Fractured Hearts Falsely Accused

10/23/2020

https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2020/08/when-misdiagnosis-child-abuse/615337/

Some pediatricians are trained to determine whether kids’ injuries are accidental. Their assessments can be subjective—but they’re often accepted as fact. And when they’re wrong, parents can needlessly end up in jail.

08/04/2020

NBC News - DO NO HARM: A Devastating Diagnosis

Doctors trained to spot child abuse can save lives. But when they get it wrong, families are torn apart, NBC News and the Houston Chronicle found in an investigation.

08/13/2019

06/27/2019

"The case began in 1991 when a 21-month-old girl he had been babysitting was injured and rushed to two hospitals.

The prosecutor presented experts who said that Benevides r***d the girl, causing her death.

Those experts later recanted."

"They framed - and I don't say this lightly - they framed this innocent man," says attorney Ron O. Kaye."

False testimony sent farmworker Vicente Benevides to death row for 26 years and now he's filing a federal lawsuit against officials who imprisoned him.

03/30/2019

Good to see another acquittal in the news!

"Christopher Joe Medina was acquitted of first-degree child cruelty, the sole charge of an indictment last April in Hall County."

A jury found a Gainesville man not guilty Friday, March 29, in the case of a 3-month-old boy suffering serious hemorrhaging in 2017.Christopher Joe Medina was acquitted of first-degree child cruelty, the sole charge of an indictment last April in Hall County.

12/23/2018

Please reach out to your representatives and help prevent this from getting passed.

We need your help to write your representative. Right now, there is a proposal before the U.S. House of Representatives to revise a law that currently provides immunity to those reporting suspected child abuse. The revision will broaden that immunity to cover child abuse professionals even when they...

12/03/2018

“From those recordings, it is evident to us, acting in this instance as the thirteenth juror, that appellant wholeheartedly believed that she caused injury to E.A. not by shaking him, but by placing him on the couch while retrieving his diaper and by her instinctual response of picking him up off the floor after he had fallen. We could hear the raw emotion in appellant’s voice [emphasis added] as she reported the child’s condition to the 911 operator, the self-condemnation over the decision to briefly leave him unattended on the couch, the genuine surprise upon being informed by Weaver that E.A. had signs of previous injury, and her struggle to understand how this incident produced the injuries suffered by E.A.”

Two decisions this fall in Ohio offer hope for the wrongfully accused, while underscoring both the ironies and the complexities of misguided accusations of child physical abuse. One of them even op…

11/05/2018

ST. JOSEPH — After hearing two weeks of testimony, a Berrien County jury deliberated just 90 minutes Friday before finding Bradley Penley not guilty of first-degree child abuse.

10/31/2018

https://week.com/news/2018/10/30/accused-a-local-familys-693-day-nightmare-a-25-news-special-report/

At 3 and a half, Chandler Crady is a boisterous, bright little boy who brings laughter and joy to his parents and little sister. But there was a time in

10/02/2018

"The jury heard a recording of a 911 call Penley made with the baby in his arms as the mother drove them all to Lakeland Medical Center in St. Joseph. The baby can be heard screaming in the background as Penley tells the 911 call-taker, “My baby fell off the couch. It’s bad. It’s really bad.”

ST. JOSEPH — After hearing two weeks of testimony, a Berrien County jury deliberated just 90 minutes Friday before finding Bradley Penley not guilty of first-degree child abuse.

09/27/2018

"In interpreting this phrase, the court found that the legislature intended for courts to terminate rights “only in situations when it is absolutely essential to do so.” Thus, it required courts to explore whether “other feasible options exist that could address the specific problems or issues facing the family, short of imposing the ultimate remedy of terminating the parent’s rights.”

For example, the court offered, in cases “in which grandparents or other family members have (or are willing to) come forward to care for the child, courts should consider whether other less-permanent arrangements (for instance, a guardianship with a family member) might serve the child’s needs just as well in the short term, while preserving the possibility for rehabilitation of the parent-child relationship in the longer term.”

Vivek Sankaran argues that too often, the courts hurtle toward termination of parental rights when there's still a chance for parents to play a role