A couple decades ago that included shaken baby syndrome.
Suddenly an increasing number of parents whose infant children suddenly died were being accused of causing their child's death by shaking them violently enough to cause fatal brain damage. Many were found guilty.
Soon after, questions emerged about whether these verdicts were based on bad science and were driven by zealous prosecutors looking for headlines (remember that we elect our district attorneys).
- See: Rethinking Shaken Baby Syndrome.
But reversing convictions is difficult to do. This article describes such an effort. It can be tough to prove one is actually innocent of a crime after conviction.
- Click here for the article.
Here's a bit of it:
If Eaton concluded that a conviction was no longer supported by the evidence, she was expected to go back to court and try to undo that conviction. The advent of DNA analysis, and the revelations that followed, did not automatically free people who were convicted on debunked evidence or discredited forensics. Many remain locked up, stuck in a system that gives them limited grounds for appeal. In the absence of any broad, national effort to rectify these convictions, the work of unwinding them has fallen to a patchwork of law-school clinics, innocence projects and, increasingly, conviction-review units in reform-minded offices like Nashville’s. Working with only one other full-time attorney, Anna Hamilton, Eaton proceeded at a ferocious pace, recruiting law students and cajoling a rotating cast of colleagues to help her.
