SBS: Ohio: Tiffani Calise denied new trial

Ed Meyer
October 29, 2011

Summit County Common Pleas Judge Alison McCarty has denied Tiffani Calise’s motion for a new trial in the 2010 baby-sitting death of a 23-month-old toddler.
When the case went to trial in June, four medical experts for the prosecution, led by Dr. R. Daryl Steiner, longtime director of the child abuse center at Akron Children’s Hospital, concluded that Aaliyah Ali suffered severe brain injuries from being violently shaken.
In a nine-page decision, McCarty concluded that the “forcefulness and consistency of the state’s medical testimony was sufficient to sustain a conviction in this case.”
She also noted that the jury weighed conflicting testimony by medical experts from both sides “and found the state’s experts credible.”
McCarty’s decision is not unexpected, because trial courts routinely reject such defense motions.
Calise, who turned 21 in June, said in her trial testimony, as well as in the 911 call she made the night of Aug. 9, 2010, that Aaliyah’s injuries occurred from a fall in her apartment bathtub.
She testified that the child fell and hit her head, just as Calise stepped away to grab a towel from a nearby linen closet.
After the June 15 verdicts were announced, McCarty imposed the mandatory sentence of life in prison without any chance of parole for 15 years.
Calise was sent to the Ohio Reformatory for Women in Marysville on June 28, state prison records show.
She was convicted of murder, involuntary manslaughter and child endangering.
Child too old?
In Calise’s motion for a new trial, defense attorney Bill Whitaker claimed the state’s own evidence showed a 23-month-old’s body has developed to such an extent that a child of that age cannot be shaken and incur the severe brain injuries alleged by the state’s expert witnesses.
A chart of shaken-baby deaths by range of age in the publication,Pediatrics: The Official Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics shows the vast majority of shaken-baby deaths are in the range of 1 to 6 months.
In the range of 18 to 24 months, the Journal did not cite a single case of shaken-baby syndrome, Whitaker said.
The chart was introduced at Calise’s trial during Whitaker’s cross-examination of Steiner.
“It’s a shame that the motion for a new trial was denied. Tiffani Calise did absolutely nothing to hurt this child,” Whitaker said Friday in response to the judge’s decision.
“The medical testimony was flawed. The pediatric journal study shows it’s virtually impossible to hurt a 2-year-old in that manner, and there was credible evidence the child was injured prior to coming into Tiffani’s care.”
Calise has a new appellate attorney, Donald Malarcik, who has filed a notice of appeal in Akron’s 9th District Court of Appeals.
http://www.ohio.com/news/local-news/tiffani-calise-s-motion-for-new-trial-denied-in-babysitting-death-1.242496

SBS: Ohio: Tiffani Calise, baby sitter, sentenced

Mike Waterhouse, and Bob Jones

AKRON, Ohio - A Summit County jury has found a baby sitter guilty in the death of a 23-month-old girl she was watching.
The guilty verdicts against Tiffani Calise, 20, includes convictions for murder, involuntary manslaughter and child endangering.  It was announced just before 1 p.m. Wednesday.
Judge Alison McCarty sentenced Calise to 15 years to life in prison for the death of Aaliyah Ali.
Prior to sentencing, Aaliyah's mother, Gabrielle Moneypenny, faced Calise and said, "I don't know why you did this to her. You have ruined my life."
Moments later, a sobbing Calise said to the judge, "I would never harm a child.  I never hurt Aaliyah. For me to be found guilty on something I didn't do, it just shows how messed up all this can get."
She said she is planning to appeal the verdict.
At the time of the incident on Aug. 9, 2010, paramedics were called to Calise's apartment in Green for a report of a child unresponsive.  The toddler died a couple days later at Akron Children’s Hospital from critical injuries.
According to the Summit County Sheriff’s Department, Calise told deputies she found the child limp in the bath tub.  But authorities later found the child’s injuries were not consistent with that story.
Prosecutors said during the trial that Aaliyah died from shaken baby syndrome.  The defense argued that the injuries happened when the girl fell and hit her head in the bathtub.
"She was shaken by her (Calise).  Violently shaken by her and caused massive brain damage and it did not happen from a fall in the tub," said Greg Peacock, assistant Summit County prosecutor.
Moneypenny believes the verdict means justice for Aaliyah.
"She was the most perfect baby I could ever have imagined.  She's wonderful, always laughed, was always happy.  I love her so much.  I would do anything in the world to have her back," Moneypenny said.
Calise’s 2-year-old daughter was taken into the custody of family members following the murder charge.
Calise also delivered a second child while in custody for the murder.  That child is also staying with a relative, according to prosecutors.
http://www.newsnet5.com/dpp/news/local_news/akron_canton_news/baby-sitter-found-guilty-of-murder-in-death-of-23-month-old-girl

SBS: Ohio: Tiffani Calise trial conflicting testimony

June 05,2011 :  Ed Meyer

For years, there was little controversy about what caused the severe head trauma linked to many child fatalities.
Prevailing medical opinion held that with no other outward signs of broken bones or abuse, there was one conclusion: ''shaken-baby syndrome'' — and a very rapid, if not instantaneous, incapacitation of the child.
Some recent scientific studies and research projects in this field, however, are leading forensic pathologists to other conclusions.
The debate will take place again, beginning Monday morning, in the murder trial of Tiffani D. Calise, 20, of Green.
Summit County Common Pleas Judge Alison McCarty, who is hearing Calise's case, set up the impending courtroom drama six months ago with the declaration that testimony by both sides' forensic experts ''is going to be rather crucial.''
Prosecutors, backed by their Summit County medical experts, have accused Calise of causing fatal head injuries to 23-month-old Aaliyah Ali while baby-sitting Aug. 9.
Aaliyah died three days later at Akron Children's Hospital.
Deputy county Medical Examiner Dorothy E. Dean, who performed the autopsy, ruled the death a homicide from ''complications of blunt impact(s) to the head.''
Dean concluded that Aaliyah suffered severe brain injuries during an assault.
Her testimony will be supported by the Children's Hospital pediatric experts who treated Aaliyah and by Dr. R. Daryl Steiner, longtime director of the hospital's child abuse center.
Steiner has testified in many of the county's shaken-baby cases over the past two decades.
Laurie Cramer, spokeswoman for the prosecutor's office, declined to comment on a defense challenge to the state's position that shaken-baby injuries unmistakably caused Aaliyah's death.
''We are bound by ethical rules not to speak, even in general terms, about our evidence,'' Cramer said.
Calise's defense team, Bill Whitaker and Donald R. Hicks, also said it would be inappropriate to comment before the case goes to trial.
But their general position was established with the Aug. 9 emergency call, beginning at 11:44 a.m. and lasting nine minutes, that Calise made from her Mayfair Road apartment.
''Oh, please, help me. Oh, my God, I need a paramedic!'' Calise told the 911 dispatcher. She said Aaliyah had fallen in the bathtub and had bumped her head.
Calise said she didn't see the fall — she said she only heard a thud — because she had stepped away from the nearly empty tub to get a towel.
''I came back in there and she's all limp,'' a sobbing Calise told the dispatcher.
In support of Calise's story that she did not inflict the injuries, the defense has hired neurosurgeon Ronald H. Uscinski, who serves on the faculties of Georgetown University Hospital and George Washington University Medical Center in Maryland. He has 40 years of experience in the field.
Uscinski has filed his own forensic analysis of Aaliyah's injuries, concluding the child did not die from the effects of blunt-impact injuries to the brain.
Uscinski wrote that results of the hospital CT scans were consistent with brain-cell death from oxygen deprivation caused by a bread-like substance removed from Aaliyah's airway as doctors tried to insert a breathing tube in the emergency room.
After about only four minutes of complete oxygen deprivation, brain cells begin to die, Uscinski said.
Experts say such a theory cannot be easily dismissed as simply coming from the defense's ''hired gun.''
'Short-fall' injuries
Forensic pathologist John J. Plunkett of Minnesota, an outspoken critic of shaken-baby syndrome, wrote a 2001 report showing that those findings can be wrong.
Toddlers can and do die from the effects of what is known in forensic science as ''short-fall'' head injuries — similar to Calise's description of how Aaliyah was hurt — according to the report.
Plunkett's case study involved a 23-month-old girl, the same age as Aaliyah, who was playing on a plastic gym set in the garage at her home.
The child lost her balance on the top rail and fell, head first, onto a three-quarter-inch-thick plush carpet remnant spread out on the garage's concrete floor.
She was removed from life support 36 hours later.
Plunkett said hospital personnel, ''who were convinced without any question that this was shaken baby,'' reported the death to law enforcement.
Officers were preparing to arrest the child's father, Plunkett said, when the 23-month-old's grandmother intervened, saying she had videotaped the girl playing on the gym set.
''So the cops went over to the home and found the video camera, which she had dropped when the little girl hit the floor, and they played the videotape and went: 'Oh, my goodness!' '' Plunkett said.
The grandmother's tape showed that the child hit her head on the floor in an accidental fall from a height of 28 inches.
''Prior to publication of my [study] in 2001,'' Plunkett said, ''the pediatric community said, uniformly, that short-distance falls can't cause injuries or death. They didn't say it's rare. They said it doesn't occur. Period. And most forensic pathologists, not all, but most, said the same thing.''

The belief system that once was so firmly in place in the medical community was based on the so-called ''triad'' of sure-fire indicators that a child had been violently shaken to death.
Patrick E. Lantz, professor of forensic pathology at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, who said he has conducted more than 1,100 autopsies in his career, said those three signs are swelling of the brain, bleeding over the surface of the brain and hemorrhaging of the retinas.
''It has been assumed for the last 20 to 30 years that [this] combination was fairly diagnostic in little children of shaking or shaking impact, and a lot of [experts] would say it would only occur in shaking or shaking impact or abusive head trauma,'' he said.
But some forensic studies and research, such as that by Plunkett and Lantz, have shown that this triad of signs, particularly retinal hemorrhaging, does not always mean shaken baby syndrome.
An analytical paper from Lantz, scheduled to be published this fall in the Journal of Forensic Science, shows how retinal hemorrhaging can occur from a short fall.
The baby in Lantz's case had fallen down a section of six to seven carpeted steps, suffering bleeding on the surface of the brain and severe retinal hemorrhaging.
''It would have looked just like shaken-baby syndrome or abusive head trauma, except there were three people who were at the home and all three gave the same account of what actually happened,'' Lantz said.
Legitimate challenges to the conclusion of shaken baby syndrome are becoming more common.
''More and more people are realizing that other things can actually cause this triad [of injuries], and if people are basing it on just the triad and nothing else, it's unsafe without more evidence,'' Lantz said.
Calise is charged with murder, involuntary manslaughter and two counts of felony child endangering. She has been held at the county jail in lieu of a $500,000 10 percent cash bond since her Aug. 11 arrest.

Ed Meyer can be reached at 330-996-3784 or emeyer@thebeaconjournal.com. http://www.ohio.com/news/123178573.html

SBS: OHIO: Tiffani Calise trial experts' evidence

Ed Meyer  Apr 19, 2011
An expert in brain injuries has testified that the forces created by a slip and fall in a bathtub were strong enough to cause the injuries that took the life of toddler Aaliyah Ali.
A Summit County judge now will decide whether to admit that testimony in the murder trial of Aaliyah's 20-year-old baby sitter, Tiffani D. Calise.
The defense expert, John D. Lloyd, a senior researcher in traumatic brain injuries at James A. Haley Veterans Administration Hospital in Tampa, Fla., testified for more than two hours Monday morning before Common Pleas Judge Alison McCarty.
Citing findings from a laboratory experiment repeated 30 times, using a mannequin similar in size and weight to the 33-inch-tall toddler, Lloyd told the court that Calise's claims of how the head injuries occurred were scientifically plausible.
Lloyd, 41, has a doctorate from Loughborough University in central England. He testified that his specialty is in biomechanics — the science that determines whether certain mechanical forces are sufficient to cause injury. Lloyd told the judge his experiments involved three scenarios of the mannequin falling in a real bathtub — from a standing position, from a position of crawling out of the tub and from the top edge of the tub.
He said he even put a pair of toy roller skates on the mannequin ''to simulate the feet slipping out from under the body.''
McCarty's decision is expected in about two weeks.
The judge gave prosecutors one week to submit a written response to Lloyd's testimony, and five additional days for Calise's lawyers, William T.Whitaker and Donald R. Hicks, to respond.
Calise is to go to trial June 6. She is charged with murder, involuntary manslaughter and two counts of felony child endangering.
She told sheriff's deputies and family members, that she was caring for her own daughter and Aaliyah on the night of Aug. 9 at her Mayfair Road apartment in Green. After giving Aaliyah a bath, Calise said, she momentarily left the child alone in a nearly empty tub to retrieve a towel. Calise said she heard a thud and returned to find Aaliyah unconscious. The child was taken to Akron Children's Hospital and died two days later.
According to an autopsy by the Summit County Medical Examiner's Office, Aaliyah's death was ruled a homicide from ''complications of blunt impact(s) to the head.''
Deputy Medical Examiner Dorothy E. Dean wrote in her report that Aaliyah was ''assaulted by another person(s),'' and that she had ''severe injuries to her brain that she sustained during the assault.''
Dean's testimony is expected to form part of the foundation of the state's case.
Another important prosecution witness, Dr. R. Daryl Steiner, director of the child abuse center at Children's Hospital, is expected to testify that Aaliyah was a victim of shaken baby syndrome.
Calise's lawyers hope Lloyd will be able to rebut those findings to create reasonable doubt in the state's theory.
Assistant Prosecutor Gregory Peacock spent much of Monday morning trying to cast suspicion on Lloyd as an expert witness.
Lloyd said he has testified as a court-certified expert witness in only one other case, in Georgia, and that he conducted his experiments with a childlike mannequin used by state agencies in the testing of injuries from auto crashes.
''The principles [of biomechanics] are the same,'' Lloyd said, regardless of whether the head injuries were caused by auto crashes or football injuries, or whether the victim was an adult or child.
Lloyd also said his tests were conducted in a 400-square-foot laboratory in his home near Tampa.
''It's a fairly extensive testing facility,'' Lloyd told the court.
After the proceedings, Whitaker said Lloyd could not answer specific questions about the case because of the pending trial.
Calise has been held at the county jail in lieu of a $500,000 10 percent cash bond since her Aug. 11 arrest.

---

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

http://www.ohio.com/news/120186204.html

SBS: Ohio: Tiffani Calise trial delayed

Baby sitter's murder trial is delayed at least week
Both sides cite need for more time to ready witnesses' testimony
By Ed Meyer
Beacon Journal staff writer
Published on Tuesday, Apr 12, 2011
The Summit County trial of a 20-year-old baby sitter charged with murder in the death of a toddler has been delayed for at least one week and possibly much longer.
Tiffani D. Calise was scheduled to go to trial Monday morning before Common Pleas Judge Alison McCarty.
The delay was caused by issues with both sides' expert witnesses, who are expected to provide conflicting testimony about the forensic analysis of the child's head injuries.
Lawyers for the prosecution and defense told McCarty they needed more time to prepare their positions on the matter, and the judge agreed.
''I don't want anybody to have to try this case with one hand tied behind their back,'' McCarty said.
If the issues cannot be resolved by next Monday, when another hearing is scheduled, McCarty said the trial could be pushed back to June 6.
In other developments in the case, Summit County Assistant Prosecutor Gregory Peacock told the judge that the state has been prepared to settle the case with a plea to involuntary manslaughter and one count of child endangering.
Discussions on the potential plea arose in previous court hearings, Peacock said, but Calise turned down the offer.
It would have given McCarty discretion to impose a sentence of no time in prison, up to a maximum of 10 years, Peacock said.
McCarty questioned Calise about the offer at the conclusion of Monday's hearing, asking the defendant if she still wished to decline the state's offer.
''Yes, ma'am,'' Calise replied.
Calise was caring for her own daughter and a 23-month-old toddler, Aaliyah Ali, when Aaliyah suffered a head injury on the night of Aug. 9 at Calise's Mayfair Road apartment in Green.
After giving Aaliyah a bath,
Calise told authorities and family members she momentarily left the child alone in a nearly empty tub to retrieve a towel.
While she was away, Calise said she heard a thud and returned to find Aaliyah unconscious. The child was taken to Akron Children's Hospital and died two days later.
Calise, who has been held at the county jail since her Aug. 11 arrest, was charged with murder, involuntary manslaughter and two counts of felony child endangering.
Deputy Summit County Medical Examiner Dorothy E. Dean, who performed the autopsy, ruled the death a homicide from ''complications of blunt impact(s) to the head.''
The defense is expected to challenge those findings with an expert in neurosurgery who has filed a detailed report with the court stating Aaliyah died of prolonged oxygen deprivation in the brain from an obstruction in her airway.
The obstruction was believed to be a breadlike substance that emergency room doctors had to remove before they were able to insert a breathing tube, the report said.
If not for that, Aaliyah could have recovered from the head injury, the defense expert said.
On Friday, however, prosecutors expanded on the reports from their experts — Dean and Dr. R. Daryl Steiner of Children's Hospital — with additional details on the possibility of shaken baby syndrome.
Defense co-counsel William Whitaker told the judge in Monday's hearing that it was the first time he became aware of such an issue.
McCarty then granted the trial continuance to give both sides more time to prepare their positions.
Steiner is the longtime director of the Children's Hospital child abuse center.
If Calise goes to trial and is convicted of the murder charge, she could be sentenced to life in prison.
However, according to the indictment, prosecutors would have to prove Calise caused Aaliyah's death as a proximate result of a violent offense in connection with felony child endangering.

---

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

The Summit County trial of a 20-year-old baby sitter charged with murder in the death of a toddler has been delayed for at least one week and possibly much longer.

Tiffani D. Calise was scheduled to go to trial Monday morning before Common Pleas Judge Alison McCarty.

The delay was caused by issues with both sides' expert witnesses, who are expected to provide conflicting testimony about the forensic analysis of the child's head injuries.

Lawyers for the prosecution and defense told McCarty they needed more time to prepare their positions on the matter, and the judge agreed.

''I don't want anybody to have to try this case with one hand tied behind their back,'' McCarty said.

If the issues cannot be resolved by next Monday, when another hearing is scheduled, McCarty said the trial could be pushed back to June 6.

In other developments in the case, Summit County Assistant Prosecutor Gregory Peacock told the judge that the state has been prepared to settle the case with a plea to involuntary manslaughter and one count of child endangering.

Discussions on the potential plea arose in previous court hearings, Peacock said, but Calise turned down the offer.

It would have given McCarty discretion to impose a sentence of no time in prison, up to a maximum of 10 years, Peacock said.

McCarty questioned Calise about the offer at the conclusion of Monday's hearing, asking the defendant if she still wished to decline the state's offer.

''Yes, ma'am,'' Calise replied.

Calise was caring for her own daughter and a 23-month-old toddler, Aaliyah Ali, when Aaliyah suffered a head injury on the night of Aug. 9 at Calise's Mayfair Road apartment in Green.

After giving Aaliyah a bath,
Calise told authorities and family members she momentarily left the child alone in a nearly empty tub to retrieve a towel.

While she was away, Calise said she heard a thud and returned to find Aaliyah unconscious. The child was taken to Akron Children's Hospital and died two days later.

Calise, who has been held at the county jail since her Aug. 11 arrest, was charged with murder, involuntary manslaughter and two counts of felony child endangering.

Deputy Summit County Medical Examiner Dorothy E. Dean, who performed the autopsy, ruled the death a homicide from ''complications of blunt impact(s) to the head.''

The defense is expected to challenge those findings with an expert in neurosurgery who has filed a detailed report with the court stating Aaliyah died of prolonged oxygen deprivation in the brain from an obstruction in her airway.

The obstruction was believed to be a breadlike substance that emergency room doctors had to remove before they were able to insert a breathing tube, the report said.

If not for that, Aaliyah could have recovered from the head injury, the defense expert said.

On Friday, however, prosecutors expanded on the reports from their experts — Dean and Dr. R. Daryl Steiner of Children's Hospital — with additional details on the possibility of shaken baby syndrome.

Defense co-counsel William Whitaker told the judge in Monday's hearing that it was the first time he became aware of such an issue.

McCarty then granted the trial continuance to give both sides more time to prepare their positions.

Steiner is the longtime director of the Children's Hospital child abuse center.

If Calise goes to trial and is convicted of the murder charge, she could be sentenced to life in prison.

However, according to the indictment, prosecutors would have to prove Calise caused Aaliyah's death as a proximate result of a violent offense in connection with felony child endangering.

http://www.ohio.com/news/119675154.html

AHT: Tiffani Calise has benefit of experience defense witness

Ed Meyer , Apr 04, 2011

 Aaliyah Ali, age 23 mos.

The Summit County case of a 20-year-old baby sitter accused of murdering a toddler is being challenged in a new report.

An expert for the defense asserts that blunt impact to the little girl's head ''did not cause her death'' and was of such a nature that ''she could have recovered.''

Accidental death cannot be ruled out, the report concluded.

The forensic report by Ronald H. Uscinski, a neurosurgeon on the faculties of Georgetown University Hospital and George Washington University Medical Center in Maryland, was filed in Common Pleas Court for the upcoming trial of Tiffani D. Calise of Green.

And by the court's own admission, it could carry considerable weight in the determination of innocence or guilt. Uscinski has garnered headlines for past testimony on behalf of defendants in shaken-baby cases.

Judge Alison McCarty addressed the importance of forensic analysis of the toddler's injuries when the two sides met in a pretrial hearing last November, saying this is a case in which ''medical testimony is going to be rather crucial.''

Calise is to go to trial April 11 on charges of murder, involuntary manslaughter and two counts of child endangering.

Evidence not in dispute shows she was caring for two children at her Mayfair Road apartment — her 34-month-old daughter and a 23-month-old, Aaliyah Ali — when Aaliyah suffered a head injury late in the evening of Aug. 9.

Calise, who had been baby-sitting the children for two days over the weekend, told sheriff's deputies and family members she gave Aaliyah a bath and left her alone in a nearly empty tub for only moments to retrieve a towel.

 While she was away, Calise said, she heard a thud and returned to find Aaliyah unconscious.

According to the autopsy's Report of Investigation, Calise called 911 and tried to administer CPR, following the dispatcher's instructions.

A Green emergency squad arrived at the apartment nine minutes later, at 11:52 p.m, and found Aaliyah unresponsive.

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

Some 30 minutes later, Aaliyah arrived at Akron Children's Hospital. Emergency room personnel tried unsuccessfully at 12:31 a.m. to insert a breathing tube.

Hospital reports stated that doctors found a bread-like substance obstructing Aaliyah's airway, removed it and inserted the breathing tube in a second attempt two minutes later.

Brain scans showed bleeding had occurred in the right side of the brain. Aaliyah did not improve and was pronounced dead at 1:57 a.m. Aug. 12.

Medical dispute

That is where the medical dispute begins, and why the court agreed to pay for a forensic expert for the defense.

The Summit County Prosecutor's Office has declined to comment about the case, saying any comment could jeopardize the fairness of trial proceedings or the selection of the jury.

But from subpoenas it appears that much of the prosecution case has been built around forensic evidence from the Summit County autopsy report; the testimony of the forensic pathologist who performed the autopsy, Deputy Medical Examiner Dorothy E. Dean; and the testimony of Dr. R. Daryl Steiner, who heads the Children's Hospital child abuse center.

In Dean's autopsy report, she said that Aaliyah died from ''complications of blunt impact(s) to the head.''

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

The ''Opinion'' section of the report contained Dean's observation that Aaliyah died ''from the severe injuries to her brain that she sustained during the assault.''

According to Dean, those injuries included internal pressure on the brain; bleeding between the brain and skull layer; optic nerve and retinal bleeding; bleeding of the right-side gel in the eye; and oxygen deprivation in the brain.

As he has done in numerous Summit County cases during the past three decades, Steiner is expected to testify that Aaliyah died from brain injuries in a case of shaken baby syndrome.

The forensic report by the defense expert, Uscinski, who has more than 40 years of experience in neurosurgery, is expected to counter those findings.

Defense's report

Attorney William T. Whitaker, co-defense counsel for Calise, said it would be inappropriate for Uscinski to comment about his findings before the trial.

But in Uscinski's forensic report, filed March 21 in the court record, he said Aaliyah suffered a ''subdural hematoma'' — the term for collection of blood on the brain's surface — ''not inconsistent with the reported fall in the bathtub.''

''The right-sided subdural hematoma is not large and the impact that resulted in the subdural hemorrhage [bleeding] did not cause her death and was an injury from which she could have recovered,'' Uscinski's report stated.

Uscinski noted that vomiting is one of the ''common effects of a head injury resulting from an impact of this nature.''

He said the breadlike substance found in Aaliyah's throat ''would serve to obstruct her airway and resulted in an interruption in Aaliyah's ability to breathe, and this resulted in lack of oxygen to the brain.''

Uscinski also noted that the brain has ''an absolute metabolical requirement for oxygen,'' and that after about four minutes of complete oxygen deprivation, brain cells begin to die.

The breadlike substance was removed from Aaliyah's throat ''some 30 or more minutes'' after she began vomiting, Uscinski said.

Results of the hospital CT scans were consistent with brain-cell death from oxygen deprivation caused by the obstruction ''to the airway of this baby,'' Uscinski wrote.

A nonaccidental injury such as abuse or assault, as noted in Aaliyah's Summit County autopsy, ''is a diagnosis that is only arrived at after ruling out all other reasonable possibilities.''

''In this case,'' Uscinski concluded, ''I do not believe other reasonable possibilities including accidental injury have been ruled out. Therefore, I do not believe there is any basis upon which to conclude that Aaliyah Ali's death was caused by the intentional infliction of trauma by Tiffani Calise or by anyone else.''

Whitaker, Calise's lawyer, won a case in juvenile court several years ago by challenging Summit County autopsy findings and Steiner's shaken-baby testimony.

The forensic expert in Whitaker's juvenile case also was Uscinski.

http://www.ohio.com/news/119165754.html

SBS: Ohio: Tiffani Calise

AKRON, OH (WOIO) - A pregnant woman in jail for murdering a toddler she was babysitting is asking to have her bond lowered so she can leave jail to give birth.

Tiffani Calise is accused of killing little Aaliyah Ali last August at Briarwood Apartments in Green.

Calise's attorneys say they plan on fighting the ruling that the cause of death was Shaken Baby Syndrome.

Calise maintains she left the little girl in the tub for just a few minutes, and the child fell and hit her head.

Calise is pregnant with her second child and remains locked up at the Summit County Justice Center on a half million dollar bond.

The judge has not yet ruled on her attorney's request to lower the bond.

Calise's trial is scheduled to begin April 11th.

http://www.woio.com/Global/story.asp?S=14042004