Bridget Lee spent nine months in jail in Alabama after being charged with the murder of her newborn child. Prosecutors filed capital murder charges based on an autopsy performed by Dr. Corinne Stern. Stern’s autopsy concluded the baby had been suffocated because of bruises on the forehead and mouth. But when Lee’s attorneys questioned the autopsy, the District Attorney had other experts review the case, and six different forensics experts found the baby was stillborn and had died of infection. The bruises Stern said indicated suffocation were actually signs of decomposition. Charges were dismissed, and the case has prompted a review of as many as 100 other homicide cases. Alabama’s chief medical examiner, Dr. Kenneth Snell, said he would review every homicide autopsy Dr. Stern had performed in her 16 months in Alabama. Dismissing the charges against Ms. Lee, Circuit Judge James Moore said he had never seen an expert make such a bad mistake in his 30 years of law practice. “What has happened in this courtroom today is absolutely unprecedented,” said Moore. Dr. Stern is now a medical examiner in Texas.
(J. Reeves, “Past cases open after Ala. murder charged dropped,” Associated Press, April 10, 2009). See Innocence and Arbitrariness.
