Innocence Blog

Toronto Man to be Cleared in Shaken Baby Case

Posted: January 13, 2011 12:08 pm

Dinesh Kumar, who was convicted 16 years ago for the death of his five-week-old son, may finally be acquitted since prosecutors in Toronto, Ontario have moved to overturn the conviction.

Kumar was convicted in 1992 when forensic pathologist Charles Smith alleged that Kumar's infant son, Gaurov, was a victim of shaken baby syndrome.

Despite maintaining his innocence, Kumar felt hopeless and pleaded guilty in order to receive a reduced sentence for criminal negligence as opposed to second-degree murder conviction, according to The Globe and Mail.  He served 90 days in prison.

Last year, lawyers for the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted reopened Kumar's case based on the notion that Smith's report was not scientifically accepted.

On Friday, prosecutor Gillian Roberts said that doubts about the scientific testimony used against Kumar have surfaced since his conviction.

“In short, the justice system has worked exactly as it should in this case,” she said in the court document. “It accepted a valid guilty plea in a case based on valid current medical knowledge. It has now acted to respond when the prevailing understanding of that medical knowledge has changed and the appellant has explained his guilty plea.
…

In 2010, evidence has evolved so that what was viewed as diagnostic in 1992 is now viewed only as strongly suspicious, and we can no longer say why baby Gaurov died.”

Convictions based on shaken baby syndrome have come under fire in recent years as scientific studies have cast doubt on forensic methods used in the investigations.

Read the full story.