Amicus Brief: Rusty Lee Brensinger
COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA v. RUSTY LEE BRENSINGER
Filing Date
June 13, 2025
Charge
Third Degree Murder
Jurisdiction
Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
Partners
Innocence Network, PACDL, IP
Summary
CIFS, the Innocence Network, the Innocence Project, and the Pennsylvania Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers filed this amicus brief in the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania to argue that the court should allow Brensinger to appeal his conviction based on post-trial scientific developments in shaken baby syndrome. We note that the timeliness inquiry should not center on when the science entered the public domain.
PRELIMINARY STATEMENT
Amici submit this brief in support of Petitioner Rusty Lee Brensinger’s petition for allowance of appeal. Brensinger was convicted of murder based on faulty, outdated science. At the time of trial in 1998, medical experts believed that Brittany Samuels, the 16-month-old child of Brensinger’s then-girlfriend “died due to Shaken Baby Syndrome (‘SBS’), i.e., that she was violently shaken to death, and that her injuries could not be explained by two short falls that occurred prior to her death.” PCRA Ct. Sept. 17, 2021 Or. at 1.1 Brensinger now seeks post-conviction relief “based on scientific principles developed after his trial, and that he first brought to the courts through expert opinions applying those principles to his claims, demonstrating that: (1) there is no valid scientific evidence that Brittany was shaken; and (2) short-distance falls Brittany suffered shortly before her death likely caused her injuries.” Brensinger June 12, 2025 Petition For Allowance Of Appeal at 1. Brensinger amended his petition multiple times to include additional new scientific principles that were published during the PCRA proceedings. PCRA Ct. Sept. 17, 2021 Or. at 2 nn. 2-3.
The PCRA court found that Brensinger’s petition “has met the requirements of the newly-discovered facts’ exception to the PCRA’s time bar,” that Brensinger acted diligently to ascertain these new scientific facts, and that his petition was “timely filed.” PCRA Ct. Sept. 17, 2021 Or. at 6-7. The PCRA court concluded that, since the first expert report submitted with Brensinger’s petition “was authored on April 11, 2015, this is the date ‘the claims could have been presented,’” and thus, the “petition, filed April 24, 2025, was filed with[in] 60 days” as required. Id. And, following a two-day merits hearing, the PCRA court “granted [Brensinger’s] PCRA petition, vacated his sentence, and ordered a new trial.” Super. Ct. Mar. 4, 2025 Or. at 2-3. However, on March 4, 2025, 1 SBS is sometimes referred to as a form of “Abusive Head Trauma” or “AHT.”
The Superior Court reversed and remanded for additional fact-finding regarding “when the scientific principles underlying [Brensinger’s] after-discovered facts claim entered the public domain” and “whether [Brensinger] exercised due diligence.” Id. at 12.
This Court should grant Brensinger’s petition for allowance of appeal and reverse the Superior Court’s March 4, 2025 order. This Court’s guidance is needed to clarify that a petition for post-conviction relief is timely when, as in this case, the petition is based on post-trial scientific developments that the petitioner diligently ascertained—and that, contrary to the Superior Court’s ruling, there should be no requirement for a petitioner to pinpoint a date during the post-trial period “when the scientific principles” underlying the petition “entered the public domain” or when the scientific community’s understanding of the issue shifted. Id.
It is now well established that flawed forensic sciences and evidence— including faulty medical diagnoses like SBS—have led to hundreds of wrongful convictions. Out of the more than 4,100 exonerations of wrongfully-convicted persons that are cataloged in the National Registry of Exonerations, over 1,000 cases involved false or misleading forensic evidence, and at least 40 were based on the now-discredited SBS diagnosis. It is thus critical for courts to provide a meaningful path for an innocent person to seek post-conviction relief where, as here, post-trial scientific developments undermine the purported scientific basis for the conviction. And courts across the country have granted new trials when evolving science calls into question the validity of a conviction.
Under the circumstances of this case, Brensinger’s petition for post conviction relief should be deemed timely because, as the PCRA court concluded, it is based on post-trial scientific developments that Brensinger diligently ascertained and promptly presented to the PCRA court through expert reports (and later amendments based on scientific developments that occurred during the PCRA proceedings). The Superior Court’s order remanding for additional fact-finding regarding “when the scientific principles” on which Brensinger’s PCRA petition is based “entered the public domain” is misguided and would set an unworkable precedent for future cases. Super. Ct. Mar. 4, 2025 Or. at 12. This Court abolished the “public records presumption”—whether new evidence was available in the public record is not controlling. See Commonwealth v. Small, 238 A.3d 1267, 1286 (Pa. 2020). Moreover, a rule that required a PCRA petition to pinpoint exactly when the scientific community’s understanding on an issue shifted is not practical and would often be impossible to satisfy. Indeed, “science evolves slowly rather than in conclusive bursts.” McCrory v. Alabama, 144 S. Ct. 2483, 2486 (2024). As the PCRA court recognized here: “the medical community’s theories on SBS have slowly evolved—at times, contradicting one another—since the time of defendant’s trial and . . . will likely continue to evolve in the future.” PCRA Ct. Sept. 17, 2021 Or. at 6.
Ultimately, as numerous courts across the country have recognized, a petition for post-conviction relief is timely and should be granted where, as here, post-trial scientific developments have undermined the basis for the conviction. Indeed, “as our understanding of scientific truth grows and changes, the law must follow the truth in order to secure justice.” Han Tak Lee v. Tennis, No. 4:08-CV-1972, 2014 WL 3894306, at *19 (M.D. Pa. June 13, 2014), report and recommendation adopted, Lee v. Tennis, 2014 WL 3900230 (M.D. Pa. Aug. 8, 2014), aff’d, Han Tak Lee v. Houtzdale SCI, 798 F.3d 159 (3d Cir. 2015).
This issue is not confined to the evolving science regarding SBS, and it is likely to recur in future cases regarding other forensic sciences. For these reasons and as discussed below, this Court’s guidance is necessary. Amici respectfully submit that the Court should grant Brensinger’s petition for allowance of appeal and reverse the Superior Court’s March 4, 2025 order.
