SBS: Pennsylvania: Dusty Neal McCauley charged

 February 25, 2011  Josh Krysak

A Waynesburg man accused of injuring a baby in his care in Greene County in December will have his day in court.
Greene County Assistant District Attorney Linda Chambers said Dusty Neal McCauley, 23, was charged in January before Magisterial District Judge Glenn Bates with two counts each of aggravated assault, simple assault, endangering the welfare of children and recklessly endangering another person.

Bates held one count of each charge filed against McCauley for Greene County Court following a preliminary hearing Thursday. The second count of each charge was dismissed.
Chambers said the charges were filed after McCauley allegedly assaulted 11-month-old Miranda Turk at 123 Mountain View Gardens in Franklin Township, Greene County.
According to police, the incident occurred at 6 p.m. Dec. 26 when McCauley requested emergency personnel for a baby that was having trouble breathing.
Police said the girl was taken from the residence to Southwest Regional Medical Center in Waynesburg, where doctors recognized she suffered bilateral subdural hemorrhages. Police said she was then flown by medical helicopter to Children's Hospital in Pittsburgh for medical treatment.
According to Chambers, further evaluation of the baby by doctors in Pittsburgh revealed the child suffered multiple subdural hemorrhages in several regions of the head and extensive retinal hemorrhaging.
Chambers said doctors concluded that the injuries suffered by the child were consistent with abusive head trauma or shaken-baby syndrome.
McCauley remains in the Greene County Prison on $50,000 straight cash bond.
http://www.heraldstandard.com/news/local_news/article_fe5669df-b9c1-5836-8954-edfa1a39a705.html

SBS: Pennsylvania: Lamont Cherry

January 12 2011: Sheena Delazio

WILKES-BARRE – A fall down a steep, unsafe set of steps could have caused lethal injury to 1-year-old Zalayia McCloe, a biomechanical engineer and critical trauma physician testified Tuesday afternoon.

click image to enlarge

Lamont Cherry arrives at the Luzerne County Courthouse on Tuesday morning for the second day of testimony at his homicide trial. Cherry is charged in the May 2009 death of 1-year-old Zalayia McCloe, the daughter of his ex-girlfriend. Cherry is expected to be called to testify in his own defense this afternoon.

John Lenox testified for several hours Tuesday, and was the first witness called to testify for Lamont Cherry, who is standing trial this week on a homicide charge in the May 2009 death of McCloe, his ex-girlfriend’s daughter.
Cherry faces the death penalty if convicted by a Luzerne County jury of first-degree murder.
Testimony presented by defense attorneys will continue this morning, with Cherry being called to testify in his own defense by the afternoon.
Lenox testified that a barbell at the bottom of the steps in the child’s Carlisle Street, Wilkes-Barre, home could have been a likely impact point that could have caused two factures in McCloe’s skull, ultimately leading to her death.
“The stairs are steep and not safe,” Lenox said.
Lenox, a University of Pennsylvania and Stanford University graduate, used Silly Putty, a 2-foot pole, a human figurine and a model of a skull to demonstrate how a fall down a set of steps could have led to the child’s death.
The doctor also used velocity and kinetic energy formulas to calculate the force that would be required in a fall to fracture McCloe’s skull.
Assistant district attorneys Michael Vough and Maureen Collins are trying to prove to a jury of six men and six women that Cherry intentionally caused McCloe’s death by shaking her and striking her head off a hard object.
The attorneys called the last of their witnesses Tuesday morning -- a forensic pathologist who performed a June 1, 2009, autopsy on McCloe and a pediatric critical care physician, who testified about treatment he administered to the infant.
Forensic pathologist Samuel Land testified the child’s injuries were caused by blunt force trauma and her death was ruled a homicide. He said the injuries the 1-year-old suffered could not be caused by an accident, and torn muscles and ligaments in the child’s neck were caused by a whiplash-like injury.
Land said that bruises on the child’s buttocks, as well as her brain injuries, were caused at about the same time.
Several autopsy photos of McCloe were shown to the jury, illustrating injuries the child suffered
Physician Frank Maffei testified for most of the morning that McCloe suffered skull fractures and retinal damage similar to what occurs in shaken baby syndrome.
He said he has never seen injuries such as McCloe’s being caused by a fall and the child’s retinal damage is consistent with being shaken back and forth.
McCloe’s “abusive head injury” was “non-accidental,” Maffei testified, adding the child had “catastrophic brain injuries” and an “enormous” amount of blood was found in the child’s retinas.
“We knew we didn’t have anything we could do (to help McCloe) because the swelling was so bad,” Maffei testified, adding he and another doctor decided to remove part of her skull to relieve swelling in a last attempt to save her life.
“We felt we owed it to her.”
http://www.timesleader.com/news/Fall_down_steps_may_have_been_fatal_for_infant__witness_testifies_01-12-2011.html

SBS: Florida

BRAD DICKERSON

September 22, 2010

 

 

SEBRING - Police arrested a Sebring man Tuesday on a warrant accusing him of throwing a 3-month-old child onto a bed so hard that it caused the infant to stop breathing.
William Clay Hunter, 31, is charged with cruelty toward a child that causes great bodily harm, a first-degree felony.
He remained in the Highlands County Jail todayunder a $100,000 bond.
The incident reportedly happened on Aug. 8, according to the arrest report. The child was taken to an undisclosed medical center, where it was determined she suffered abusive head trauma, or "shaken baby syndrome."
Sebring Police Sgt. Curtis Hart said Wednesday that the infant is currently stable and out of the hospital.
The arrest report indicated that there was also past evidence of injuries to the child, but Hart couldn't get into the extent of those injuries.
A child protection team physician diagnosed that the child will have long-term mental problems, according to the report.
Hunter denied abusing the infant in his initial statements to authorities.
http://www2.tbo.com/content/2010/sep/22/la-man-charged-with-severely-abusing-infant/

SBS: United States statistics

A WOMAN calls 911 to report that a baby in her care has gone limp. Rescue workers respond immediately, but the infant dies that night. Though there are no external injuries or witnesses to any abuse, a jury convicts the woman of shaking the baby to death.
More than 1,000 babies a year in the United States are given a diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome. And since the early 1990s, many hundreds of people — mothers, fathers and babysitters — have been imprisoned on suspicion of murder by shaking. The diagnosis is so rooted in the public consciousness that, this year, the Senate unanimously declared the third week of April “National Shaken Baby Syndrome Awareness Week.”
Yet experts are questioning the scientific basis for shaken baby syndrome. Increasingly, it appears that a good number of the people charged with and convicted of homicide may be innocent.
For the past 30 years, doctors have diagnosed the syndrome on the basis of three key symptoms known as the “triad”: retinal hemorrhages, bleeding around the brain and brain swelling. The presence of these three signs (and sometimes just one or two of them) has long been assumed to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that the person who was last taking care of the baby shook him so forcefully as to fatally injure his brain.
But closer scrutiny of the body of research that is said to support the diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome has revealed methodological shortcomings. Scientists are now willing to accept that the symptoms once equated with shaking can be caused in other ways. Indeed, studies of infants’ brains using magnetic resonance imaging have revealed that triad symptoms sometimes exist in infants who have not suffered injuries caused by abuse. Bleeding in the brain can have many causes, including a fall, an infection, an illness like sickle-cell anemia or birth trauma.
What’s more, doctors have learned that in many cases in which infants have triad symptoms, there can be a lag of hours or even days between the time of the injury and the point when the baby loses consciousness. This contradicts the idea that it’s possible to identify the person responsible by looking to the baby’s most recent caregiver.
Last year, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended that the diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome be discarded and replaced with “abusive head trauma,” which does not imply that only shaking could have caused the injury.
The new understanding of this diagnosis has only just begun to penetrate the legal realm. In 2008, a Wisconsin appeals court recognized that “a shift in mainstream medical opinion” had eroded the medical basis of shaken baby syndrome. The court granted a new trial to Audrey Edmunds, herself a mother of three, who had spent a decade in prison for murdering an infant in her care. Prosecutors later dismissed all charges.
Troublingly, though, Ms. Edmunds’s case has been a rare exception. Most shaken baby convictions have yet to be revisited. New cases are still being prosecuted based on the outdated science.
Despite the shift in scientific consensus, debate about the legitimacy of the shaken baby syndrome diagnosis continues. Some scientists point to studies using dummies modeled on the anatomy of infants as evidence that shaking cannot possibly generate sufficient force to cause the triad of symptoms — or that it could not do so without also causing injury to the infant’s neck or spinal cord. But others challenge the validity of these studies and maintain the belief that shaking alone can (though it need not) cause the triad.
What’s needed is a comprehensive study of shaken baby syndrome to resolve the outstanding areas of disagreement. The National Academy of Sciences, which last year issued a comprehensive report on the scientific underpinnings of forensic science, would be the ideal institution to undertake such a study.
In the meantime, however, there remains the question of justice. In Ontario, an official investigation concluded that there are deep concerns about the science underlying the triad, and now the province is reviewing all convictions based on shaken baby syndrome. Similar inquiries should be conducted on a statewide level here in the United States.
For decades, shaken baby syndrome has been, in essence, a medical diagnosis of murder. But going forward, prosecutors, judges and juries should exercise greater skepticism. The triad of symptoms alone cannot prove beyond a reasonable doubt that an infant has been fatally shaken.

Deborah Tuerkheimer, a professor of law at DePaul University, is a former assistant district attorney in Manhattan.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/21/opinion/21tuerkheimer.html

SBS: Florida: A foster mother goes on trial, and so does shaken baby syndrome

By Curtis Krueger,
August 27, 2010Over three days this week, prosecutors have systematically built a murder case against a former foster mother accused of shaking and killing a baby in her care.
Today a defense attorney will try to build a case against shaken baby syndrome itself.
A nationally known critic of shaken baby diagnoses, neurosurgeon Ronald Uscinski of George Washington University Medical Center, is scheduled to testify today for the defense in the case against Tenesia Brown, 42.
And more experts are coming.
"There are … cases all over the country that are being granted new trials because they found out that the science of shaken baby syndrome is flawed," Ron Kurpiers, the defense attorney, said Thursday during a break in the trial.
The case against Brown in Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Court is one of a growing number of trials nationwide in which expert witnesses are casting doubt on the science surrounding shaken baby cases.
A Connecticut woman was acquitted earlier this year of killing a 7-month-old child after her defense attacked the existence of shaken baby syndrome. A Kentucky judge in 2006 barred trial testimony about shaken baby syndrome on the grounds that it hadn't been scientifically proved. Doubts over shaken baby cases have led to government-ordered reviews of hundreds of cases in Canada and Great Britain.
But it's not a one-sided debate. The diagnosis retains strong support from the Centers for Disease Control and other bedrock medical institutions. Dr. Sally Smith, medical director for Pinellas County's child protection team, testified Thursday that the diagnosis is still widely accepted, though "abusive head trauma" is now the preferred term.
The way the jury interprets these differing medical views could determine whether Brown, who is charged with first-degree felony murder, spends the rest of her life in prison.
Brown's friends and family members attending the trial declined to talk to the media this week, but it's clear they are wasting no expense to clear her. Uscinski, the neurosurgeon scheduled to testify today, charges "up to $750 per hour as a consultant and up to $10,000 per day on the witness stand for out-of-town cases," according to a 2008 Discover magazine article. Mark Herbst, a St. Petersburg radiologist who testified for the defense on Thursday, said his fee is $3,000 for an afternoon.
This case, in a sense, began with the birth of Lazon Gulley. He was born with cocaine in his system. So foster care workers intervened and placed him in foster care while his mother received drug treatment.
Prosecutors said Brown never had been a mother before becoming a foster parent with her husband. In less than six months time, foster care caseworkers sent them four children.
On March 3, 2006, Brown picked up 14-month-old Lazon early from day care because he was suffering from diarrhea and vomiting. About 45 minutes later, she called 911 and reported he was virtually lifeless.
At All Children's Hospital, doctors discovered severe brain damage. Smith, the doctor who testified for the prosecution on Thursday, said Lazon suffered from hemorrhaging in his retinas, and beneath the layer around his brain called the dura. He died in 2008.
The symptoms Lazon suffered are ones that have traditionally been considered hallmarks of shaken baby syndrome, and they are believed to occur right after a child is shaken. Brown was with Lazon just before his injuries were observed in the hospital, which is a big part of the reason she was charged with murder. No one saw her shake Lazon, and she never confessed to doing so. Kurpiers said she may take the witness stand today and deny doing so.
Nationwide, some of the debate centers on the symptoms that are traditionally linked to shaken baby syndrome — especially the retinal and subdural hemorrhaging. When these symptoms are present, they're often cited as evidence that someone must have shaken a baby.
Critics say there's new evidence showing other causes for these symptoms, such as congenital defects. Also, critics say laboratory studies of monkeys and baby-dummies question whether someone shaking a baby would produce enough force to cause the severe brain injuries in cases like Lazon's.
The critics aren't denying that shaking would hurt babies. They're saying babies with these injuries might have gotten them some other way. And that can raise reasonable doubt about whether accused caregivers such as Brown are responsible for the injuries.
So far the defense has not presented a theory on how Lazon was hurt. They are not legally required to.
"We're not blaming anybody else," Kurpiers said. "We're saying it was not shaken baby and that the trauma did not occur from the actions of Mrs. Brown."
http://www.tampabay.com/news/courts/criminal/a-foster-mother-goes-on-trial-and-so-does-shaken-baby-syndrome/1117768