Speaker 1: Stephanie Spurgeon was a married mother of two and a
Speaker 1: licensed childcare provider who had been running a daycare facility
Speaker 1: from her home in Florida for fifteen years. On August
Speaker 1: twenty first, two thousand and eight, one year old Maria
Speaker 1: Harris spent her first day at Stephanie's daycare. Maria's grandmother
Speaker 1: had picked up a sleeping Maria that day, but soon
Speaker 1: after had noticed that Maria was unresponsive and in distress.
Speaker 1: Ignoring other potential root causes and relying on the junk
Speaker 1: science of shaken baby syndrome, doctors opined that brain bleed
Speaker 1: and swelling were signs of child abuse, placing blame on
Speaker 1: the brand new childcare provider, Stephanie Spurgeon, and when Maria
Speaker 1: died seven days later, the charges were upgraded to murder,
Speaker 1: but with the lack of external injuries, the state changed
Speaker 1: its shaken baby theory, concocting a new narrative in which
Speaker 1: Maria had been repeatedly struck against the soft surface. The
Speaker 1: defense failed to pivot to this new theory, instead presenting
Speaker 1: a shape and baby syndrome defense, and with the states
Speaker 1: uncontested yet totally dubious soft impact theory. The jury found
Speaker 1: Stephanie guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter and sentenced
Speaker 1: her to fifteen years in prison. With the help of
Speaker 1: multiple innocence projects and a current candidate for state's attorney,
Speaker 1: Stephanie was able to present the proper expert testimony.
Speaker 2: This proved the.
Speaker 1: State's ludicrous soft impact theory, win a new trial, and
Speaker 1: ultimately be set free after nine long years. This is
Speaker 1: wrongful conviction. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction. Today's episode is well,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be honest with you, it's terrifying because this
Speaker 1: is a story that is both unique and also somehow
Speaker 1: not uncommon, and it involves an innocent woman working at
Speaker 1: a daycare center who got caught up in the criminal
Speaker 1: legal system for no reason of her own making. I'm
Speaker 1: going to introduce our incredible guest today, because we have three,
Speaker 1: including the woman who lived through this nightmare herself, Stephanie Spurgeon. First,
Speaker 1: I'm going to introduce our very distinguished group. Seth Miller
Speaker 1: is here. He's the executive director of the Innocence Project
Speaker 1: of Florida. It does incredible work day in and day out,
Speaker 1: pushing huge boulders uphills of justice. So Seth, thanks for
Speaker 1: being here.
Speaker 2: Thanks Jason, thrilled to be here.
Speaker 1: And with him and with us. Is Alison Miller no relation.
Speaker 1: She is an attorney with Ripley Wisenhunt and is also
Speaker 1: currently running for the State's Attorney Office of Florida. And
Speaker 1: I hope people will support her because we need people
Speaker 1: like you in positions like that. But for the time being,
Speaker 1: we're happy to have you right where you are and
Speaker 1: right here on the mic. So Alison Miller or welcome
Speaker 1: to Wronful Conviction.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1: And Stephanie, what can I say? I feel like the
Speaker 1: whole human race owes you a debt of gratitude for
Speaker 1: sharing your story and for just being the strong, courageous
Speaker 1: woman that you are. And I appreciate you being here.
Speaker 1: So Stephanie to you. Also, welcome to Ronful Conviction.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Jason. It's my pleasure.
Speaker 1: And so Stephanie, this is the story that we've heard
Speaker 1: time and time again where somebody like yourself is doing
Speaker 1: you know, let's call it what it is, essential work.
Speaker 1: Where would we be as a society without daycare centers?
Speaker 1: The working world would grind to a halt, And yet
Speaker 1: people like you too often end up in situations like
Speaker 1: the one we're talking about today. I mean, it really
Speaker 1: makes my heart hurt. But let's please take us back
Speaker 1: before this incident happened in two thousand and eight. Can
Speaker 1: you tell us what your life was like back then.
Speaker 4: I was married for nineteen years, and I had two
Speaker 4: beautiful children. We had a beautiful life. We were well
Speaker 4: knit family. We did a lot of family vacations. I
Speaker 4: was a license and home daycare provider for fifteen years.
Speaker 4: The parents that would come into my home, they became
Speaker 4: part of my family. Their kids became part of my family.
Speaker 4: We would celebrate holidays together and different things. It was
Speaker 4: very fulfilling. I was able to work with children. I
Speaker 4: was able to be at home with my own children.
Speaker 4: I decided at one point to go into special needs children.
Speaker 4: So I took lots of children that came in who
Speaker 4: had speech issues or different disabilities, and I grew a
Speaker 4: real heart for these kids because not a lot of
Speaker 4: places would accept any special needs children. And then I
Speaker 4: decided to branch off a little bit further and start
Speaker 4: taking teenage parent children. So Esther Harris was actually the
Speaker 4: very first teen mom that I took. She was seventeen
Speaker 4: years old when I was introduced to her, Maria.
Speaker 1: And so not only are you taking care of other
Speaker 1: people's kids, you're doing it in your own home, opening
Speaker 1: your doors and your heart and taking care of kids
Speaker 1: who have issues with other people. Well might not want
Speaker 1: to open their home too, or their hearts, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: so this case, I'd like to say it happened a
Speaker 1: long time ago, but it really didn't, right. I mean,
Speaker 1: it would feel a little bit better if it was
Speaker 1: back before we had science evolved to a place that
Speaker 1: it was at in two thousand and eight, which is
Speaker 1: when this tragedy occurred, of course. And I said tragedy
Speaker 1: not crime. That's deliberate, because that's what it was. And
Speaker 1: so Seth, do you want to set the stage for
Speaker 1: us of what happened on that awful day and how
Speaker 1: this became a criminal matter.
Speaker 5: When I think about these cases when a child dies,
Speaker 5: a lot of times the folks involved in trying to
Speaker 5: figure out how that happened kind of go nutty. They
Speaker 5: aren't able to take sober views of what might have
Speaker 5: happened to that child. And that's what happened here in
Speaker 5: this case. Sephie Spurgeon was running an in home daycare
Speaker 5: at her home. It was better business bureau rated had
Speaker 5: generations worth of children who come through the daycare who
Speaker 5: really positive experiences, their families had positive experiences. And the child,
Speaker 5: Maria Harris, was her first day at the daycare. And
Speaker 5: yet on this day, this poor child was suffering from
Speaker 5: what was clearly a distress, a medical situation.
Speaker 4: When Maria's grandmother, Patricia came and picked her up that day,
Speaker 4: Maria had been sleeping. So I reached into the pack
Speaker 4: and play and I picked her up, and she kind
Speaker 4: of stirred in my arms, and I passed her to Patricia,
Speaker 4: and she stirred in Patricia's arms, and then Patricia took
Speaker 4: her and placed her in the car and drove her home.
Speaker 4: Thirty minutes later is when we got the phone call. Maria,
Speaker 4: I guess was deteriorating as she was sleeping, and I
Speaker 4: was unaware that there was any issue because I simply
Speaker 4: thought she was asleep.
Speaker 5: At the end of the day, the child was growing up.
Speaker 5: The child was crying and was clearly kind of lifeless
Speaker 5: in a lot of ways, and called nine one one.
Speaker 5: It took the child to the hospital and when they
Speaker 5: were on the way to the hospital, they tested the
Speaker 5: child's blood sugar and the child had a high.
Speaker 2: Four hundreds of blood sugar.
Speaker 5: And I don't know if any of y'all have diabetes
Speaker 5: or test your blood sugar regularly, but that is four
Speaker 5: to five times the normal level.
Speaker 2: So this child is in major distress.
Speaker 5: What they do when they get this child to the
Speaker 5: hospital is they realize after doing a number of tests
Speaker 5: on the child that the child's suffering from a brain
Speaker 5: lead a subdural hematoma, and the child has brain swelling
Speaker 5: and that has led to the child having retinal hemorrhages.
Speaker 5: And instead of treating the child for what looked like
Speaker 5: a diabetic situation, a diabetic distress because the child had
Speaker 5: the subdual heemotone, because the child had this brain swelling
Speaker 5: and the retinal hemorrhages, the doctors immediately assumed that this
Speaker 5: was an abusive situation because they thought that this was
Speaker 5: the three ingredients the triad as they call it, cause
Speaker 5: by taking baby syndrome or what is more commonly known
Speaker 5: now is abusive head trauma. So that had a chance
Speaker 5: to try to treat this child to maybe ameliorate or
Speaker 5: even prevent and a bigger problem or death to treat
Speaker 5: this metabolic this diabetic situation, but instead they assumed it
Speaker 5: was abuse and were often running taking a medical situation
Speaker 5: and elevating it to the crime, and unfortunately his child
Speaker 5: died seven days later.
Speaker 1: The idea that this might have been prevented if they
Speaker 1: just simply focused on the problem at hand rather than
Speaker 1: turning this into wild accusations of child abuse makes my
Speaker 1: blood boil. I mean, and I think it's worth mentioning.
Speaker 1: As we've covered extensively on our show Junk Science and
Speaker 1: other episodes of Wrongful Conviction as well, just a general
Speaker 1: overview of the theory of shaking baby syndrome or SBS. Now.
Speaker 1: It was initially introduced as a hypothesis by British pediatric
Speaker 1: neurosurgeon doctor Norman guth Kelch, who was trying to explain
Speaker 1: a cause for inexplicable child deaths in which a child
Speaker 1: or baby, toddler whatever had presented subdural hematoma otherwise known
Speaker 1: as bleeding in the brain, retinal hemorrhage, so you know,
Speaker 1: bleeding in the eye, in brain swelling, or cerebral edemon Now.
Speaker 1: Doctor Kuthkelch hypothesized that perhaps a typical method of scolding
Speaker 1: a child in Great Britain at the time, giving the
Speaker 1: child a good shake. Maybe that was the cause for
Speaker 1: unintended or unexplained child deaths in which this triad of
Speaker 1: medical findings occurred. He never was able to prove this,
Speaker 1: He just hypothesized it and cautioned parents against the practice. Understandably, however,
Speaker 1: since that hypothesis, the criminal legal system just sort of
Speaker 1: ran amuck with this idea, right leaping to the conclusion
Speaker 1: that any child presenting those symptoms, especially if there was
Speaker 1: any other bruisings, had been fatally abused like sort of
Speaker 1: one size fits all, which is ridiculous, and that the
Speaker 1: person less responsible for the child therefore must have been
Speaker 1: the culprit.
Speaker 3: And I think we as people understanding the inner workings
Speaker 3: of the human mind, when bad things happen, we want
Speaker 3: to be able to say there's someone or something responsible
Speaker 3: for that bad thing happening. And so, where there was
Speaker 3: a legitimate science maybe at the inception this idea has
Speaker 3: been horribly bastardized to get convictions involving usually the depth
Speaker 3: of infants or toddlers, and Stephanie's case is a perfect
Speaker 3: example of that. Where there is legitimate scientific evidence that
Speaker 3: this child was in medical distress that went ignored by
Speaker 3: medical professionals because it was easier to say, oh, this
Speaker 3: child must have been harmed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's worth noting that in recent years, as
Speaker 1: doctors in larger and larger numbers have been challenging the
Speaker 1: notion of shaking baby syndrome, they've identified, get this, over
Speaker 1: eighty different preexisting conditions that can cause what they call
Speaker 1: the triad of findings that were historically just attributed to
Speaker 1: shaking baby syndrome almost automatically. Right, So the science is there,
Speaker 1: but I mean, I wish I could say when the
Speaker 1: criminal legal system is going to catch up. It's entirely
Speaker 1: possible that it never will because science, let's face it
Speaker 1: looks forward, while the legal system only looks backward at precedent,
Speaker 1: sort of the opposite. And so, Stephanie, if you could
Speaker 1: take us back to when you were arrested, what all
Speaker 1: happened before the trial.
Speaker 4: My first arrest was August twenty first, August twenty second,
Speaker 4: maybe two thousand and eight. I was arrested on aggravated
Speaker 4: child abuse. I went to Nells County Jail. I was
Speaker 4: housed in a solitaire cell because of course my face
Speaker 4: was on the news, and I was able to bond
Speaker 4: out the next day. I think it's important to say
Speaker 4: my bond was fifty thousand dollars, and my parents got
Speaker 4: an attorney for me, which was fifty thousand dollars, So
Speaker 4: right away we're in the hole. I came home and
Speaker 4: was unable to have a daycare of course, so I
Speaker 4: had no income, so that became an issue immediately. Maria
Speaker 4: passed away seven days later. I was rearrested six weeks later,
Speaker 4: on November eighth, two thousand and eight, on capitol felony murder.
Speaker 4: I had just taken my son to his bus stop
Speaker 4: in the morning, and when I came back home, I
Speaker 4: put up in a driveway, like three squad cars surrounded me,
Speaker 4: and everybody come racing out, screaming and yelling and put
Speaker 4: me in cuffs and put me in the back of
Speaker 4: the cruiser and took me back to County jail. When
Speaker 4: they brought me in from booking that day, they brought
Speaker 4: me straight to a solitaire cell in the lobby area,
Speaker 4: and I could look out and see my face on
Speaker 4: the news. And as I'm looking at my face on
Speaker 4: the news. I'm looking at the other inmates that are
Speaker 4: in there getting processed in and they're all looking back
Speaker 4: at me and that solitaire cell. So it was a
Speaker 4: very scary situation. There was a grand jury hearing, and
Speaker 4: the attorney that I had that was fifty thousand dollars
Speaker 4: he wouldn't try a capital case, so we had to
Speaker 4: hire another firm and they cost us one hundred thousand.
Speaker 4: I ended up getting indicted and then we moved for
Speaker 4: a bond hearing. My bond hearing was successful, except it
Speaker 4: was three hundred and fifty thousand dollars with an ankle
Speaker 4: monitor and no contact with any child in the age
Speaker 4: of twelve. I thought there was no way that my
Speaker 4: family was ever going to be able to come up
Speaker 4: with those kind of funds because we had already spent
Speaker 4: so much. They did come up with it. They fundraised,
Speaker 4: They drained all of your savings, accounts, everything, and one night,
Speaker 4: on January twenty sixth, two thousand and nine, after I
Speaker 4: think eighty nine days in a solitaire cell, I was
Speaker 4: released at two am, so I was able to come
Speaker 4: home and wake both of my kids up. My daughter
Speaker 4: and I ended up sitting on the front porch in
Speaker 4: a rocking chair and watch the sunrise together. It was
Speaker 4: very hard to sleep because I kept thinking I was
Speaker 4: going to wake up and be back in there. The
Speaker 4: nightmare would be there again.
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Speaker 5: There were signals even before the trial that the state
Speaker 5: was going to move away from a shaken baby syndrome diagnosis.
Speaker 5: The real issue in this case is that we had
Speaker 5: these presentations in the brain and the skull, and the
Speaker 5: doctors were used to saying, oh, this could only be abused,
Speaker 5: it's shaken baby syndrome. The problem is these things are
Speaker 5: normally associated with signs of abuse, external injuries, and this
Speaker 5: child did not have a scratch or a bruise or
Speaker 5: not even a single mark on her, and so the
Speaker 5: doctors are trying to figure out, well, how can we
Speaker 5: make this abuse and explain away to the fact that
Speaker 5: there's no visual injuries on this child. And this is
Speaker 5: how what they call the child abuse pediatrician I'm using
Speaker 5: air quotes, she came up with the theory that, well,
Speaker 5: the reason there's no injuries that are apparent on the
Speaker 5: outside is because the child was slammed repeatedly on a
Speaker 5: soft surface like a crib mattress.
Speaker 1: So this case is nutty, right, because you don't see
Speaker 1: it very often that the state changes their theory sort
Speaker 1: of midstream, right, So then they came up with this
Speaker 1: soft impact theory. But the crazy thing is it seemed
Speaker 1: like her attorneys were defending a different theory than the
Speaker 1: one that the state was trying to convict her on.
Speaker 1: Am I mistaken about that?
Speaker 2: That's exactly right.
Speaker 5: The defense attorney was very focused on shaking in Mey syndrome.
Speaker 5: And when I deposed this attorney in post conviction, I
Speaker 5: asked them about cases that he had done previously, and
Speaker 5: what I found out was that he had done a
Speaker 5: series of shaking baby syndrome cases where he got favorable
Speaker 5: results from his clients. So he had his pat experts
Speaker 5: in a formula for how he would approach these cases.
Speaker 5: But he simply failed to learn his own case well
Speaker 5: enough to know that he could not simply employ the
Speaker 5: same formula that he employed in other cases where shaking
Speaker 5: baby syndrome was a theory. Because not all cases are
Speaker 5: the same, they're not creating equal In this case, the
Speaker 5: state had already abandoned the shaking baby syndrome theory for
Speaker 5: this seft impact theory, And so we're pressing long. In
Speaker 5: a case they get to buy a mechanical expert. They
Speaker 5: do the thing that a lot of people don't do.
Speaker 2: They get the right.
Speaker 5: Expert, they prepare that expert, but they prepare them for
Speaker 5: the wrong theory. And there was this striking moment in
Speaker 5: the trial where after the defense attorney sits down, he
Speaker 5: thinks he's done a great job with the biomaccant of expert.
Speaker 5: And the first question the state asked the expert when
Speaker 5: they get up is who told you that this was
Speaker 5: a shaken baby syndrome case. It was a devastating moment
Speaker 5: in the trial and of course, he could have put
Speaker 5: his expert back up, got them to prepare all the calculations,
Speaker 5: and he failed to do that because he just didn't
Speaker 5: even understand his own case.
Speaker 3: The State of Florida, in their prosecution of Stephanie, relied
Speaker 3: on one particular pediatrician that they frequently rely on. It's
Speaker 3: so hard because these doctors and experts come in to
Speaker 3: court couched with credibility and reliability, and especially in areas
Speaker 3: like Vanillas and Pasco County where we've used the same
Speaker 3: experts forever, it's hard helping whomever the FactFinder is, jurors
Speaker 3: or judges to understand this is a misapplication of science.
Speaker 3: And so you get doctors that come in and they
Speaker 3: use words that we as average folks don't understand, and
Speaker 3: it sounds like it must be true. And then at
Speaker 3: the end it's with the conclusion that this child died
Speaker 3: as a result of intentionally inflicted abuse of trauma.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so the deck is truly stacked against even someone
Speaker 1: like Stephanie. Right, she gets swept under this tidal wave
Speaker 1: of nonsense that comes from preconceived biases and notions and things.
Speaker 1: Right because someone sees her in the defendant's chair. They
Speaker 1: automatically assume somebody who's there must have done something to
Speaker 1: be there. Right, there's that you have to overcome. Then,
Speaker 1: as you said, there's all the medical stuff. A guy
Speaker 1: gets up there and reads his credentials sounds very impressive,
Speaker 1: and then spouting these theories that most jurors are not
Speaker 1: equipped to understand or unpacked, so they think they're doing
Speaker 1: the right thing. And I have empathy for them too
Speaker 1: for making these mistakes. And Stephanie, you've lived through this,
Speaker 1: so I want to get back to you. What was
Speaker 1: this like from your perspective as a mom nineteen years married,
Speaker 1: you know, upstanding citizen to say the least, Well.
Speaker 4: Jason, I was absolutely devastating, to say the least. Kept
Speaker 4: waiting for truth to prevail. I knew that I didn't
Speaker 4: hurt Maria, so I knew that something would eventually come
Speaker 4: to surface that would show what had happened. It was terrifying,
Speaker 4: terrifying for me, It was terrifying for my children, It
Speaker 4: was terrifying for my then husband. It was awful, and
Speaker 4: in the end, it destroyed our whole family. I got
Speaker 4: a divorce, went to prison, and my kids grew up
Speaker 4: without their mom.
Speaker 1: How old were the kids when this happened.
Speaker 4: My son was twelve, my daughter was seventeen.
Speaker 1: So Stephanie, when the jury went out, can you tell
Speaker 1: us what you were thinking at that time? Did you
Speaker 1: think that finally this wrong would be righted and this
Speaker 1: nightmare would come to an end.
Speaker 4: I just kept thinking that eventually they would realize that
Speaker 4: there's no way that I did this, that nobody hurt Maria.
Speaker 4: There had to have been something else. They jury deliberated
Speaker 4: for twenty one and a half hours before they came
Speaker 4: back with an acquittal of capital failing murder but a
Speaker 4: guilty charge in manslaughter. I heard a horrible noise from
Speaker 4: behind me, and it was my son crying out. It
Speaker 4: was surreal. It just felt like I was in a fog.
Speaker 4: I remember mouthing I love you to my family before
Speaker 4: they haled me out of the courtroom and put me
Speaker 4: back in that solitaire sell I got to prison. I
Speaker 4: was absolutely terrified and had to learn very quickly how
Speaker 4: to adapt in a maximum security prison. You have to
Speaker 4: always pay attention to what's going around you, and you
Speaker 4: had to kind of learn how to bob and weave
Speaker 4: between people. You didn't want to draw any attention to yourself.
Speaker 4: It's a very scary place. And not only is it
Speaker 4: scary from the other inmates, but not all the officers
Speaker 4: are on the up and up. The officers are also
Speaker 4: very scary. So I got to prison, and naturally I
Speaker 4: was quite angry, and I knew that if I didn't
Speaker 4: do something with my anger, I was just going to
Speaker 4: go down a dark path. So I threw myself into
Speaker 4: learning about my own case, and I got certified and
Speaker 4: became a law clerk, which of course is how I
Speaker 4: met Amanda Brumfield. We were co workers in the law library.
Speaker 4: We both left the maximum security prison and we found
Speaker 4: ourselves at a faith and character based war camp, and
Speaker 4: that was a much safer environment, albeit it did not
Speaker 4: have ac so it was extremely excruciatingly hot, but I
Speaker 4: traded the heat for the safety and I worked with
Speaker 4: Amanda in the law library and we did every I
Speaker 4: think we could for other people in there, meanwhile, both
Speaker 4: learning each other's case as well as our own case.
Speaker 4: And that's how I survived.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I don't know where. I don't know where they
Speaker 1: make people like you that find this sort of otherworldly strength, spirit, courage,
Speaker 1: whatever you want to call it. But I'm just glad
Speaker 1: you did, and I'm glad that Amanda Broomfield did as well.
Speaker 1: I mean, she just recently joined us here on Rafel Convictions,
Speaker 1: and yeah, I'm so freaking glad that you both found
Speaker 1: the strength to pull through and be here.
Speaker 4: Well, I had a good support system, Jason. I had
Speaker 4: wonderful parents and my brother and my children, and they
Speaker 4: made sure I had all of my needs, because you know,
Speaker 4: in prison they don't give you shampoo and deodor and
Speaker 4: things like that. You have to buy these things. Thankfully,
Speaker 4: I had an amazing support system that are still my
Speaker 4: support system. And you know, it was very touching because
Speaker 4: not only did I have a support system for my family,
Speaker 4: but my clients and the childcare. All of my daycare
Speaker 4: babies that I raised grew up and sent me checks
Speaker 4: while I was in prison to help pay for whatever
Speaker 4: I needed in there. So these daycare babies that I
Speaker 4: raised were taken care of being while I was in prison.
Speaker 1: Well that's full circle, isn't it. I Mean, it's a
Speaker 1: little bit of light in a miserable dark place and
Speaker 1: speaks to your character as well. So, Seth Allison, how
Speaker 1: did this then eventually make its way to your desks,
Speaker 1: and how did the process finally right itself.
Speaker 5: You know what's unique I think about this case is
Speaker 5: that it got to us so much earlier than a
Speaker 5: lot of other cases. I've gotten guys out of prison
Speaker 5: who has spent thirty or thirty five or over forty
Speaker 5: years in prison, and once you find out about that
Speaker 5: twenty years, thirty years down the line, it's very hard
Speaker 5: to rectify that. It's a reclamation project that sometimes is
Speaker 5: beset with procedural problems that doesn't really allow you to
Speaker 5: turn it around. But here we were able to get
Speaker 5: in on the initial post conviction motion, where you have
Speaker 5: all of the potential claims available.
Speaker 2: To you have no procedural problems.
Speaker 5: And so we only did that because Stephanie wrote to
Speaker 5: us almost immediately after her initial appeal was denied. And
Speaker 5: what was interesting is that she had written to us.
Speaker 5: I was litigating another case with Kate Judson, and we
Speaker 5: come to find out that this other person's case, Amanda Brownfield,
Speaker 5: and Stephanie were friends in prison, and that's kind of
Speaker 5: how Stephanie got hooked up with us. I remember being
Speaker 5: in the car driving home from a different prison visit,
Speaker 5: talking to Kate about Stephanie's application and saying, hey, you
Speaker 5: want to do another one, and that was kind of like, yeah,
Speaker 5: let's get it. This case has some crazy issues in it.
Speaker 5: So what became clear to us is what we've already
Speaker 5: talked about. The lawyer didn't use the biomechanical engineer that
Speaker 5: he had at his disposal to rebut the state's soft
Speaker 5: impact theory how this supposed abuse happened. What happens is
Speaker 5: that juris are looking for an answer, and the prosecution
Speaker 5: gave them an answer. It's incumbent upon the defense to
Speaker 5: rebut that if you don't, your client's going to be convicted.
Speaker 5: And so what happened here is that not only did
Speaker 5: they not give them an answer, they put up another
Speaker 5: expert who agreed that this was from violent trauma. So
Speaker 5: the defense expert agreed is from violent trauma, and they
Speaker 5: never went into any of them to like medical.
Speaker 2: Issues that were very clear that existed. So that was
Speaker 2: kind of where we focused.
Speaker 5: Can we get the biomic engineer to look at the studies,
Speaker 5: do the calculations to prove that slamming on a soft
Speaker 5: surface can't cause these injuries? And can we talk to
Speaker 5: pediatric endochronologists, pediatric genesis, forensic pathologists or clinical pathologists, a
Speaker 5: neuroadiologists to look at all of this material in the
Speaker 5: case and help us understand whether this could even be trauma,
Speaker 5: and if it wasn't trauma, could it come from another
Speaker 5: underlying medical issue, particularly issue of related diabetes. And when
Speaker 5: we were able to do that, what we found out
Speaker 5: is that we had an expert, a biomechanical expert, who
Speaker 5: was able to say with supreme confidence that this slamming
Speaker 5: on a soft service could not have scientifically caused this
Speaker 5: child's injuries because he did the preeminent study of just
Speaker 5: this type of scenario and it proven that a human
Speaker 5: of Stephanie's size can't create enough force to cause those
Speaker 5: injuries in that child's brain without also causing massive external injuries.
Speaker 5: Of course, there were none, and so scientifically they couldn't
Speaker 5: do that. Our experts together showed that this was a
Speaker 5: situation where the child had a blood clot in their brain.
Speaker 5: The blood clot in their brain caused spillover bleeding into
Speaker 5: the brain because blood couldn't get out of the brain
Speaker 5: back to the other parts of the body, and that
Speaker 5: caused swelling in the brain which caused the retinal hemorrhages
Speaker 5: which caused this child's disease, and all of this was
Speaker 5: caused by a thicking of the blood due to a
Speaker 5: diabetic situation.
Speaker 2: And so we have this evidence now.
Speaker 5: But the key was to show that the trial council
Speaker 5: violated Stephanie's constitutional right to counsel and effective assistance of
Speaker 5: that council by not bringing about all of this information,
Speaker 5: all of which would prove that there was no crime
Speaker 5: here and that this child died from a tragic a
Speaker 5: medical situation that was just undiagnosed.
Speaker 2: So that's what we did.
Speaker 1: What was it like, Stephanie, when all of a sudden
Speaker 1: You've got sort of the dream team, right, I mean
Speaker 1: the Florida Innocence Project. Those of us who worked in
Speaker 1: the Innis's movement know that the Florida Innosce Project is
Speaker 1: held in the highest regard. So when you got the
Speaker 1: letter or a call or whatever it was saying that
Speaker 1: they were going to represent you, what was that like, Well,
Speaker 1: it was.
Speaker 4: A phone call from Seth at the Florida Innocence Project
Speaker 4: and he patched through Kay Judson. At that time, she
Speaker 4: was with the Innocence Project of Wisconsin. Now with the
Speaker 4: Center for Integrity and Forensic Science, and I also had
Speaker 4: Josh Teffer, who is with the Exoneration Project out of Chicago.
Speaker 4: So it was unbelievable to know that not only did
Speaker 4: I manage to get one innocence project, but I managed
Speaker 4: to get three projects all working. And I guess I
Speaker 4: just kind of like threw up my hands and was
Speaker 4: just like finally, finally, like I knew there had to
Speaker 4: be something there, and finally somebody found it.
Speaker 1: Right, all of a sudden, You've got the literal dream
Speaker 1: team on your side, and Allison, can you take us
Speaker 1: through how you got involved in what eventually led to
Speaker 1: Stephanie's freedom.
Speaker 2: I love this.
Speaker 1: This This is my favorite part of the story.
Speaker 3: So Seth, with Kate and Josh did that lengthy post
Speaker 3: conviction hearing in front of Judge Burgess, which he denied.
Speaker 3: They appealed, and the Second District Court of Appeal overturned
Speaker 3: that denial of the post conviction motion, finding Stephanie's original
Speaker 3: trial lawyers to be ineffective. Seth and I have worked
Speaker 3: on a number of different cases or just sort of
Speaker 3: floated in the same circles myself at the trial court level,
Speaker 3: and Seth Moore in the post conviction world. I could
Speaker 3: remember when Stephanie's case was overturned, Seth and I having
Speaker 3: this meeting of the minds where he was like, you know,
Speaker 3: myself and Kate and Josh obviously still want to be involved,
Speaker 3: but we need somebody who does trial work. And I
Speaker 3: was like, well, I would love to be involved. And
Speaker 3: so that's when I got appointed. Was like, okay, we're
Speaker 3: back for a new trial. And instead of the State
Speaker 3: of Florida saying we concede, the state indicated it intended
Speaker 3: to retry Stephanie, and so we were like, bring it,
Speaker 3: y'all are prosecuting an innocent woman and we're going to
Speaker 3: embarrass you. Was the mentality that we had. It was
Speaker 3: all new prosecutors, all new defense attorneys, and we were
Speaker 3: gearing up for a battle. Frankly, to make a very
Speaker 3: long story short, the state would not agree to not
Speaker 3: go forward, but to bring an end to this for everyone,
Speaker 3: the Harris family, Spurgeon family, the state was willing to
Speaker 3: accept what we call an Alfred please, where a defendant
Speaker 3: pleads guilty but is still exerting his or her innocence,
Speaker 3: saying I'm pleading guilty, but because I believe it's in
Speaker 3: my best interest to do so, not because I'm legally
Speaker 3: admitting to doing what I'm accused of. And I think
Speaker 3: we all felt like because of all the shortcomings in
Speaker 3: the criminal justice system as they exist, the over reliance
Speaker 3: on the pediatrician who doesn't seem to understand science, I
Speaker 3: couldn't tell Stephanie there was no chance that a jury
Speaker 3: would convict her. Yet Stephanie wanted her life back, she
Speaker 3: wanted her family back, she wanted to be able to
Speaker 3: put her toes in the ocean, and so for everyone's sake,
Speaker 3: she agreed to enter this Alfred plea and bring resolution
Speaker 3: to the case.
Speaker 1: So, look, no one could fall at you, Stephanie for
Speaker 1: making the decision that you made. People make it all
Speaker 1: the time. I can find a lot of faults in
Speaker 1: the state for dangling that sword over your head again.
Speaker 1: So when did you come home, Stephanie? And can you
Speaker 1: tell us what it was like walking out into the
Speaker 1: fresh air? Give us as much as you can.
Speaker 4: Well, it was definitely hot. I had an entourage of
Speaker 4: people out there along with Netflix. We're doing a series,
Speaker 4: so everybody was filming. I got in the car and
Speaker 4: The first thing they did was handy a cell phone.
Speaker 4: I didn't know what to do with it. I think
Speaker 4: they were just so excited to finally give me some
Speaker 4: piece of technology. And I went to Wall Laws. My
Speaker 4: kids had always told me about wah wahs, and when
Speaker 4: I walked in, it was just so overwhelming, all the
Speaker 4: lights and all the things to look at. And I
Speaker 4: know that probably sounds so silly, but when you've been
Speaker 4: trapped inside for so long, and I must look like
Speaker 4: I was from outer space because my eyes are staring
Speaker 4: at the lights, I'm sure my mouth was open. It
Speaker 4: was interesting. I allowed Netflix to come home with me
Speaker 4: and film me coming in, and that was a really
Speaker 4: difficult thing, to allow them to film me at my
Speaker 4: most weakest, vulnerable moment of happy tears. That I did
Speaker 4: allow it because I wanted to help bring more knowledge
Speaker 4: when the series finally does.
Speaker 1: Air, amen to that, and I think we all who
Speaker 1: work in this field for those happy moments. So, Stephanie, you,
Speaker 1: on top of all the other unspeakable treatment that you
Speaker 1: had to endure, you also, as you mentioned, had to
Speaker 1: spend a king's ransom, you know, to try to defend yourself.
Speaker 1: Just the thousands of dollars, and you aren't a rich
Speaker 1: person going into this. So we now have a bigger
Speaker 1: support system. Right over one hundred thousand people who are
Speaker 1: listening to your voice now. I'm sure many of them
Speaker 1: would like to do something to help you if they could.
Speaker 1: Is there some way for people to donate, or is
Speaker 1: there anything else that you could think up that they
Speaker 1: might be able to do.
Speaker 4: I have a GoFundMe and I would appreciate anything that
Speaker 4: anybody could do to help me get back on my feet.
Speaker 4: I've been home a year now and really haven't been
Speaker 4: able to build up a whole lot, so I would
Speaker 4: appreciate that. Thank you, Jason, Yes.
Speaker 1: And we will link to that in a bio of
Speaker 1: our episode. So please take a moment right now. If
Speaker 1: you're listening and you have something you can spare, please
Speaker 1: go to the link in the bio and donate, and
Speaker 1: we're going to join you in doing that and trying
Speaker 1: to help make this next period of your life a
Speaker 1: little bit less difficult. And listen if you're sitting at
Speaker 1: home wondering how we can help to prevent these wrongful
Speaker 1: convictions from happening in the future. Besides serving on juries
Speaker 1: and voting, like we talked about don't to Alison Miller's campaign,
Speaker 1: We're going to again have the link in the bio.
Speaker 1: But Allison, what is the way if people just want
Speaker 1: to write it down right now and we're going to
Speaker 1: get a bunch of hopefully money flowing your way and
Speaker 1: help fix this system that wrongfully convicted Stephanie Spurgeon, Amanda
Speaker 1: Broomfield and so many others.
Speaker 3: Well, that would be amazing. My website is Miller for
Speaker 3: State Attorney dot com. You can get involved and you
Speaker 3: can donate securely and easily through my website. I'm on
Speaker 3: pretty much every social media platform.
Speaker 1: So now we turn to my favorite part of the show,
Speaker 1: and everyone who's a regular listener knows what to expect,
Speaker 1: and by that I mean closing arguments, and for anyone
Speaker 1: who's new to this, closing arguments works very simply. First,
Speaker 1: I once again think our incredible guests today, Alison Miller,
Speaker 1: attorney and candidate for State's Attorney in the State of Florida,
Speaker 1: Seth Miller, executive director of the Florida Innocence Project and
Speaker 1: personal hero of mine, and Stephanie Expurge in my new
Speaker 1: personal Hero. And what happens next is I turned my
Speaker 1: microphone off and leave each of yours on so that
Speaker 1: you can share any final thoughts that we haven't maybe
Speaker 1: covered yet, or anything else you want to say. I'm
Speaker 1: just going to kick back in my chair. Let's start
Speaker 1: with Seth and Allison, and then just hand the mic
Speaker 1: off to Stephanie and she'll take us out.
Speaker 5: So one of the things that I think about coming
Speaker 5: out of these cases and working on others now is
Speaker 5: how these things keep happening. We talked about it here,
Speaker 5: and I wonder what we can do to prevent them
Speaker 5: from happening in the future, and how we can end
Speaker 5: what is like a cottage industry of medical fabrication. And
Speaker 5: so that to me is the next step of this.
Speaker 5: We should continue to get people out of prison who
Speaker 5: are innocent, who put in prison for accidents or for
Speaker 5: things that have medical causes that weren't even crimes at all.
Speaker 5: This is the leading cause of wrongful conviction and women.
Speaker 5: We have to also think about how we can prevent
Speaker 5: it in the first place, and there has to be
Speaker 5: a change in the medical community. If medical doctors are
Speaker 5: still being trained every day in medical school to make
Speaker 5: the same mistakes that the medical doctors in this case
Speaker 5: and other cases have made and to me, that's the
Speaker 5: next stage of how do we prevent this and really
Speaker 5: just eradicate this fabrication from the criminal legal system.
Speaker 3: Jason, I want to echo what you said is that
Speaker 3: Seth and Stephanie especially are personal heroes of mine as well,
Speaker 3: and Stephanie is part of the reason why I am
Speaker 3: running for state attorney. If people like us don't do
Speaker 3: this type of work, then nothing will ever change. People
Speaker 3: have to be more involved in their local downbout elections,
Speaker 3: whether it's called the district attorney or the state attorney.
Speaker 3: We have to take ownership in what prosecution looks like
Speaker 3: in our jurisdictions or this sort of thing will continue
Speaker 3: to perpetuate. And so if elected state Attorney, I don't
Speaker 3: intend to prosecute child abuse cases based exclusively on the
Speaker 3: testimony of doctor Sally Smith. I've already enlisted people like
Speaker 3: Seth and Kate understanding we're going to have to continue
Speaker 3: prosecuting child abuse. Of course, everyone wants child abuse prosecuted,
Speaker 3: but we need to do it with reliable forensic evidence.
Speaker 3: And we have seen repeatedly in this jurisdiction at the
Speaker 3: very least that this pediatric is a danger, and everyone
Speaker 3: frankly seems willing to ignore it.
Speaker 1: Stephanie closing arguments well, I.
Speaker 4: Would like to start by thanking Allison. I appreciate your
Speaker 4: confidence in me coming into this. I also, of course
Speaker 4: have to thank Seth the Florida Ennison's Project, Kate Judson
Speaker 4: from the Center of Integrity and Forensic Sciences, Josh Teffer
Speaker 4: from the Exoneration Project, all of their staff, the experts,
Speaker 4: and all the law students, because it took an army
Speaker 4: to bring me home. And I'd also like to thank
Speaker 4: all the people who donate and support organizations like this,
Speaker 4: because if it wasn't for your support, people like me
Speaker 4: would still be BeTrapped behind those prisons. I'd like to
Speaker 4: urge law enforcement and medical staff to not assume abuse
Speaker 4: when they see a triad of injuries, to not race
Speaker 4: in emotionally charged and be more diligent. I hope that
Speaker 4: my story brings awareness to shaking baby syndrome and abuse
Speaker 4: and head trauma. I appreciate you allowing me to share
Speaker 4: my story for the first time today. Thank you Jason.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I'd like to
Speaker 1: thank our production team Connor Hall, Justin Golden, Jeff Clibern,
Speaker 1: and Kevin Wardis, with research by Lyla Robinson. The music
Speaker 1: in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated
Speaker 1: composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram
Speaker 1: at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction podcast, and
Speaker 1: on Twitter at wrong Conviction, as well well as at
Speaker 1: Lava for Good. On all three platforms, you can also
Speaker 1: follow me on both TikTok and Instagram at its. Jason
Speaker 1: flam Ravel Conviction is the production of Lava for Good
Speaker 1: podcast and association with Signal Company Number one