Amicus Brief: Tasha Shelby 2022
Tasha Shelby v. the State of Mississippi
Filing Date
January 27, 2022
Charge
Homicide
Jurisdiction
United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi Southern Division
Partners
Innocence Network
Summary
CIFS and the Innocence Network filed this amicus brief in United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi Southern Division in Tasha Shelby’s case to educate the court on the change in science in shaken baby syndrome. The expert at trial has since retracted his opinion in Shelby’s case based on the change in science. We argue that the shift in understanding around the SBS triad satisfies the newly discovered evidence standard.
PRELIMINARY STATEMENT
Tasha Mercedez Shelby has been incarcerated for over nineteen years for a homicide she did not commit, a crime that the medical examiner in this case now believes did not occur at all. The State’s trial expert, medical examiner Dr. LeRoy Riddick, was compelled to retract his testimony supporting Ms. Shelby’s homicide conviction because that testimony has been discredited by new medical knowledge since the time of trial.
Medical experts, including the State’s trial expert, Dr. Riddick, now recognize that Shaken Baby Syndrome (“SBS”), also known as Abusive Head Trauma, is often not the actual cause of death in cases like Ms. Shelby’s. At Ms. Shelby’s 2000 trial, there was consensus that Ms. Shelby’s toddler stepson died from SBS because he exhibited injuries consistent with two of the three hallmarks of SBS (subdural hematoma, retinal hemorrhage, and encephalopathy or cerebral edema, collectively known as the “triad”). Although the toddler had a seizure causing him to fall out of bed just prior to being hospitalized, the State’s experts insisted such a fall could not have caused the toddler’s injuries. As is common in SBS cases, the triad was the only evidence supporting Ms. Shelby’s conviction. Dr. Riddick, the medical examiner who testified at her trial, has since testified that his former opinion is both unsupported by current medical science and wrong.
Since Ms. Shelby’s trial, there have been multiple scientific developments that have shifted the medical community’s understanding of SBS. New medical research has discredited the presumption that a child must have suffered from SBS if the child’s injuries align with the triad. Therefore, a new trial is appropriate here because the only evidence of Ms. Shelby’s guilt has been discredited.