No Demonstratable Support In Prosecutions SBS Case

Supreme Court sends shaken baby case back to appeals court

By: Associated Press – | Posted: Tuesday, May 1, 2007 12:00 am

LOS ANGELES – A woman convicted of shaking her 7-week-old grandson to death a decade ago will see her case sent back to the federal appeals court that overturned her conviction last year.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday ordered the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider its decision that there had “very likely been a miscarriage of justice.”

In a three-sentence order, the high court told the appeals court to reconsider Shirley Ree Smith’s case in light of a December 2006 Supreme Court ruling. In that case, the Supreme Court overturned an appeals court ruling that was favorable to a convicted killer.

Smith’s attorney, Michael J. Brennan, did not immediately return a call for comment. Deputy Attorney General Kristofer Jorstad also did not return calls for comment.

Smith was convicted in December 1997 and was sentenced to 15 years to life at a women’s state prison in Chowchilla.

During trial, experts for both sides testified variously that the child had died from being shaken, from sudden infant death syndrome or for an old brain injury that re-bled.

In reviewing expert testimony in the case, the appeals panel found “no demonstrable support” for the prosecution’s theory that the Southern California woman lost her temper when Etzel Dean Glass III began crying in November 1996 and shook him to death.

There was no evidence to explain what might have caused Smith to snap, Circuit Judge William Canby Jr. wrote, and it was “extremely unlikely” that she would shake the baby when his mother was a few feet away.

Posted in State-and-regional on Tuesday, May 1, 2007 12:00 am Updated: 9:01 pm.

Source:

http://www.nctimes.com/news/state-and-regional/article_0f945b80-bc21-5512-8d95-e1ce8fd435e9.html