Shaken Baby Syndrome
Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS), more recently termed Abusive Head Trauma (AHT), was first identified in 1971. By 2001, the National Association of Medical Examiners released a paper linking SBS/AHT to a "triad of symptoms:” swelling, bleeding, and hemorrhaging in the brain.” If an infant or young child presented with these three symptoms, it was assumed that the child had been violently shaken by their most recent caregiver, who was thus presumed guilty of child abuse. The diagnosis of SBS/AHT was thus not merely medical but also criminal, conflating the role of doctor, law enforcement, judge, and jury.
More recent advancements in medical understanding, however, have revealed the false and problematic assumptions inherent in such a diagnosis. The so-called “triad” of symptoms said to characterize only SBS/AHT is now recognized to have multiple potential causes, including an accidental fall or pre-existing illness. This new knowledge means that it cannot be assumed that such symptoms necessarily result from shaking and thus, such symptoms cannot, on their own, be considered evidence of a crime, whether nonaccidental head injury or unlawful killing.
The recognition that the "triad of symptoms" did not necessarily point to abuse led to the withdrawal of the Medical Examiners' paper on SBS in 2006. Since then, many other experts, doctors, lawyers and organizations have publicly acknowledged that the diagnosis of SBS/AHT has never been scientifically validated and has thus always been flawed. Given that approximately 1500 babies are diagnosed with SBS/AHT every year in the United States alone, many of these experts have concluded that there has been an overdiagnosis of SBS/AHT that has led to at least hundreds of wrongful incarcerations of innocent parents and caretakers.
Fortunately, however, the increasing awareness that a diagnosis of SBS/AHT is based on highly contested science creates grounds for new trials at which a jury can fully consider the competing claims. The first case of wrongful conviction due to a misdiagnosis of SBS occurred in 1992, but more than half of the people who have been exonerated of crimes involving SBS have been exonerated in the past decade. According to the National Registry of Exonerations, as of 2022, there have been 30 exonerations of people convicted of crimes involving SBS and all of them involved false forensic evidence.
Sources:
https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/about.aspx
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/shaken-baby-syndrome/symptoms-causes/syc-20366619
