Shaken Baby Syndrome Has Been Discredited. Why Is Roberson Still on Death Row?
22 comments
·October 26, 2024dlandis
JamesBarney
The title isn't clear but the article is.
Shaken baby syndrome has not been debunked but the forensic science that concluded that shaking a baby was the only/most likely cause of those symptoms is what changed. It's now known there are other possible causes for those symptoms and abuse is less likely than some of those other symptoms.
advisedwang
My read on the article was that despite the title, it isn't arguing fatal abuse doesn't happen or doesn't cause injuries, but that brain bleeding + brain swelling + retinal bleeding is not enough to diagnose it alone (which the article does not state but I took to imply was the case for Roberson's conviction).
The very quote you mention includes "intracranial and spinal changes", "rib and other fractures" and importantly "inconsistent with the provided mechanism of trauma". That last part is critical, because it means not simply concluding abuse from injuries, but also seeing that the story the caregiver provided doesn't actually make sense.
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rossant
Some context:
- A blog post I wrote last year: https://cambridgeblog.org/2023/05/a-journey-into-the-shaken-...
- HN discussion on this blog post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37650402
- A scientific introduction to SBS: https://cyrille.rossant.net/introduction-shaken-baby-syndrom...
To be clear, what has been discredited is not the fact that babies are shaken (studies have consistently shown a high incidence of this type of abuse) nor that shaking is safe (it is not—never shake a baby).
What has been discredited by scientific evidence over the past 25 years is the reliance on isolated subdural and retinal hemorrhages in infants to determine with near certainty that a child has been violently shaken, in the absence of a history or evidence of major trauma. Abuse must be assessed on a case-by-case basis, considering other signs of trauma (fractures, bruises, neck injury) and ruling out a long list of alternative medical explanations. Most importantly, abuse is not a medical determination; it is a legal one.
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KennyBlanken
It's like the plot in Dogma; when a Catholic church declares that anyone who passes through its gates will be forgiven for any sins, and if the two disgraced angels go through, the universe (of which everything revolves around god being infallible) will end.
He's still on death row because judges, prosecutors, and the public all view our criminal justice system as infallible in a multitude of ways, and also one of the cornerstones of our democracy.
Letting him go would admit that in probably one of the worst ways possible (for an individual), the CJS is not infallible at all.
It doesn't help that the system is designed to be punitive, not reformative (see: the prisoner exception in the amendment banning slavery. We're one of very few industrialized nations where prisoners can be used as slave labor.)
Electing district attorneys also doesn't help; everything they do is aimed at their next election.
It used to be that groups like The Innocence Project would present DAs with conclusive DNA evidence that the person in jail wasn't responsible, and the DAs would refuse to do anything about it, because in the next election their opponent would be shouting about how they "let a convicted killer go."
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Afforess
[flagged]
brvsft
[flagged]
ulrikrasmussen
From TFA:
There is no doubt that shaking a child can cause injuries, including those that comprise the shaken baby syndrome triad. Newer research, however, has shown that shaking is not the only way to cause those injuries: They can also result from an accidental “short fall” (e.g., falling off a bed) as well as from other medical causes (e.g., pneumonia, improper medication)—all of which were true of Roberson’s daughter. In fact, a 2024 study found that the injuries historically used to diagnose shaking are actually more likely to result from accidents than from shaking.
brvsft
So I think we all understand that the headline is inaccurate, that the only thing that has been discredited is its diagnosis or use as evidence of child abuse.
It should bother people to read crappy arguments like the one contained directly in the first sentence of an article like this. As a staunch advocate against the death penalty, that sort of intentional deception weakens the case.
KennyBlanken
Don't feed the trolls, please.
1123581321
Shaking your baby is harmful. “Shaken Baby Syndrome” was a mistaken thinking that certain kinds of brain damage had only one possible cause.
adgjlsfhk1
more that if a baby dies from being shaken, there will be physical evidence
jfax
They're saying it doesn't amount to a syndrome.
olddustytrail
As long as you don't twist and shout
jfengel
Why do we have death row?
The answer is the same.
jnordwick
I thought if I shook him enough, he'd stop crying. I was kind of right.
Note this is an opinion piece and Shaken Baby Syndrome has not been discredited or debunked as the author keeps claiming.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00247-018-4149-1
> Abusive head trauma (AHT) is the leading cause of fatal head injuries in children younger than 2 years.
> There is no controversy concerning the medical validity of the existence of AHT, with multiple components including subdural hematoma, intracranial and spinal changes, complex retinal hemorrhages, and rib and other fractures that are inconsistent with the provided mechanism of trauma