That's the title of an article in today's Austin American-Statesman about the case of Cathy Lynn Henderson. She currently has a June 13 execution date. LINK
As the doctor who autopsied 3-month-old Brandon Baugh, Robert Bayardo confidently told jurors in 1995 that the child was deliberately killed, not accidentally dropped on his head as baby sitter Cathy Lynn Henderson claimed.
The testimony was instrumental to Henderson's conviction and death sentence.
But on Thursday, with Henderson's execution less than three weeks away, Bayardo backed away from his emphatic testimony, telling a Texas appeals court that recent medical findings have cast doubt on his 12-year-old conclusions.
"Had the new scientific information been available to me in 1995, I would not have been able to testify the way I did," Bayardo said in a signed affidavit provided to a Texas court as part of an appeal filed Thursday on Henderson's behalf.
Henderson's appeal draws on recent research, disputed by prosecutors, that shows infants can sustain fatal head injuries far more easily than once believed.
"Based on the physical evidence in the case, I cannot determine with a reasonable degree of medical certainty whether Brandon Baugh's injuries resulted from an intentional act or an accidental fall," wrote Bayardo, who retired last year after 28 years as the Travis County medical examiner. Bayardo also stated that he was not paid for providing the statement.
And:
First, Henderson's appeal will be reviewed by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to determine whether it can be considered at all. State law lets death-row inmates file only one petition for a writ of habeas corpus, and Henderson's first such appeal was denied in 2002.
Inmates may file another petition if they can establish that the new information was unavailable when the first appeal was filed. The Court of Criminal Appeals, however, takes a hard line on subsequent petitions, denying most as a matter of course.
But if the state's highest appeals court accepts Henderson's petition as valid, its nine judges will probably send the case to a state district court in Travis County for a hearing on the new evidence and a recommendation from the trial judge on whether Henderson deserves a new trial.
Earlier coverage is here.
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