Nashville Judge Decides To Keep Man In Prison Because Too Many People Think He's Innocent
That's ... a reason.
I understand that we must, to some degree, coddle people who believe in stupid things. It’s better to say “I don’t personally believe in ghosts” than “Ghosts do not exist, you fucking dumbass.” I may not be scared of ghosts, but you can bet your ass I am scared to death of people who believe in ghosts cornering me in conversation and telling me about their ghost encounters and then demanding to know if I still think they are a liar.
But there has to be a line. You don’t get to send people to prison based on the testimony of a ghost eyewitness that only you can speak to and you shouldn’t get to send or keep people in prison based on your erroneous belief in “shaken baby syndrome.”
Unfortunately, that is exactly what Tennessee Judge Steve Dozier did on Thursday. I am going to warn you right now, if you are sensitive to the combination of injustice and deep, deep stupidity, go get a pillow to scream into, because I sure as hell needed one.
Exactly one month ago today, we brought you the good news that Russell Maze, a man who had been in prison for 25 years for having supposedly shaken his infant son to death, had been determined by Tennessee prosecutors to be innocent, and they requested he be released. Well, it’s not good news anymore, because Judge Steve Dozier decided to ignore the findings of the Conviction Review Unit, largely on the grounds that no one disagreed with said findings.
Via the Nashville Banner:
Judge Dozier’s decision gave substantial weight to the two preceding trials, both of which found Russell Maze guilty. “Subjectively,” he wrote, “opinions have been offered for more than two decades on the same facts.”
Baby Alex’s injuries “have been chronicled at length,” Dozier wrote, and “while the present witnesses have added their opinions to the lengthy evidentiary history, this additional information is not considered as standalone proof.”
All opinions are not equal. The opinions of self-appointed “child-abuse experts” like the doctor who initially declared the injuries to be “shaken baby syndrome” are simply not equal to those of biomechanical engineers and pediatric neurosurgeons who actually know what they are talking about. They’re not. Neither, frankly, are the opinions of ICU doctors or regular pediatricians. They’re not equal to the opinion of Norman Guthkelch, the man who first came up with the diagnosis of “shaken baby syndrome” who very much did not believe that the triad of retinal hemorrhaging, subdural hematomas, and encephalopathy is enough to definitively prove that a child was shaken to the point where caretakers could or should be prosecuted — particularly when, like Baby Alex, the child had previously existing health issues.
The judge also characterized the witness testimony at the hearing “as new ammunition in a ‘battle of the experts.’ ” And he noted that this “battle” was not waged in the normal way.
The mere existence of a “battle of the experts” indicates reasonable doubt. It is objectively insane for there to be a “battle of the experts” on something like this and to then have a judge or jury with no expertise in the field decide someone’s fate based on which side they find more believable. And let’s be real, it’s almost almost always going to be the side arguing for “shaken baby syndrome” because people want to err on the side of protecting children and punishing those who hurt them.
I am not saying that it is impossible to cause injury to a child by shaking it (though many biomechanical engineers argue that those specific injuries actually will not be caused by doing so), but if there is any reasonable controversy, then no one should be allowed to send or keep people in prison because of it.
“All parties acknowledged the unconventional nature of the proceedings,” Judge Dozier wrote — calling attention to the fact that the hearing did not conform to a traditional adversarial format. With the Tennessee Innocence Project and the Conviction Review Unit both on the side of vacating the conviction, there was no opposing counsel to cross-examine the medical experts. Instead, Dozier found himself playing the part of “fact-finder,” rather than “strictly a dispassionate arbiter” of two opposing sides.
So, just to be entirely clear, part of his issue here was that everyone agreed that Maze was innocent.
To that end, throughout the hearing, Dozier frequently interjected and questioned the witnesses, who he noted, “disagreed with each other,” “definitively asserted different etiologies” and “disagreed with unspecified medical ‘opponents.’ ” While Dozier allowed that all of the experts “agreed they did not believe the injuries were trauma inflicted,” he “diminishes the value of the newly presented evidence where fresh opinions were offered but not probed” by cross-examination.
Because no one believes that this guy killed his kid anymore, including one of the officers involved in Maze’s case, whom the judge declined to hear from.
If you are unfamiliar with the controversy regarding shaken baby syndrome, I highly recommend watching the documentary The Syndrome for an overview. The original prosecutor in this case, Brian Holmgren who is an absolute nut, is featured in the documentary singing a parody of “If I Only Had A Brain” called “If I Only Get Ten Grand,” denigrating experts who testify for the defense in shaken baby cases. So, you know, he’s a real class act.
This whole situation is just sickening and enraging beyond words. Luckily, the Mazes have a month to file an appeal and hopefully they will get a judge with some amount of sense.
PREVIOUSLY:
We need to start teaching a class called "Admitting You Are Wrong" in elementary schools. This is a skill only a small percentage of Americans has, to our massive detriment. Somehow admitting you got something wrong generates shame, and it shouldn't. We should embrace and applaud and praise people who say, "you know what, I fucked up, I'm sorry." We can then teach a companion course called "Gracefully Accepting an Apology and Working Together Now Towards Better Outcomes." Too much that is wrong with this world is people digging in to wrong and bad and harmful behaviors because they are scared to admit they are wrong, scared of judgment, scared of shame, scared of ostracization. This shouldn't be. It just shouldn't be. We're humans. Of course we fuck up. It's what we do then that matters.
People often characterize partisan blogs/news sites as "outrage machines", reporting on events and ongoing situations that are reliably going to 'shock' and 'outrage' their readers, and keep them in a perpetual state of high dudgeon about what members of the other political side are doing (in this case, I suppose we don't know this asshole judge's political affiliation, but I believe I am characterizing what Wonkette does fairly). Wonkette certainly does this, just like Breitbart, Town Hall, etc.
...There is a crucial difference, however: the (negative) stories that Wonkette reports are about *real* injustice, real cruelty, and real threats to democracy. They are not indignant bloviations about specious threats and offenses that rely on ideology and nothing else. I sometimes get tired of news about outrageous things on the 'Kette and need to take a break, but it is almost never because I think our overlords are making mountains out of molehills - and they certainly do not deliberately misrepresent facts.
Anyway. Sorry for the spontaneous editorializing. I'm just glad this place exists.