SBS: Tiffani Calise; Ohio; Autopsy rules toddler's death a homicide

By Ed Meyer
Beacon Journal staff writer
POSTED: 08:36 p.m. EST, Nov 18, 2010
Defense lawyers for a 20-year-old babysitter charged with murder in the death of a toddler during a sleepover at her Green apartment this summer plan to challenge law enforcement findings that it allegedly was a case of shaken baby syndrome.
Tiffani D. Calise, who is being held in the Summit County Jail in lieu of a $500,000, 10-percent cash bond, appeared Thursday before Common Pleas Judge Alison McCarty with a defense team now in place.
William T. Whitaker, an Akron attorney with previous experience in suchcases, informed McCarty that he will be assisting Calise's court-appointed counsel, Donald R. Hicks, and will do so on a pro-bono basis.
Attorneys from both sides agreed on a Jan. 12 trial date in McCarty's court.
In other developments, the cause of the Aug. 12 death of 23-month-old Aaliyah Nevaeh Ali has been reported by the Summit County Medical Examiner's Office as ''complications of blunt impact(s) to the head.''
The ruling on manner of death was ''homicide: assaulted by another person(s).''
Deputy Medical Examiner Dorothy E. Dean, who performed the autopsy, wrote in the ''Opinion'' section of the autopsy report that Aaliyah died ''from the severe injuries to her brain that she sustained during the assault.''
Dean stated that the agency's opinion was based on the ''findings at autopsy'' and ''investigative information,'' apparently from law enforcement officers and medical staff at Akron Children's Hospital where the child was taken by an emergency squad and admitted in the early hours of Aug. 10.
A list of injuries found by Dean during the autopsy included: internal pressure on the brain; bleeding in the area between the brain and skull; optic nerve and retinal bleeding; bleeding of the right-sided gel in the eye; and damage to central nervous system cells from reduced oxygen supply to the brain.
Full skeletal X-rays performed at Children's Hospital showed no fractures, according to the autopsy report.
Calise, who is six months pregnant, was with Aaliyah and her own daughter on the night of Aug. 9 inside her Mayfair Road apartment.
At some point, Calise gave the child a bath. She told sheriff's deputies and family members that she left Aaliyah alone momentarily in a nearly empty bathtub to retrieve a towel.
When she was away, Calise said she heard a thud and returned to find the child unconscious.
Minutes after Calise called 911, according to the autopsy's ''Report of Investigation,'' paramedics arrived at the apartment at 11:52 p.m.
'''Aaliyah was found face up on the living room floor with a small amount of vomit on the floor next to her,'' the medical examiner's investigator, Michael McGill, reported.
His report stated that the child was undressed and her hair was wet.
McCarty has approved fees for the defense to hire an independent forensic expert, as yet unnamed, to examine and evaluate the autopsy findings.
''This is a case in which medical testimony is going to be rather crucial,'' McCarty told attorneys from both sides during Calise's court appearance.
Summit County Assistant Prosecutor Gregory Peacock, who is handling the government's case against Calise, told the judge that the prosecution's witnesses will include the deputy medical examiner, Dean; Children's emergency room physicians; and Dr. R. Daryl Steiner, who heads the Children's Hospital child abuse center.
Calise's lawyers and family members, who were present in court for the hearing, declined to comment on details of the case.

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Ed Meyer can be reached at 330-996-3784 or emeyer@thebeaconjournal.com.

An autopsy finds Aaliyah Nevaeh Ali (above left ) died as a result of homicide. Tiffani Calise is charged with murder.

Defense lawyers for a 20-year-old babysitter charged with murder in the death of a toddler during a sleepover at her Green apartment this summer plan to challenge law enforcement findings that it allegedly was a case of shaken baby syndrome.

Tiffani D. Calise, who is being held in the Summit County Jail in lieu of a $500,000, 10-percent cash bond, appeared Thursday before Common Pleas Judge Alison McCarty with a defense team now in place.

William T. Whitaker, an Akron attorney with previous experience in suchcases, informed McCarty that he will be assisting Calise's court-appointed counsel, Donald R. Hicks, and will do so on a pro-bono basis.

Attorneys from both sides agreed on a Jan. 12 trial date in McCarty's court.

In other developments, the cause of the Aug. 12 death of 23-month-old Aaliyah Nevaeh Ali has been reported by the Summit County Medical Examiner's Office as ''complications of blunt impact(s) to the head.''

The ruling on manner of death was ''homicide: assaulted by another person(s).''

Deputy Medical Examiner Dorothy E. Dean, who performed the autopsy, wrote in the ''Opinion'' section of the autopsy report that Aaliyah died ''from the severe injuries to her brain that she sustained during the assault.''

Dean stated that the agency's opinion was based on the ''findings at autopsy'' and ''investigative information,'' apparently from law enforcement officers and medical staff at Akron Children's Hospital where the child was taken by an emergency squad and admitted in the early hours of Aug. 10.

A list of injuries found by Dean during the autopsy included: internal pressure on the brain; bleeding in the area between the brain and skull; optic nerve and retinal bleeding; bleeding of the right-sided gel in the eye; and damage to central nervous system cells from reduced oxygen supply to the brain.

Full skeletal X-rays performed at Children's Hospital showed no fractures, according to the autopsy report.

Calise, who is six months pregnant, was with Aaliyah and her own daughter on the night of Aug. 9 inside her Mayfair Road apartment.

At some point, Calise gave the child a bath. She told sheriff's deputies and family members that she left Aaliyah alone momentarily in a nearly empty bathtub to retrieve a towel.

When she was away, Calise said she heard a thud and returned to find the child unconscious.

Minutes after Calise called 911, according to the autopsy's ''Report of Investigation,'' paramedics arrived at the apartment at 11:52 p.m.

'''Aaliyah was found face up on the living room floor with a small amount of vomit on the floor next to her,'' the medical examiner's investigator, Michael McGill, reported.

His report stated that the child was undressed and her hair was wet.

McCarty has approved fees for the defense to hire an independent forensic expert, as yet unnamed, to examine and evaluate the autopsy findings.

''This is a case in which medical testimony is going to be rather crucial,'' McCarty told attorneys from both sides during Calise's court appearance.

Summit County Assistant Prosecutor Gregory Peacock, who is handling the government's case against Calise, told the judge that the prosecution's witnesses will include the deputy medical examiner, Dean; Children's emergency room physicians; and Dr. R. Daryl Steiner, who heads the Children's Hospital child abuse center.

Calise's lawyers and family members, who were present in court for the hearing, declined to comment on details of the case.

http://www.ohio.com/news/top_stories/109074884.html

SBS: Calise trial in Ohio analyzes shaken baby syndrome

Edward Markovich
November 15th, 2010
On November 15, 2010 the State of Ohio will begin to try the case of  young Tiffani Calise in Akron, Ohio for the crime of allegedly shaking a baby to death. The charge is involuntary manslaughter, and child endangering. The case is somewhat incoherent, either she hurt the baby bad enough to cause its death or she didn't. If she did, it seems a case of simple homicide, until you examine the shaky basis of so-called shaken baby syndrome.

For the past quarter of a century, medical professionals have routinely been taught that shaking a baby can cause injuries so severe that irreversible brain damage or death will likely result from the act of shaking alone. In Akron, Childrens' Hospital's Dr. Steiner has specialized in diagnosing and testifying regarding alleged cases of shaken infants, resulting in past convictions of young parents and caregivers. But international courts, most recently in Canada and Great Britain, have called for a review of all shaken baby convictions on the basis of new scientific data undermining its reliability as a forensic medical diagnosis.

In American courts, the rule of admissibility of expert scientific opinions follows the case of Daubert v. Merrill Dow Pharmaceuticals, 509 U.S. 579 (1993) . The United States Supreme Court held in that case that the enactment of the Federal Rules of Evidence impliedly overturned the earlier Frye rule. In a 1923 case, Frye v. United States, 293 F. 1013 (D.C. Cir. 1923), the court held that evidence could be admitted in court only if "the thing from which the deduction is made" is "sufficiently established to have gained general acceptance in the particular field in which it belongs." After Daubert changes in medical science can be admitted even before all opinions have agreed in one scientific area.

In 2008, a Wisconsin jury convicted Audrey Edmunds of murdering her baby by shaking, and she was sentenced to eighteen years in prison. On January 31, 2008, Audrey Edmunds was granted a new trial on the basis of new scientific thinking. For the first time, a court examining the foundation of shaken baby syndrome held that it had become sufficiently shaky itself that a new jury probably would have a reasonable doubt as to the defendant‘s guilt. As the United States Supreme Court emphasized in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., ―[v]igorous cross-examination, presentation of contrary evidence, and careful instruction on the burden of proof are the traditional and appropriate means of attacking shaky but admissible evidence.‖”
Could it be that shaken-baby syndrome has become itself such a shaky, negative forensic diagnosis, (meaning it attaches to the last person who happened to be caring for the child when it loses consciousness), that Ohio doesn't have the heart to charge her with murder? In Tiffani Calise's case, she happened to be babysitting for the baby who died later from alleged shaking. Although involuntary manslaughter is much less serious than intentional or negligent homicide, it seems that her case may depend not just on facts and law, but on a growing awareness that past cases of infant death may have been decided on a very shaky scientific foundation, which is now under reconstruction.
http://www.examiner.com/courts-in-akron/a-shaky-case