“Prosecutors will still fight to uphold the conviction,” Beety said, “even when there’s no reliability to it.” “Even when the science has changed, even when there’s proof that false evidence was presented at trial, it’s still so so hard to reverse the conviction,” said Valena Beety, a member of Shelby’s legal team and deputy director of the Academy for Justice at Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University.
Earlier this year, a New Jersey judge called the SBS diagnosis “akin to ‘junk science.’” But people continue to be charged, convicted, and sent to prison based on a widely discredited diagnosis. Numerous exonerations and studies have shown that symptoms associated with Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS) can be caused by short-distance falls or seizures, among other factors. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi, which can order a hearing, affirm, or overturn her conviction. She’s now awaiting a decision from the U.S. The state’s star witness, the medical examiner who ruled Thompson’s death a homicide, has said he was wrong.
In the years since her 2000 conviction, the case against her has unraveled. “I remember just putting my head down and I, out loud, but in a whisper, I just said, ‘Thank you, Jesus,’” said Shelby. The jury came back with a sentence of life without the possibility of parole. “I thought that meant that they would kill you that night.” “I didn’t know what the death penalty really meant,” Shelby told The Appeal in a phone call from Central Mississippi Correctional Facility. The Mississippi Second Circuit Court District Attorney’s Office alleged that Shelby had shaken Thompson and hit his head against an object in their home in Biloxi-despite the fact that Shelby says the boy, who had a history of neurological issues, appeared to be having a seizure that night. In a Mississippi courtroom more than twenty years ago, a jury was tasked with deciding if 25-year-old Tasha Shelby should be executed for the murder of two-year-old Bryan Thompson IV, a crime that likely never occurred. But Tasha Shelby is Still Imprisoned for ‘Shaken Baby Syndrome’ Junk-Science. From left to right: Valena Beety, Emily Girvan-Dutton, Tasha Shelby, Astrid Parrett.
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