Editors Note: Information has been added to this story to clarify what was written earlier.
The Alaska Innocence Project is currently working to clear an Anchorage man, who served almost 14 years in prison in the death of his godson, an infant who died from what investigators believed was shaken baby syndrome.
"This is a case where a crime may not have occurred whatsoever," said Jory Knott, Alaska Innocence Project Acting Director.
He says new research has shown that some infant deaths have mistakenly been attributed to shaken baby syndrome.
Knott says shaken baby cases, in which suspects have been charged, rarely involve eyewitness accounts.
"This could be charged through the medical science without any abuse being witnessed," said Knott, which can lead the legal system to target the wrong cause and the wrong person. "And typically it was the last person with the child."
Knott says new research shows that's not necessarily the case, but all too often medical professionals don't consider other causes of injury or death.
Experts are now calling shaken baby syndrome by a new name, abusive head trauma. In the past, medical professionals gave the shaken baby diagnosis, when the child exhibited symptoms such bleeding on the brain, bleeding behind the retina and swelling of the brain, which can cause death or permanent brain damage. New research says these symptoms can also be caused by other things, such as birth trauma, a short fall or a seizure.
In Alaska, which has had high rates of child abuse, doctors and other medical professionals are on alert for death or injuries caused by abuse. But Knott says there also needs to be an awareness of new research, some of which challenges whether it's possible to shake a baby hard enough to cause the types of injuries that have been blamed on violent shaking. The theory is that babies don't have the neck muscles to support their large heads, and if a baby is shaken violently, back and forth, it can cause the brain to move inside the skull
The Alaska Innocence Project has invited one of the first people to be exonerated in a shaken baby case due to faulty evidence, to give a presentation in Anchorage.
Audrey Edmunds of Wisconsin served 11 years in prison after the death of her third child.
Since her release, she told her story in a book: “It Happened to Audrey: A Terrifying Journey From Loving Mom to Accused Baby Killer.”
Edmunds will speak at an Innocence Project fundraiser Thursday evening in Anchorage.
