Abstract
Thirty innocent people have been falsely convicted in the United States of assault or homicide of children in their care.
The prosecution mechanism for achieving these wrongful convictions was use of experts to testify to Shaken Baby Syndrome or Abusive Head Trauma (SBS/AHT). Despite the absence of scientific support for these twin diagnoses, prosecutors had experts tell the jury that the child suffered from intentional abuse that could not have been accidental or caused by alternate nontraumatic medical causes. The defense, on the other hand, often struggled to offer even one competing expert. When these convictions were later overturned, the defendant was able to present qualified experts to refute these hypothetical and dubious theories. But before that ultimate victory, individual lives and families had been destroyed by wrongful incarceration.
To prevent these miscarriages of justice, more funding for experts needs to be allocated to poor and middle-class defendants where the prosecution’s case rests largely on medical causation. And defense attorneys need to better understand how to request funding for experts in these specialized cases.
This article reviews some of the innocence cases and their common themes, together with the scientific disputes about the theory of SBS/AHT. The critical need for defense experts, and indeed the constitutional right to such support, is documented in this article, along with a survey of state laws on funding for experts for indigent defendants and suggestions for a superior statutory scheme. Finally, the article suggests how attorneys should request funding for experts and to forthrightly challenge the very legitimacy of expert testimony on SBS/AHT.