Shaken Baby Syndrome
…in the late 1990s, Plunkett — a forensic pathologist in Minnesota — began to have doubts about the diagnosis. He started investigating cases in which children had died in a manner similar to the way accused caregivers had described the deaths of the children they were watching — by short-distance falls. What he found alarmed him. In 2001, Plunkett published a study detailing how he had found symptoms similar to those in the SBS diagnosis in children who had fallen off playground equipment. It was a landmark study. If a short-distance fall could produce symptoms similar to those in SBS cases, the SBS diagnosis that said symptoms could only come from shaking was wrong. By that point, hundreds of people had been convicted based on SBS testimony from medical experts. Some of them were undoubtedly guilty. But if Plunkett was right, some of them almost certainly weren’t.
Naturally, defense attorneys began asking Plunkett to testify. He obliged. The same year his study was published, Plunkett testified in the trial of Lisa Stickney, a licensed day care worker in Oregon. She had been charged with murder for the death of a young boy in her care. According to Stickney, she was in another room when she heard a thud. She rushed over and found the boy on the floor near an overturned chair, with blood coming from his head. But according to prosecutors, an autopsy showed the boy had the symptoms that conventional wisdom held could only have come from violent shaking. Thanks in large part to Plunkett’s testimony, Stickney was acquitted.
The acquittal was another landmark moment in the SBS story. Plunkett was now a threat to SBS cases all over the country. The office of Deschutes County, Ore., District Attorney Michael Dugan responded with something unprecedented — it criminally charged an expert witness over testimony he had given in court.
Of course they did — he was a denier.
Instapundit » Blog Archive » I HAD MISSED THIS: Dr. John Plunkett, RIP. He told the truth about bad forensics — and was prosec…
…in the late 1990s, Plunkett — a forensic pathologist in Minnesota — began to have doubts about the diagnosis. He started investigating cases in which children had died in a manner similar to the way accused caregivers had described the deaths of the children they were watching — by short-distance falls. What he found alarmed him. In 2001, Plunkett published a study detailing how he had found symptoms similar to those in the SBS diagnosis in children who had fallen off playground equipment. It was a landmark study. If a short-distance fall could produce symptoms similar to those in SBS cases, the SBS diagnosis that said symptoms could only come from shaking was wrong. By that point, hundreds of people had been convicted based on SBS testimony from medical experts. Some of them were undoubtedly guilty. But if Plunkett was right, some of them almost certainly weren’t.
Naturally, defense attorneys began asking Plunkett to testify. He obliged. The same year his study was published, Plunkett testified in the trial of Lisa Stickney, a licensed day care worker in Oregon. She had been charged with murder for the death of a young boy in her care. According to Stickney, she was in another room when she heard a thud. She rushed over and found the boy on the floor near an overturned chair, with blood coming from his head. But according to prosecutors, an autopsy showed the boy had the symptoms that conventional wisdom held could only have come from violent shaking. Thanks in large part to Plunkett’s testimony, Stickney was acquitted.
The acquittal was another landmark moment in the SBS story. Plunkett was now a threat to SBS cases all over the country. The office of Deschutes County, Ore., District Attorney Michael Dugan responded with something unprecedented — it criminally charged an expert witness over testimony he had given in court.
Of course they did — he was a denier.
Instapundit » Blog Archive » I HAD MISSED THIS: Dr. John Plunkett, RIP. He told the truth about bad forensics — and was prosec…
