the science. We need to make it
Speaker 4: a little bit easier to discover the evidence to undo
Speaker 4: these convictions after they happen. In Ohio, for instance, we
Speaker 4: really need the ability to do discover before we file
Speaker 4: an action so that we can get things like Jada's
Speaker 4: medical records from birth up until five months, so that
Speaker 4: we can put together the full medical history that we
Speaker 4: need to do the work in this kind of case, Kate.
Speaker 3: The prosecution of these types of cases are based on
Speaker 3: a laudable goal, and that's to protect children and protect
Speaker 3: the most vulnerable. Nobody wants child abuse. Nobody wants to
Speaker 3: see abuse at all. Unfortunately, what's happened is that doctors
Speaker 3: and other experts believe that in these cases they can
Speaker 3: do what's called air on the side of the child.
Speaker 3: They can accuse someone of abuse when they're not sure
Speaker 3: or when all of the science doesn't unerringly point to
Speaker 3: the defendant, and you can't air on the side of
Speaker 3: the child in these kinds of cases, it's impossible any
Speaker 3: error is going to harm both the child who may
Speaker 3: be a victim and everyone else involved in the case.
Speaker 3: And that's because when these cases are investigated improperly or
Speaker 3: charges are breath that are wrongful, that means that a
Speaker 3: child can be separated from a loving family, or that
Speaker 3: a grieving parent who's lost a child can be punished
Speaker 3: for something that they didn't do. And it also might
Speaker 3: mean that a child who is ill or who has
Speaker 3: had an accident might not get the right medical care
Speaker 3: for their illness. There's no way to err on the
Speaker 3: side of the child in these cases, and that's why
Speaker 3: we have to be so careful. We cannot have convictions
Speaker 3: that are premised on science that is shaky or science
Speaker 3: that is ambiguous. And that's why the Center for Integrity
Speaker 3: in Forensic Sciences exists because everybody's right to justice and
Speaker 3: a fair result depends on a fair process and a
Speaker 3: fair trial, and you can't have that when there is
Speaker 3: testimony or opinion introduced at the trial that is overstated
Speaker 3: or just plain wrong.
Speaker 1: And now, of course, over to you, John, I.
Speaker 6: Just want to sign unit and i want people to
Speaker 6: realize what I'm going through and I'm not even the
Speaker 6: only person going through this is partially being accused of
Speaker 6: causing that they are children do to a challenge science
Speaker 6: like something that's not even legit. It's a lot of
Speaker 6: whole pury and the whole theory, and the whole kind
Speaker 6: of steff of the satifay attention of So I just
Speaker 6: want to shed light on that situation first and foremostly
Speaker 6: because I know that it's gonna get better.
Speaker 2: I know that.
Speaker 6: I know that. I know that because I know I
Speaker 6: deserve it. I know that the truth gonna come out.
Speaker 6: I love my daughter, I conditionally. I love all my children.
Speaker 6: I have three children, including my daughter who cast away
Speaker 6: in person the peace. I love them unconditionally, will do
Speaker 6: anything to them, will give my life for them. I
Speaker 6: gotta continue the fight for my life. I gotta give
Speaker 6: the fight for my freedom them, and I gotta continue
Speaker 6: to fight is justice for my daughter, because at the
Speaker 6: end of the day, that's what it's truly about. When
Speaker 6: we find out the real cause of what happened with her,
Speaker 6: that's gonna automatically vindicate me, that's automatically gonna rate me,
Speaker 6: but it's gonna also bring closer to my family, my
Speaker 6: child's mother's family, everybody know what I'm saying, because it's
Speaker 6: gonna give us the truth, is gonna it's gonna let
Speaker 6: us know. It's gonna answer questions that you all got.
Speaker 6: But at the end of the days, it's about my
Speaker 6: Daughter's about Jada. It's all about Jada for Yeah, I
Speaker 6: want my freedom, Yeah I desire my freedom. But all
Speaker 6: what happened where getting the closure that our family need
Speaker 6: and then finally being able to get to a place
Speaker 6: where we can move forward because I've never really ever
Speaker 6: even been able to heal from me. I never found
Speaker 6: clothes because not only did I suffer one of the
Speaker 6: deepest losses that anybody on the earth can suffer, as
Speaker 6: love on a child, not only did our experience day
Speaker 6: and have to deal with that, I got to deal
Speaker 6: with stating here every single day.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm.
Speaker 1: Please support your local innocence projects and go to the
Speaker 1: link in our bio to see how you can help.
Speaker 1: I'd like to thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff Clyburn,
Speaker 1: and Kevin Warnis. The music on the show, as always
Speaker 1: is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be
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