#215 Jason Flom with Greg Glod on John Jones

went back to sleep. Then, when John woke again at nine forty am, turned on cartoons for his son and went to attend to the twins. Jada was unresponsive in a panic. He called family and nine one one. The dispatcher coached him through CPR until first responders arrived and took over. He did everything a concerned father would do, But when testing was done at the hospital, doctors found

what they mistakenly thought was conclusive evidence of lethal child abuse. However, over the next decade, the science that they used to support John's conviction has crumbled under the weight of reality. Had a jury heard all the other now logical explanations for the symptoms present in little Jada's body, John Jones never would have served a day of his fifteen to life prison sentence. This is Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom.

Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom. That's me, of course, your host, and today we're here to tell you the heartbreaking story of John Jones, who was just seventeen years old when his six month old daughter, Jada Ruiz died, and shortly thereafter, the tragedy was compounded by the hubris of some in the medical establishment and legal system armed with the junk science of shaken baby syndrome.

And today I'm joined by a phenomenal co host. Avid Listeners will remember Greg Glod from the Junk Science episode on Roadside drug Testing. He is the Criminal Justice Fellow at Americans for Prosperity. Greg. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction.

kind of traumatic injury. So those findings were subdural hematoma, which is bleeding between the coverings of the brain, retinal hemorrhage, which is bleeding at the back of the eye, and encephalopathy and cerebral edema, which sort of acts together as one leg of what sometimes people call the triad. Cerebral edema is brain swelling and encephalopathy is brain dysfunction. And so doctor guth Kelch, the piatric neurosurgeon, was seeing these findings in kids and they looked injured on the inside

but not on the outside. And he thought that one reason for that might be a common disciplinary technique in his home of Northern England in the seventies, which was shaking. And so what doctor goth Kelch said is that these medical findings could be due to shaking, and doctor goth Kelch wasn't claiming to have the answers, but rather that he was hypothesizing about what might be causing these findings.

So that started to evolve. A radiologist in New York, John Caffey, built on that and he published articles saying the same thing, right, that parents should be with infants. But neither of these doctors suggested that the medical findings that they associated with shaking were exclusively diagnostic to shaking, nor did they say that there was a reliable way to place blame on a caregiver when a child had these medical findings.

that shaking could be diagnosed. And that's when it comes into the criminal legal system and we start to see the trajector that we're on today where parents are wrongfully accused based on only the existence of a particular set of medical findings. And I mean to be totally clear, there's no debate about whether abusive shaking, violent shaking of an infant is dangerous. It is, and no one should

do it. The debate is really whether shaking reliably explains the findings that are often attributed to it, whether shaking can be diagnosed as the cause of those findings.

forensic pathologists who work on these cases. If they have a particular belief or bent, then there are more likely to be more accusations of shaking within that person's jurisdiction or area of control. And Ohio is one of those places.

as successful as we could growing love. I did real good at school, always was like an honor roll student. Once I became a teenager, and that's when I came into contact with my child's mother. I met her December sixteenth, my fourteenth birthday, and my son was conceived nine days later on Christmas Eve, Christmas night. So now I'm fourteen, I'm expecting a child on the way. I knew that I had a responsibility now, so school no longer was

a priority. My bid what I needed to do to provide for him as time progressed, me and her eventually began to establish a relationship get closer. A couple of years later, that's when my twins were and see Jada and jazz Man. We ended up getting an apartment together on our own. My grandmother was still technically my legal guardian, so I lived with them, but I spent most nights with my child's mother just to be around my children. Growing up. My father was always in my life, but

like I said, he was a battling with addiction. But even though I loved him unconditionally, he just wasn't the best that he could have been. So that made me want to make sure I was the best I could

have been. Regardless of how old I was, regardless of school, whatever I was going through, I was going to be present every single day in their life no matter what, regardless of the status of me and their mother's relationship, how healthy or how unhealthy it was, I was going to make sure I was there.

there with us as well. But throughout the night she was waking me up, complaining about positioning or beating or you know, my daughter might have been hungry or whatever. She was looking me up throughout the night. But it was just a typical day. And then that morning she had a test that she had to go take right and from what.

to my daughter's I popped the bottles. I learned later on now that this wasn't a smart thing to duel, just because of the safety concerns with a new warm but at the time I really wasn't aware of it, and it was more of like a convenient thing away of me going back to sleep, but also feeding them if they were having So I placed the bottles up on the blanket and I prop them up, so I put them right there, just so when they do wake up, the bottle be right there, they'll be able to feed.

I can be able to sleep about another hour or two whatever, They'd be all right, everybody'd be cool. We did this every day, multiple time, so it was just another I said day.

up the triad of shaken baby syndrome. But as we now know, there are a myriad of medical conditions that can and do cause these symptoms in addition to an accidental or intentional traumatic event, and even in those events, it's important to note that a child may be lucid up to seventy two hours or even more before the symptoms or injuries become a parent. And in this case, they became apparent to you when you checked on Jada and Jasmine at around nine forty am on that faithful,

awful day. And you know, as a father myself, it's every p's worst nightmare. So at nine am you woke up, put on cartoons for Tyshan, and go to check on your daughters, only to find that Jada was unresponsive.

every time, but it happened frequently. So at first I was wondering if this was the case. So I actually called my mom and I tell them what's going on. But I'm panickings, So I didn't want to stay on the phone with them too long because I'm realizing she's not breathing or nothing. But I called her family as well to let them know. I get off the phone. I called nine one one tell them the whole situation is.

I'm listening to the nine one one operator. She explained to me how to do the test compressions and the mouth to mouth. I tried. I did everything I could, and nothing was working. Like so at this point, I'm becoming more here, more upset. I'm crying, and I'm just waiting to seem like a second for ever. They finally arrived. They grab her, they take her out, and I began to speak to the detectives or whatever. I'm telling them.

Everything pretty much that I'm telling you is my recognition that that night in the morning, nothing really stood out to me. From that point, family members thought arrived and everybody's time. We all head down to the hospital, and then a couple hours later, that's when we hear the doctor's opinion about what they believed was the cause of everything.

There are blankets that are collect One of the things that's not collected is the bottles that were feeding two of the children.

situation as a non criminal death, not a homicide. So the bottle was just left there and the lead investigator, Detective Shady, drove John to the hospital.

at the hospital start to do medical tests. They do a cat scan, other tests, and again, ultimately the doctors began to believe that there were actual injuries to Jada, and in fact, once they got to the hospital, John was confronted by a doctor who did not testify at trial dificant to the case, a doctor Darryl Steiner, who came in and told John and the detective that Jada

had suffered from what he called non accidental injuries. The hospital staff also claimed that there were old injuries, insinuating that abuse had taken place for a significant period of time.

and prosecutions in the country. Those doctors tell you, the family and detectives their opinion that the medical facts observed in Jata retinal bleeding, subdual bleeding and brain swelling, as well as a series of fractures, that these could only have been the result of a non accidental traumatic event, in other words, child abuse, violent shaking by Jada's caretaker

at the time that she went unresponsive. And again, we now know that there are a slew of medical conditions that can cause these symptoms, and that children can experience seventy two hours or more of relatively normal behavior after such a traumatic event, if a traumatic event even ever occurred and was in fact what caused these symptoms. So back then many in the medical establishment, these doctors included, thought that they could diagnose a crime and the time

of that crime, which we now know that they could not. Meanwhile, your story has remained consistent ever since that fateful day, and nowhere in your recollection of events does even a minor frustration occur, let alone violent shaking.

do something? So a conversation was had afterward outside with just me and her, and you know, I asked her straight up, like did you do something? And she did not. You know, I didn't do nothing. I don't know what they're talking about. Like, so now now I'm just confused, like I just don't know what I don't know, But detectives continue to question me. They keep talking to me. My natural reaction was to corrop right with you know what I'm saying, it's my baby, So however I can

help whatever I can say. But at the end of the day, I don't know much. I don't know what's to say. I'm confused like anybody else, everybody else, I don't know what happened. Must the finger was actually pointed and Blaine was cast and charges were brought. Apartment indictments

and handcuts's place on them not. That's when I started feeling like their intentions wasn't in the right place, because it a truly lost and you would have really sought out a real answer instead had just placed it all somebody simply because they were physically and the wrong.

even supported it back then, let alone now. The causes of Jada's symptoms range from accidental or intentional trauma to internal For instance, there's a well recognized condition where there's a little extra space in between the child's brain and skull that stretches the veins that bridge that space, which

causes chronic subdural bleeding. It still hasn't been determined what causes this overlying condition, but birth trauma has been suggested as a potential cause, whether natural or cesarean, and this condition usually manifests within the child second to six months. Jada, of course, was six months old when this occurred, and it's logical to think that being birthed as a twin would probably be described as a traumatic event, an event

that could cause limb fractures as well. In these shaking baby syndrome cases, CT scans and MRIs will usually show the chronic subdural bleeding as they found in this case, which will then be used as evidence of repeated abuse. Well, it's misused, but used anyway, when all along there's a legitimate and logical medical explanation. Other potential causes for symptoms like Jada's. I mean, you could write a medical textbook

on this right. They include bleeding disorders, collagen disorders, copper disorders, genetic disorders, vitamin deficiencies, even your everyday average household slip and fall. But I seriously doubt whether the number three Epicenter for diagnosing or misdiagnosing child abuse did a full genetic work up to rule out all of these potential causes before. It's just sort of cavalierly sending John up the river.

successfully represent John. Not impossible. We think we'll be successful in this case ultimately, but it's one of the things that hampers our work some is that we don't have the medical records Jata from Jada's birth up unto March nineteenth, and the reason is that they were never gathered by either the medical investigators or the law enforcement investigators to look at and to determine whether there was other symptomology, other pathology, other things going on with Jada prior to

March nineteenth, instead of just the medical records from March nineteenth going forward.

sort of genetic cause to this. And so, you know, I think people have this notion of what SBS is, and we see clearly that there's a lot of varying reasons for that to potentially see these findings within a child and then they're just you know, initially ignored, but then later come out later on when you have a full examination or full medical history.

likely to receive disparate treatment within the medical establishment. So those things actually work together to create an unjust result in many cases.

the child was brought in by the boyfriend of the mother, as opposed to the other group that was told with exactly the same evidence that the child was white and was brought in by a grandparent. So, just to really put a stamp on what you were saying, Kate, So let's turn to the arrest.

of the children. According to her testimony at trial, she believed John may have lied to her about any wrongdoing, but days just being told by the people who are supposed to know what they're talking about the John killed her child and Kate.

milk after sustaining these kinds of injuries. But we now know but a child can experience seventy two hours of lucidity after the injuries associated with shaken baby syndrome, and that's what published case reports have shown us. It could be even greater than that. So doctor macpherson conceded that the injuries may have been sustained before John woke at

eight am to give Jada a bottle. The injuries may not have been a parent and the state had to seal up that concession with doctor Paul Besunder, who testified that the causal injury could not have been sustained prior to eight am. Again, we now know that a child can experience seventy two hours of lucidity or more after

the injuries associated with SPS. Their last medical witnesses testimony was based on the testimony of Detective Shady, who said that John told him in an unrecorded interview that Jada began to suck the bottle when he made it available by propping it on the blanket nearby. This is refuted by two other recorded interviews with John, as well as Deja's uncontested statement that Jada had drunk half a bottle

before Daja left for school. So you can see that the state was trying to box the call cause of Jada's death into the window that Jada was under John's care alone. Summit County Coroner doctor Lisa Kohler testified that, based on the secondhand information that the child drank a significant portion of the milk after eight am, the injuries were a result of being shaken, because if she could still muster the energy to drink milk after eight am, then the trauma must have been committed by John to

be causer to go unconscious. However, and I know that I sound like a broken record here, if there was causal trauma, it could have happened seventy two hours into the past from when Jada became unresponsive.

have occurred between seven and nine to forty five am. However, the evidence available did not permit a medical opinion within any degree of specificity regarding the timing of any of the fresh injuries, and that it is not medically reasonable to make any such determinations. Subdural hemorrhaging does not typically cause immediate incapacitation, So the way the state was trying to fence in this crime to that eight to nine

am window just doesn't hold water. Doctor Arden testified that Jada's medical records corroborate John's telling of events to a reasonable degree of medical certainty.

by state's witnesses and other things at trial. Were there any explanations about where potentially these injuries may have come because you know, I think you're on a jury you're seeing multiple fractures and damage to the head and then also to the extremities.

the child's underlying medical conditions. If the child doesn't have any so maybe a child has a bone disorder, they might fracture very easily. The classic example of this is little babies in a neonatal intensive care unit who are born, for example, very premature, and they can experience fractures with totally normal handling, changing their diaper, things like that. But that's not the only scenario in which children can have what appear to be really serious injuries from little or

no trauma. And because we don't know enough about Jada's medical condition, it's really hard for us to know what kind of actions were required for her to sustain the injuries that she had.

consistent with Daja's uncontested statement. And again, all this fucking nonsense about the bottle is completely irrelevant because current science supports that in the case of a traumatic event, it could have had happened any time over the prior three days or even longer. So, whether it was intentional or an accident, Jada could have fallen off the couch the changing table. Knowing what we know now, one cannot maintain that those injuries could have only happened one way. The

way that the state maintains still maintains violent shaking. While Jada was alone in John's care. And that's if the cause even was a traumatic event rather than a pre existing medical condition. And like I've already mentioned here, there are and we've counted them. There are eighty eight potential conditions that we know of so far, and the research is ongoing. Now. I want to quote the man that first hypothesized shake and baby syndrome back in the nineteen seventies,

doctor Norman Guthkelch. We mentioned him earlier, and he wrote an article in twenty twelve. I'll never forget this that it was titled after forty Years of Consideration, and that article was harshly critical of his very own hypothesis and everything that has happened since. And so in a twenty twelve interview, doctor Guthkelch said, and I quote, I think we need to go back to the drawing board and

make a more thorough assessment of these fatal cases. And I'm going to bet that we are going to find in every or at least the large majority of cases, that the child had another severe illness of some sort which was missed until too late. End the quote, I mean, that's the man himself. But unfortunately that was twenty twelve and John's trial was in twenty eleven. So after hearing the state's witnesses up against John's witness and not knowing really a fraction of what we know now, John was

convicted almost predictably and sentenced to fifteen years to life. John, can you take us back to that terrible moment when the jury came back.

just all the way, everything just went away. I still agreev with the loss of my daughter, but like the stress and the worry of the jail situation and all of this, it just went away because I heard the words not guilty, not knowing that they got the whole rest of them indictment to read so how to murder as a result of fluxus, So we find that defending downtown is guilty. It's just like all the life in

my body just left unitiately. It was just tears. It was just like I can't even explain the feeling like I look at my mind, she crying, everybody crying, even my band mind, she's crying. At that moment, I just knew life. You know, it's about to be the longest, hardest part of my life. And it makes sense me to fifteen years of life. I'm in here with grown men from fresh eighteen. I'm here with convicted killers. I'm in here with people start all type of different type

of clients, and I gotta survive. I started trying to educate myself. I got my ged I just got to survive. I'm here now, so I got to try to do everything I can to grow in prosper dimension that I can. I've seen a lot of here. I learned a lot of here. I grew up. I found myself in here. I was a kid when I came in. I'm almost twenty nine. I learned a lot of here. I'm a whole another person. I respective, my mentality, my outlook on life. Everything is different.

just Ohio, but Summit County and Akron specifically. So either the people of Akron really like to abuse their children, or there's something going on at Akron Children's Hospital and in the Summit County Prosecutor's office with respect to their proclivity for jumping to the conclusion of child abuse and bringing these types of cases. We are preparing to bring

post conviction litigation on John's path. We will argue that the science in this field has changed considerably over the last ten or eleven years that if a jury could have heard in twenty ten what it could hear today, that a conviction simply wouldn't have happened.

But I certainly think that people can start writing to the parole board about these issues, because John isn't the only person in Ohio who has to before a parole board ultimately and convince the parole board that shaking baby syndrome just shouldn't serve as the underpinning for a conviction that keeps someone in prison for the rest of their lives. So that's something that people can do. The other thing I would say that people should do, even apart from

John's case, is be informed. If you get a jury duty summons, show up and then don't just believe what the government scientists tell you. Think about it, decide whether or not what they're saying is credible and makes sense, and listen with open ears to the experts that Defense Council puts on the stand as well.

that word of closing arguments. So from Greg and I, thanks again for being here. Greg, thank you for co hosting with me as well.

I alternate between sadness and anger. I'm angry, as is everybody in the podcast today, that people go to prison over cases that looked like this, and I'm sad because of what it does to people and their families. John went to prison when he was teenager, and if the State of Ohiouse has its way, he'll never get out again for something that wasn't a crime. It was a crime that never happened. These cases are enormously difficult to undo. I compare these cases sometimes to like trying to poke

a hole through jello. It's easier to make a hole through a very solid object than it is through something that's weak, and weekly it just closes up around the hole. That you've just made and trying to undo these shaken baby convictions can be exactly like that. We need to do better in our criminal justice system. We need to pay attention to the science. We need to make it a little bit easier to discover the evidence to undo

these convictions after they happen. In Ohio, for instance, we really need the ability to do discover before we file an action so that we can get things like Jada's medical records from birth up until five months, so that we can put together the full medical history that we need to do the work in this kind of case, Kate.

They can accuse someone of abuse when they're not sure or when all of the science doesn't unerringly point to the defendant, and you can't air on the side of the child in these kinds of cases, it's impossible any error is going to harm both the child who may be a victim and everyone else involved in the case.

And that's because when these cases are investigated improperly or charges are breath that are wrongful, that means that a child can be separated from a loving family, or that a grieving parent who's lost a child can be punished for something that they didn't do. And it also might mean that a child who is ill or who has had an accident might not get the right medical care for their illness. There's no way to err on the side of the child in these cases, and that's why

we have to be so careful. We cannot have convictions that are premised on science that is shaky or science that is ambiguous. And that's why the Center for Integrity in Forensic Sciences exists because everybody's right to justice and a fair result depends on a fair process and a fair trial, and you can't have that when there is testimony or opinion introduced at the trial that is overstated or just plain wrong.

end of the day, that's what it's truly about. When we find out the real cause of what happened with her, that's gonna automatically vindicate me, that's automatically gonna rate me, but it's gonna also bring closer to my family, my child's mother's family, everybody know what I'm saying, because it's gonna give us the truth, is gonna it's gonna let us know. It's gonna answer questions that you all got. But at the end of the days, it's about my

Daughter's about Jada. It's all about Jada for Yeah, I want my freedom, Yeah I desire my freedom. But all what happened where getting the closure that our family need and then finally being able to get to a place where we can move forward because I've never really ever

even been able to heal from me. I never found clothes because not only did I suffer one of the deepest losses that anybody on the earth can suffer, as love on a child, not only did our experience day and have to deal with that, I got to deal with stating here every single day.

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