Keith A. Findley

The Innocence Project

The Innocence Project is one of more than 65 pro bono organizations throughout the world that have been created since 1992 – now affiliated through the Innocence Network – which work to exonerate wrongly convicted individuals serving sentences for serious crimes they did not commit. The Innocence Project itself handles only cases in which new DNA evidence can prove innocence. Other members of the Innocence Network also utilize other types of new evidence to prove innocence. Together, the projects, through the Innocence Network, also utilize the lessons learned from false convictions to advocate for reforms designed to minimize error in the criminal justice system.

Admissibility of shaken baby syndrome/abusive head trauma evidence

Sir, In a recent editorial, Professor Moreno [1] criticizes those who question the traditional shaken baby syndrome/abusive head trauma (SBS/AHT) hypothesis, particularly our response to an article by Narang [2], who argues that the courts should endorse this hypothesis and exclude alternatives, including those based on the peer-reviewed literature [3]. Moreno contends that our response “ignores the vast quantity of medical evidence cited by Dr. Narang and appears to be based instead on two literature reviews” [1]. In fact, our 104-page article addresses in detail each of the cited papers. Although numerous, these papers are characterized by unsupported assumptions, lack of controls, misunderstanding of statistics, and misplaced reliance on confessions. In short, the evidentiary basis for the traditional SBS/AHT hypothesis is unreliable. Narang and Moreno do not suggest that the cited studies meet the standards of evidence-based medicine, the current benchmark for clinical medicine. Instead, they argue that the judgment and experience of clinicians should outweigh deficiencies in the research. This is, however, contrary to Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc., which explicitly rejects reliance on the ipse dixit of experts to compensate for inadequacies in the research [4]. Sometimes Moreno misunderstands our paper. For example, she argues: “If short falls routinely produced the forces necessary to fracture infant skulls, emergency rooms would be flooded with infants and children suffering from skull fractures and head injuries after minor falls” [1]. No one claims that short falls “routinely” cause head injuries, but there is general agreement that they sometimes cause them and are occasionally fatal; indeed, several fatal short falls have been caught on videotape [3]. Moreno contends that we claimed, wrongly, that “Daubert requires an all-or-nothing determination” [1]. In fact, we emphasized that Daubert requires exacting judicial scrutiny of particular propositions as they relate to “the task at hand,” rather than the kind of global admissibility assertions made by Narang [3]. In the quoted passage, our point was simple: if testimony on one hypothesis is allowed, testimony on alternative hypotheses should also be allowed. In medicine, this is known as a differential diagnosis (i.e. list of possible causes). In law, it is known as due process.

The Federal Role in the Innocence Movement in America

Despite its small contribution to the ranks of the exonerated, and more broadly its relatively small share of all criminal cases, the federal government has played a distinct and important role in fostering and shaping the innocence movement. This article recounts the various ways in which the federal government has done so: through high-profile measures to recognize the reality of wrongful convictions, direct funding of innocence work, use of federal purse strings to shape criminal justice policy, setting an example through legislation on matters as diverse as access to postconviction DNA testing and compensating the wrongly convicted, and leadership on issues such as the problems with the forensic sciences. The article concludes that, moving forward, the committed involvement of the federal government will remain important, especially in tackling such challenging problems as flawed forensic sciences and ensuring financial resources for innocence advocates.