Michigan Child Protective Services maintains a central registry of anyone who has ever been connected to an incident involving child endangerment. When we initially released our coverage of Terry Caesar's case, his name was fully cleared in court, yet still remained on that list, leaving one final battle for Terry to fight. Since then, I'm happy to report that Terry and his team at Michigan Law were again successful in achieving justice,
clearing his name once and for all. Congratulations Terry, and now our coverage as it originally aired. In the fall of two thousand and four, Terry Caesar and his son were living in Poor Huron, Michigan, occasionally staying with his girlfriend, Cheryl, her six year old daughter, Darien, and sixteen month old son Brendan. On the morning of October three, Cheryl and her daughter were out while Terry stayed home with the sleeping toddler. When they returned, Terry was panicked and Brenton
was unconscious and struggling to breathe. They rushed him to the hospital. He was given a cat scan and then transferred to Children's Hospital in Detroit. The child recovered after a few days, but by then, a pediatric neurosurgeon had ruled that bleeding on the brain indicated that Brendan had been the victim of violence shaking, and Terry was immediately the number one suspect. Although he maintained that Brendan had fallen from the couch. Terry was arrested in charge with
first degree child abuse. At trial, the doctor testified that the findings associated with shaken baby syndrome were present and could not have been caused by the shortfall that Terry had described. It would seem highly unlikely that an experienced pediatric neurosurgeon could be mistaken.
But this is wrongful conviction.
Welcome back to RO I'm Jason Flahman today once again talking about a case that revolves around the hypothesis that has never been tested, but somehow, inexplicably became the accepted orthodoxy of fallback, whatever you want to call it, of the medical community, and thankfully it's long since been debunked. And of course I'm talking about shaken baby syndrome or SBS. Now Terry Caesar spent almost four years in prison because of this faulty diagnosis, and more than a decade trying
to clear his name. So, Terry, I'm sorry for what you went through, man, but welcome to Rafel Conviction. Thank you well, you're welcome and joining us as the co founder and co director of the Michigan Innocence Clinic at Michigan Law School, Dave Moran.
Thanks Dave.
I understand that you and the Michigan Innisce Clinic have already exonerated six people and counting of this non existent crime. And we've talked about this so many times, most recently with Zavi on Johnson, John jo Owns in Ohio, Robert Robertson, who's on death row in Texas. To this day, the list is long, and one case is more horrifying than
the last one. We did a full breakdown of sbs SO Shaking Baby Syndrome on Wrongful Conviction Junk Science with our host Josh Dubin and the executive director of the Center for Integrity and Forensic Sciences, Kate Judson, and Kate is going to join us a bit later.
Now.
Terry's case happened back in two thousand and four, when most of the medical establishments still seemed to just reflexively jump to the conclusion that if a kid was in some sort of terrible distress, and the triad of findings were there brain bleed, brain swelling, and bleeding behind the eyes that automatically well must be diagnostic of child abuse.
But already by that point there were challenges to shaking baby syndrome, and of course Terry's case revolves around that, is that the challenge to shaking baby syndrome should have been presented.
John Plunkett had already done his seminal project on the subject, and biomechanical research into our seat safety had already begun to shred the viability of what was thought to be established science, so we now know it was junk science. But unfortunately Terry's attorney didn't realize the court was constitutionally bound to provide funding for an expert defense witness. And we're going to get into that a bit later on. But first, Terry, you grew up in Port Huron, Michigan,
right all my life now, way before this happened. You had a son named Cody, and a little after he was born, you had a brush with an event in which there was a sick child that a young woman had claimed was your child. This was all the way back in nineteen ninety five.
So it was a girl. She was already three or four months pregnant when we had slept together. One day in like Juna ninety five, this girl shows up at my house with this baby in the stroller, telling me it's my son, and something was wrong with the baby. The baby wasn't breathing right. Ambulance took the kid from my house. So they tried saying that I was the father of this child. So I went through everything proven that I wasn't the father. I took a DNA test.
But unbeknownst to you, your name had been on this central registry in Michigan ever since nineteen ninety five, just for having been mentioned in the same breath of another child who had been brought into a hospital from your home.
Right.
So this is the craziest thing is I found out about this in twenty twenty one. This was never brought up in my two thousand and four case. But they did use this against me in my two thousand and four case, and I have paperwork to prove it.
Right, And as we so often see in ropic conviction cases, is that sometimes the police are motivated by someone's criminal record, and in this case a perceived criminal record. Now, like you said, you didn't find out about this in twenty twenty one, and we're going to get back to that later. But Terry, let's go to your life at the time of this incident. In two thousand and four. You were thirty three years old, a single dad. Your son Cody
was around thirteen. Right, tell me about him and about your life together.
He was an honorable student, all star athlete. He wrestled football, basketball, baseball, We played hockey. We would go camp and fish and it was a great father son but we were like best friends at the same.
And at that time, you were also in a relationship with a woman named Cheryl Ganna, and she had a couple of kids too, Darien, her six year old daughter, and Brendan, who was about sixteen months old.
The kids got along great. We had weekends where the kids would be with us, and then we had weekends where the kids would go with the other parents. So we had our time, we had family time. Everything was good.
Were you living together at the time.
No, she had her own place. We would stay like back and forth between the two.
So let's go now to October third, two thousand and four. You and Cheryl were together with her kids at your place. Tell me about that.
Sunday morning, my son Cody spent the night at his friend Tyler Brown's house. Darien, Brendan, and Cheryl were with me at the house, and while we were eating breakfast, Darien was talking about that she wanted to go swimming. Brendan's still sleeping at this time because he's been sick. He had fallen at daycare the Thursday before this weekend
that he was with us. So she was gonna have Brendan go to his grandma's house, and I told her, I says, if you guys are only gonna be gone for like an hour hour and a half, just let him sleep a little over an hour after they left, Brendan woke up. I took him out of the bedroom, got him some stuff to eat. I finished up feeding them, went into the kitchen to put the spoon in the sink and throw the stuff away, and he was standing up on my couch with his back towards me, looking
forward at the TV. So I got down on my hands and knees and came up around the couch and was playing Gotcha. This was something that we did all the time, he was going back and forth on the couch, you know, trying to get away from me tick on him. And while I was doing that, I had to use the bathroom. It was like right around the corner. I'm like five feet away, but I just can't see because
there's a corner there. From while I'm going to the bathroom, I hear a thang thud, and then it's just complete silence besides the TV going, and you knew something was wrong. So I came out and I don't see Brendan. I take a couple more steps into the living room, and then I see Brendan in between my couch and my table. His legs are going up the couch, his butt is on the floor and his left shoulders like propped up
against the leg of my table. But he's like he's like slouched back in his head's back like limp noodled.
And with this fall happening between the couch and the coffee table, potentially there was an impact on the table before the impact with the floor. So you ran over to him, like any loving parent would.
I grab his head and support his head, and I picked Brendan up, and as soon as his head comes forward, some blood trickles out of his mouth, so I look in his mouth, and he bit his tongue, so I can start to see like a bruising on his forehead, and then it looked like a carpet mark, like little like little red dots on the spot in the back of his head. And you know, he's like barely breathing.
And I understand that Cheryl and Darien got home right after this.
Happened, and I told her Brendan fell and he's unresponsive. We go support, You're in hospital, and within a minute or two they have him alert, crying, you know, So I'm relieved.
Right good.
So it seems like this is where that story really should have ended.
The hospital staff kept telling me like, don't worry, your son's gonna be fine, and I'm like, I'm not the father, I'm her boyfriend, and everything from that point changed.
Meanwhile, the emergency room position, doctor Hunt noticed that one of Brendan's pupils was dilated more than the other, so he ordered a cat scan, and that scan showed a subdualhematoma or bleeding in the brain that was having a mass effect, meaning that it was pushing the brain to one side, so he ordered to transfer to Children's Hospital
in Detroit by ambulance to see a pediatric neurosurgeon. With the first of the findings showing up, it appears that suspicion was aroused that only continued to grow as they were hearing back from the specialist, doctor Gilmer Hill.
In some of these hospitals, you have people who are really firmly committed to the shaking baby hypothesis. It's kind of like the hammer looking for the nail, and they're quick to diagnose it. Doctor Gilmer Hill is the one who concludes this is child Abases comes the star witness against Terry at his trial.
And then, of course they've called in CPS and detectives at this point, and unfortunately Cheryl made an unfortunate choice.
Cheryl spoke with the detective and the CPS before I did, and said that they want to talk to me, and that she told them that she was there and she picked up Brendan.
That wasn't true. Of course, why do you think Cheryl said that so?
I think she panicked. She was afraid that it would somehow look bad on her if she admitted that Brendan had been injured while he was in the care of a boyfriend.
I have no idea what to say now, I'm already being looked at here and being detained, So like a dummy, I agreed and said that she was there, and she picked them up. So Cheryl's brother was a deputy sheriff and his wife at the time. She took it amongst herself to call the sheriff's department and talk to a detective and let them know that you might want to talk with Cheryl again because the story she gave you wasn't the truth.
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So even though Cheryl was trying to be helpful, she made things worse. But that wasn't the only thing inflaming the suspicions of the detectives and CPS agents. Of course, I'm referring to what they were hearing from the pediatric norosurgeon at Children's Hospital in Detroit, who was now examining Brendan doctor Gilmer Hill.
Who sees the swollen brain of the rtal hemorrhages and a subteral humanitoma. And she's been taught in medical school that you see those things, there's no other explanation for it other than some really far out there things like an unrestrained high speed crash or being dropped out of a third story window.
Right short falls had not yet made it to the list of potential causes of the findings previously reflexively associated with the farce known as shaken baby syndrome. But since that time, we've learned that that triad of findings can be caused by a growing list of currently they might have had eighty one non traumatic medical conditions in addition to short falls, and unfortunately, in two thousand and four
these causes were just beginning to be discovered. And since it's become abundantly clear that in the absence of a spinal injury, shaking cannot provide sufficient.
Force to cause this tria, out of.
Findings, it just can't be done. That's how wrong the medical establishment had it. So with that, you might not be surprised to hear that doctor Gilmour Hill and examining Brendan and his cat scan for head trauma being the hammer looking for the nail, they completely missed.
The mark on his forehead.
She reported no external bruising, scalp swelling, or other signs of trauma. That's in her report. Yet Cheryl her family all folks who had no reason to protect Terry. They're obviously going to be taking the side of the baby. But they all noticed the mark on Brendan's forehead that was about the size of a fifty cent piece that would corroborate his version of events.
They saw it at Port Heeron, and they saw it in Children's Hospital, and there was a nurse at Port Heroon who had seen the mark on the forehead, but mysteriously doctor gilmour Hill didn't. If there's an impact, you would expect there be some kind of mark or some kind of bruise or an abrasion. If it's shaking and then slamming on a soft surface, you wouldn't necessarily expect to see any marks. And so at trial then the prosecutions argument is that you see there's no marks in
his baby. Just baby didn't fall, this baby was shaken.
They contact me, told me that I had a warrant for my rest. So I went, turned myself in, bonded myself out, you know, I was right back to Dad's at home, Dad's working, you know.
And this arrest was inexplicably delayed until January two thousand and five. Brendan had made a full recovery by then. Now neither Cheryl nor her family were pressing charges, so perhaps they had to wait until Brendan's father would. Either way, the state seemed hell bent on taking this to trial. And I understand that your mother retains an attorney who she knew from her mail carrier, which was a guy named Ken Lord.
My mom retained him for me.
He told me it was going to be ten to twenty thousand dollars for me to retain this doctor to come speak in my behalf. And like I said, I'm a single father with a thirteen year old kid at the time. I'm living check to check. I don't have a couple grand in my bank account.
I'm not living like that.
Yeah.
So, ken Lord's mistake here, which which we eventually many years later confirmed with the Michigan Supreme Court, was believing that he couldn't ask for money to help hire an expert if his client was retained as opposed to being appointed.
That's just constitutionally wrong. The US Supreme Court had established a decade and a half earlier that there is a constitutional right to have an expert if an expert is needed for the case, and Kein Lord had already consulted with a renowned expert, doctor Ferris Bandak.
Doctor Ferris Bandak, a renowned figure in the field of biomechanics who testified in the very high profile Michael Peterson case, who.
Was prepared to give very helpful testimony explaining the problems with the shaking baby syndrome hypothesis, explaining why this case wouldn't fit within it, and because Terry's mom had retained Ken.
Lord, she was tapped out.
She didn't have the money to hire an expensive expert.
So you went to trial in December of two thousand and five, and the trial was overseen by Judge of Dare And of course the state was leaning heavily on the testimony of doctor Gilmer Hill, the neurosurgeon who had seen Brendan had Children's Hospital in Detroit.
I'm Kate Judson, the executive director of the Center for Integrity and Forensic Sciences. In the case of Terry Caesar, there were conflicting reports about whether sixteen month old Brendan had any external injuries. The external injuries that were reported could account for a potential impact site on his head
with either the coffee table, the floor, or both. A CT scan showed subdural hematoma, and upon further investigation by the state's star witness, pediatric neurosurgeon, doctor Gilmour Hill, she also noted brain swelling and retinal hemorrhage, the triad of findings often associated with the faulty hypothesis of SPS. She reported no external injuries and importantly, the absence of any
fractures or neck injury. She concluded the Brendan's injuries were the result of violent shaking and could only otherwise be caused by a fall from a second story window or a high velocity car crash, and not by the shortfall Terry had described. Now Terry's attorney had consulted with an expert, doctor Bandeck, who put a background at engineering, he would have testified to a current understanding of injury kinematics that
a short fall could cause injuries just like Brendan's. Terry's attorney also raised the work of doctor Gettis and doctor Plunkett, as well as doctor Gregory Riber, who had testified for the state against Zavion Johnson just three years prior. At Zavian's trial, he said that a shortfall with an impact could not cause the triad, but now he had learned that the opposite was true. Had any of them taken the stand, they would have been able to impeach doctor Gilmour Hill.
It's really hard to believe that you wouldn't have gotten an acquittal if the Jerry heard from a very well credentialed, renowned expert who had studied shaking baby syndrome, like doctor Bandack, had so.
As a result of not asking the court to obtain funds to help Terry. Ken Lord ended up cross examining doctor Gilmer Hill himself based on his notes from consulting with doctor Bandak. But I think we all know that cross examination of an expert witness doesn't pack the same punch with the jury as having your own.
Expert, Because who's the jerry going to believe the doctor who insists that there's really no other explanation for these injuries, or the lawyer who's not a scientist, not a doctor, who tries to poke holes in that theory. And so unless the expert is exceptionally bad, cross examination will very rarely poke enough holes in an expert's certainty to cause the jury to have reasonable doubt.
So the state had this in the bag, but presented the child's mother, Cheryl as well, with the assumption that raising the specter of her lie in the emergency room would seal the deal.
Cheryl did testify for the prosecution, but her testimony was actually very helpful to Terry, explaining that she trusted Terry. She explained the way the lie about whether she was there or not confirmed that it was her lie, not Terry's.
And she also testified that Brendan had had a fall at daycare.
A few days before.
As you told us earlier, Terry, we now know that a child could experience a lucid interval for a few days before coming to the results of an initial trauma. For years, medical expert was testified that the most recent caregiver must be the culprit, when that was not true either. And Terry, I understand you took the stand as well.
I told him, but I didn't hurt Brendan. You know, I've never even corrected him, and he wasn't a bad kid that needed corrections. Honestly, he was a good kid.
And there were no character witnesses allowed to understand, which would have gone a long way towards backing you up on all of that.
I had over half the courtroom full, my mother, father, aunts, uncles, my son, my son's mother, employers, friends of family. I had a ton of people there, and Judge Dare didn't allow anybody to speak on my behalf. So it's like, how can I even feel that I had a fair trial.
This case, even without anybody for the defense, was a extremely difficult case for the jury to result it took them days and they were deadlocked.
Right and this, by the way, is right before Christmas, when these people could have really, probably very badly wanted to be spending their time with their families getting ready for the holidays. So who knows how that played into how they eventually came around to side with doctor Gilmer.
Hill, and so they come up with their unanimous guilty.
I'm devastated.
So now I get to spend Christmas and New Year's with my family and my son, and then I know that after New Year's I'm going to prison for a crime that never even happened.
The hardest part.
Was taking my son to school the day of sentencing, dropping him off and telling him hopefully I'll be here,
you know, after you get out of school. If not, then your mom will be here, And then go in there and finding out that my sentence is two to fifteen years, and then you have a son who's on the outside that you know you can only get fifteen minute phone calls, you know, and to hear the problems that he's had, and knowing that he wouldn't be having these problems if I was there where I should be, you know, But I was focused on getting me home and proving my innocence. I wanted to get back to my son.
Tragically, you were stolen from him, let's call it what it is, during his prime formative years. Now, by two thousand and seven, you had been studying the law and working on your appeals process. You petitioned the Michigan Court of Appeals with an ineffective assistance of Council claim based on ken Lord's misunderstanding that the court would not provide
an expert because you had retained ken Lord. So almost like they thought, if you had the money for that, you should have the money for this, And that eventually became the basis of the filings that they prepared with the Michigan Innocence Clinic. But at that time it failed. Dave, do you have any theories as to why that petition didn't work out?
So in order to prove ineffective assistance, you have to prove that had the lawyer and not made the mistake, there's a reasonable probability there would have been a different outcome. And normally what you would do is you would attach
affidavits from experts. You would call at this hearing and say send it back and have this evidentiary hearing in the trial court and will show that had defensive lawyer asked for an expert, he could have got a good expert that would have changed his case, and a Pelt lawyer just didn't do that.
So, not only had your trial attorney failed you, but then Appellet Council had as well. Terry, I understand at this point you took an even more active role in developing your own appeals.
I was at the law library every day to learn how I could prove my innocence. A real good friend that I met while I was incarcerated, Demetrius Wells, showed me more stuff as far as the legal process and how to prepare legal briefs.
Meanwhile, you were seeking parole as well, but the board wanted what you couldn't give them.
They wanted an admission of guilt, you know. And that's the thing is, I'm not given an admission of guilt for something that I didn't do. I told them that I've done everything that they wanted to do. I never caught a ticket while I was incarcerated.
Nonetheless, you were denied your first time around.
They gave me an eighteenth month continuance because I didn't take an AOP class, which is an assault of offenders program. It was a stipulation for me to be parrolled. So you have to pass this interview to even get into the program. You know, I'm telling them everything that happened, and I'm telling him the whole story, and it's like, you know, he's as well. It sounds to me like you're in denial and you don't want to admit. You know, how am I supposed to admit something that I didn't do?
So I had to file a grievance in order for me to even get into this AOP class. I knew that if I didn't do this class, I'm not going home. They're just going to keep flopping me and flopping me and flop me till I do my fifteen years.
So you did that program, but no matter what, the goal was obviously exoneration because you were innocent. In fact, you're innocent of a crime that never even happened. So you had file the federal habeas in two thousand and eight pro se while reaching out to innocence organizations all
over the country. But at that time you weren't getting any help, as so many projects in clinics were really focused on wins that they could almost call predictable that could be earned with DNA cases, and Dave, as an appellate public defender, you had seen the need for a
different kind of innocence organization. So you connected with someone who had served as a public defender and eventually went on to be the Chief Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court, but at this point she was the dean for clinics at Michigan Law and of course I'm talking about Bridget McCormick.
And we decided, with her public defender background as a trial lawyer and my public defender background as an appellate lawyer, we'd make a pretty good team, and so we co founded the Michigan Innocence Clinic as a non DNA innocence project, which officially opened into its doors in January two thousand and nine, just about the time Terry was finishing up
his sentence. He was still incarcerated at that point, and so Terry was one of the first wave of people to write us, and his was one of the very first set of cases that we took.
It was like, you know, here's your sign, this is what you've been waiting for all this work and everything that you've done. I finally have somebody that I can give this to, that can you know, finish this relay for me because I can't run this race no more.
There's no more that I can do.
And by then you finally had a Barol day coming up October sixth, two thousand and nine, so you were headed out the door. What was that day like for you? Terry?
It went from hell to trying to learn how to live again. To be able to go to the bathroom when I needed to go to the bathroom was a wonderful thing. It's the simple things to ply toilet paper. Some hindes ketch up everything that we take for granted every day. Was the stuff that I think that I missed the most, you know, a late gas bill, you know what I mean, the stuff that I sweated before. I'm like, I look at now and I'm like, you know,
I mean this shit. Really this stressed me out before, and I like laugh at that.
And to finally get to be with your son again after five long years.
It was. It was awesome.
In prison, you get like a hug when you see them in a hug when they leave.
So to be.
Able to see him and honestly be able to talk to him without just come.
My effort was awesome, but let's not forget you were still on parole, which, as we here described over and over again, even though you're technically free, it's almost like just being in a bigger prison by parole.
I legally couldn't see Cody because I was not allowed to have contact with anybody under the age of eighteen, So I had to get special permission from my parole agent for me to even be able to see my son. And then the worst part about it was is my first year of parole, my granddaughter was born, and I could not be around her or see her for the first year of her life. I've had all these things taken away from me for nothing, and.
So clearing your name could not happen soon enough. Dave, as I understand it, you all went into court as his trial and appellet counsel should have done guns blazing with four expert witnesses, including doctor John Plunkett, the forensic pathologists who we mentioned earlier from his pioneering challenges to SBS.
We knew that there was a big problem with these shaking baby cases. We read the transcript of doctor gilmer Hill's testimony and it was way out there in our view.
So these four experts said that doctor gilmer Hill gave the jury incorrect information regarding the biomechanics of infant head injury, short distance falls, and also abusive shaking. Each of them noted that criticisms of shaking baby syndrome existed at the time of the trial or earlier, and that they would have offered these same opinions if they had been asked
to testify back in two thousand and five. They also said that injury biomechanics confirmed that when a child is manually shaken, he or she will suffer a neck injury or gripping style chest injuries well before sustaining a subdural hematoma or retinal hemorrhage, which is the understanding that undermines nearly just about every single SBS prosecution, maybe all of them.
They concluded that Brendan's injuries were consistent with a short fall from the couch onto the coffee table or the floor and totally inconsistent with abuse of shaking, but proving innocence is not enough, so the ineffective assists and claims were your main arguments, but Terry had already raised the claims against his trial attorney.
There was obvious error here, both by the trial lawyer and the appellate lawyer. So we filed a post conviction motion in Michigan for appellate lawyer's failure to properly litigate the trial lawyers in effectiveness. And so it goes back to the same judge in front of whom Terry had been convicted.
That would be Judge A.
Dare again, and that judge just does not get it at all. That judge says, you can't raise this because this is the same issue that Terry raised on appeal ineffective assistance of council, and we said no, Terry raised ineffective assistance a trial council on appeal. We're now raising ineffective assistance of appellate lawyer for failing to file the motion to have an evidentiary hearing.
Right in which the appellate attorney could have presented experts to support the challenges to SBS and Judge of Dare's confusion over the fact that both trial and appellate counsel had failed you, but only the claim against trial council had been raised that kept justice from being done here for over a decade, and so you appealed Dare's decision, which involved a number of procedural hurdles that took the better part of the next six years through both the
state and federal systems until you finally reach the sixth Circuit.
And we go to the sixth Circuit, and we had a terrific student attorney, one of the law students worked on the case, and she wiped the floor with the Assistant Attorney General who was arguing against the petition.
And that terrific student attorney, by the way, it was named Meredith Collier.
It was a legal mismatch it likes you seldom to see. And so the n result of that, all of that was we finally emerge in twenty seventeen with a ruling from the federal court that Terry received ineffective assistance of a pellet council.
So you get to file a new appeal, basically starting back in the trial court. So Judge of Dar's court, but he had retired at this point, and you got to present Terry's original ineffective assistance claim about ken Lord not asking the court to provide funds to the defense for an expert witness.
And we end up in front of a successor judge in Saint Clair County Port Huron, who now says, well, you know, I'm just not so sure that Terry was really poor, And so we end up having to hold a whole evidentiary hearing to establish that Terry was too poor to afford an expert. And what the judge ends up finding is all right, well, Terry is poor. But we lose because the judge says it was a reasonable decision for ken Lord not to ask for money because
Judge Adair might have denied it. Wait what, yeah, the successor judges, But it was that when I was a lawyer, if I'd asked for that, Judge A. Dare probably would have laughed me out of court. But that ruling would be wrong.
Adare's alleged tendency to rule against providing the funds for an expert would have been unconstitutional anyway. I mean, this is obstinence that.
Defies all reason.
And we've covered Saint Clair County only one time before running into this same kind of maddening logic defying issues. And of course I'm talking about Temwa Jinkenzu, and we're going to have that incredible episode linked in the bio.
This is the most corrupt county in Michigan. I don't even know how to describe it. Besides it's a good old boy. If you ate a good old boy, then you ain't got nothing coming. I've been through more than my fair share of courts in Saint Clair County. At this courthouse here in Port you're on. This is the only place that I've ever seen an attorney give their client back their money and tell them if there's nothing
I can do for you here. These attorneys from other cities come here and they get laughed right out of the courtroom. Everybody's in cahoots with each other here.
So in order to receive justice, you had to get out of Saint Clair County.
I argue the case in the Michigan Streme Court, and finally, in March of twenty twenty one, the Michigan Supreme Court issues a short order concluding that Terry gets a new trial. And there was this case is so clear that it's not even worth writing an opinion, and so the Michigan
Spreme Court rules in our favor. Terry's conviction is vacated, and then the prosecution in Saint Clair County then sat around for months and months after March twenty twenty one, and finally dismissed the charges in September twenty twenty one. So that's the point where Terry officially becomes exonerated.
I'm just I felt that I was blessed to discover the University of Michigan Law School and this is clinic. Without them, I don't know where I would be right now.
So, after all you'd been through Terry, you'd think exoneration would be the end of the road. Your life is seemingly back to normal, But as we've learned, there's almost always a chance for another shoe to drop.
I have no felony on my record.
I can have a passport, I can go anywhere I want, I can have firearms. But here in Michigan, there's a thing called the Michigan Central Registry, and it doesn't matter if there was a.
Crime or not.
If somebody feels that you did something, then they'll put you on this registry.
That's the registry maintained by Children's Protective Services. Are people who have either been convicted, suspected or whose names were even breathed in the general direction of child abuse, neglect, sexual exploitation.
And so on.
And so when the folks at Michigan Law tried to get your name removed rightfully, so there was some unexpected confusion.
So when they contact the Central Registry, they say, well, which one are you trying to get removed?
Because there's more than one.
So you have them reaches out to me and they're like, you know, do you have any idea of something happening back in ninety five? And I'm like no, They're saying something about your child, and I goes, I don't have a child. That says my only child is Cody. That's the only child I've ever had, and I had custody of my child. So I'm kind of confused here.
And this is the situation that we briefly discussed earlier with the woman back in nineteen ninety five who claimed you were the father when her child was rushed to the hospital. So even with your exoneration, you of m was still having difficulty removing you from this list and undoing the damage.
I'm still battling this. They told my son he can't leave my twelve year old grandson with me unless there's another adult here or he can get in trouble for that. I just want my life back, you know. I just want to enjoy my time with my grandkids, right.
And that's the real crime here that a guy who literally did nothing wrong, was a loving dad, still after all these years, is not allowed to babysit his own grandchildren. But I know there are great people at U of M who are working on getting you off that list, and in fact, we're going to have a link in the bio for anyone who wants to support their incredibly important work. So, Terry, anything you want to tell our audience.
Please everybody turn your ears on for this one. CPS cannot come in your house unless they're there with a police and a warrant. You do not have to talk to CPS. You do not have to let them in your house. There is nothing they can do to you. They have to come there with police and a warrant. They cannot just come into your house.
They can't.
They can't just take your kids from you.
Well, unfortunately, you've learned all of this the hard way, Terry, but we're so glad that you've made it through. Now it's time for closing arguments, where I thank you both for sharing this story, and now I'm just gonna turn my microphone off, kick back in my chair, and listen to whatever else you two amazing humans want to say. So, Dave, why don't you kick it off and then hand it over to Terry.
I'm really glad we achieved justice for Terry. I'm really sorry how long it took that he had to be patient for more than twelve years of us fighting this thing up and down the courts. It's a great example of how resistant the courts are to.
Doing justice in these cases.
People are still in prison based on bogus shaking baby syndrome testimony, and it's our goal to find as many of them as we can and win them, because, as Terry's case shows, these diagnoses that are made without sound science and made with far far too much certainty wreck people's lives. Terry's experience was awful, but there are people who are serving life sentences because the baby died, and we need to root out as many of these cases
as we can. We need to really stop this kind of testimony from being given in the first place.
My closing arguments would be love your family, love your loved ones. If there's people that you are not talking to because of different circumstances, I think you need to try to right those wrongs. And I think it's time for people to start mending bridges. It feels like this whole COVID thing is, you know, it's been like a bomb that blew us all apart, and it's these pieces are just floating all around and everybody's everybody's all about themselves anymore. I remember when I was a kid growing
up when there was times like this. This is when families pulled together, you know, when they were there for one another. I think that we just need to love our kids and teach our kids, you know, so they don't do our wrongs and make mistakes that you know that we've occurred in our life.
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I want to thank our production team Connor hall Any, Chelsea La Robinson, Jeff Clyburn and Kevin Warns.
The music in this.
Production was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and on Twitter at Wrong Conviction as well as at Lava for Good.
On all three platforms.
You can also follow me on both TikTok and Instagram at it's Jason Flamm. Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava for Good podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one