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Swedish Supreme Court Rules that Conviction Based on Expert Medical Testimony about Shaken Baby Syndrome is “Unsafe”

 Sweden, October 16, 2014:

Today the Swedish Supreme Court reversed the conviction of a father convicted of Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS) due to lack of evidence supporting the diagnosis of SBS. This case, SE v. Gothenburg, was brought to attention of the Supreme Court the days following the forensic pathology meeting on SBS/AHT in Uppsala in September by Anders Eriksson, a part of the SBU (Swedish Council on Health Technology Assessment), who attended the meeting. After considering extensive testimony from experts on both sides of the issue, the Court ruled that the scientific evidence was insufficient to support a conviction for abuse.

The opinion is currently only available in Swedish, although an English translation is likely forthcoming. In the meantime, here is a Google translated newspaper article http://www.dn.se/nyheter/pappan-frikanns-franskakvald/ describing the decision. 

The man previously convicted of skakvåld against her son was acquitted today in the Supreme Court. The judgment may be very important for a large number of families with children who are suspected of violence against their children. 

Supreme Court notes the lack of evidence of what happened when her son was injured. The father himself says that his son suddenly unconscious as he lay on the changing table. The father then got panicked and shook her son to have life in him. 

But the relatively mild tremors can be according to HD does not explain the severe injuries that her son had. He was eleven weeks old when it happened. The parents had been in the child care center before the event because the son had been poor. 

“It is clear that the scientific support for the diagnosis skakvåld has generally proven to be unsafe” says the judgment, and the father is acquitted. HD also believes that several factors militate against the prosecutor's assertion that her son would have run skakvåld. 

The incident led to her son and his twin brother were taken into custody by social services for three years. For a year, they are reunited with their parents.


Submitted by Paisley Hoffman on October 17, 2014

This article appears in the categories: Wisconsin Innocence Project

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