Document Category: Shaken Baby Syndrome

This motion challenges the scientific reliability of a prosecution expert’s testimony related to AHT/SBS. The motion outlines the history of AHT/SBS (pp. 11-15), details why AHT/SBS is not a scientifically reliable diagnosis, and applies the Daubert and Federal Advisory Committee Notes factors to AHT/SBS (pp. 29-33). The motion details how biomechanics undermine the premise of AHT/SBS (pp. 16-20), points to studies that demonstrate that children can in fact die from short accidental falls (pp. 19-20), and explains how the triad used to diagnose AHT/SBS can have non-abusive causes (pp. 21-26).

Pg. 13 – noting that there is no reliable scientific study validating the hypothesis that shaking alone can cause bleeding in the brain and eyes and neurological impairment; accidents can cause these symptoms

Pg. 14 – discussing thirty documented exonerations of innocent people wrongfully convicted based on shaken baby syndrome (and in 13% of those cases, the innocent person falsely confessed)

Pg. 19 – discussing a survey that reveals fewer than half of forensic pathologists think SBS is a valid diagnosis

Pgs. 20-28 – discussing why experts in biomechanical engineering are relevant to and regularly testify in SBS/AHT cases and how biomechanical studies show that shaking alone cannot produce the medical findings associated with SBS/AHT

Pgs. 28-31 – discussing the many non-abusive causes/circumstances that can present the same diagnostic signs relied upon to support SBS/AHT

Pgs. 38- 39 – collecting research that discusses the biasing impact of false confessions, how they corrode evidence collection and create a false appearance of corroboration, and how likely they are to lead to erroneous convictions

Pgs. 39-40 – documenting the problem of contaminated confessions

Pgs. 41-42 – discussing research showing that (a) individuals who have experienced trauma as well as (b) individuals who are depressed are more susceptible to police coercion and more likely to falsely confess

Pgs. 42-44 – discussing research about the dangers of police reliance on false evidence ploys to induce confessions

Pgs. 48-50 – surveying recent social science evidence on false confessions

Pgs. 50-53 – discussing social science research on confirmation biases in forensics

This motion relies on federal rules of evidence and Daubert to argue that a physician should not be permitted to testify that a person died from an oxycodone overdose when there are alternative potential causes of death – such as cardiac arrhythmia – that have not be properly eliminated. More generally, the motion explains when doctors who rely on differential diagnosis – the process of identifying the cause of a medical problem by eliminating likely causes until the most probable one is isolated – are conducting a reliable, medical analysis versus when their analyses are compromised by cognitive biases. The social science collected in this motion would be useful to defenders challenging the validity of any causal conclusion physicians reach.

Pages 4-6 explain the differential diagnosis process and how it can lead physicians to make unreliable conclusions about cause of death.  Pages 6-17 discuss how cognitive biases like confirmation bias, role effects, the availability heuristic, and the representativeness error can infect differential diagnoses.  Pages 17-20 talk about when differential diagnoses are unreliable due to a physician’s failure to properly rule in certain causes and rule out potential alternatives.  Pages 20-24 draw analogies to the forensic sciences and argue that the physician in this case could testify that there was oxycodone in the patient’s system but should not have been able to opine with certainty that it caused the patient’s death.  Pages 24-28 explain why the doctor’s ultimate opinion invaded the province of and was unhelpful to the jury.

Focusing on retinal hemorrhages, this motion cites research showing no proven correlation between shaking and retinal hemorrhage, as well as studies documenting other (non-shaking) causes of retinal hemorrhage.