A fed­er­al dis­trict court has over­turned the con­vic­tion of Genesis Hill (pic­tured), who was sen­tenced to death in Ohio in 1991 for the death of his six-month-old daugh­ter, Domika, based upon a ques­tion­able shak­en-baby diag­no­sis. On April 24, 2019, Chief Judge Edmund A. Sargus, Jr. of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio found that Ohio pros­e­cu­tors had uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly with­held excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence that called into ques­tion the cred­i­bil­i­ty of a key wit­ness and the tes­ti­mo­ny of the state’s foren­sic expert at tri­al. That evi­dence and sev­er­al new affi­davits pro­duced by the defense, Chief Judge Sargus said, demon­strate that Domika’s death was most like­ly acci­den­tal and that no rea­son­able juror exposed to all the evi­dence would have found Hill guilty.

Hill was con­vict­ed of cap­i­tal mur­der based on foren­sic tes­ti­mo­ny that he had shak­en his infant daugh­ter, caus­ing a head injury that killed her. Crucial tes­ti­mo­ny came from Teresa Dudley, Domika’s moth­er, and from Dr. Amy Martin, a deputy coro­ner and foren­sic pathol­o­gist who per­formed Domika’s autop­sy. On appeal, Hill pre­sent­ed a police report that had been with­held from his defense team that sug­gest­ed Dudley may have been involved in the child’s death. He also sub­mit­ted three affi­davits – two from wit­ness­es who saw what appeared to be Dudley and a friend hid­ing Domika’s body, and one from Dr. Martin stat­ing that, based on changes in sci­en­tif­ic lit­er­a­ture, her assess­ment of Domika’s injuries has changed. The Court found that the new evi­dence estab­lished Hill’s ​“actu­al inno­cence” and over­came pro­ce­dur­al road­blocks that would oth­er­wise have required the court to deny his peti­tion as untimely.

The with­held police report con­tains the account of the first offi­cer who respond­ed to the report of a miss­ing child. The offi­cer said that Dudley ran from police when they arrived at the scene, a fact not pre­sent­ed at Hill’s tri­al. A day before Domika’s body was found, Dudley repeat­ed­ly implored police to check in the loca­tion where the girl’s body was even­tu­al­ly dis­cov­ered. Two new affi­davits also sup­port the the­o­ry that Dudley was involved in Domika’s death, or at least in hid­ing her body and blam­ing the death on Hill. Two wit­ness­es who did not tes­ti­fy at Hill’s tri­al report­ed that they had seen Dudley and a friend of hers car­ry­ing a brown Similac baby for­mu­la box down the street toward the alley in which Domika’s body was lat­er dis­cov­ered. The baby was found inside a Similac box. One of the wit­ness­es also said in an affi­davit that the day before Domika’s body was found, Dudley told her that Domika was dead.

In addi­tion to the with­held police report and sup­port­ing affi­davits, Hill pre­sent­ed an affi­davit from Dr. Martin, recant­i­ng her tes­ti­mo­ny that Domika’s death was a homi­cide. Dr. Martin said that, ​“based in part of my expe­ri­ence as a foren­sic pathol­o­gist over the past 25 years, as well as the sci­en­tif­ic lit­er­a­ture now avail­able that dis­cuss­es more clear­ly the char­ac­ter­is­tics of crush­ing injuries to the head in chil­dren, I believe [the vic­tim’s] head injury is much more con­sis­tent with a crush injury then with inflict­ed impacts, and cer­tain­ly more con­sis­tent with a crush injury than with injuries seen in shak­ing or shaking/​impact.” The doctor’s new state­ment is con­sis­tent with Hill’s claim at the time of tri­al that he had fall­en from a retain­ing wall while hold­ing his daugh­ter and that his knee had land­ed on her head. Martin’s state­ment also reflects the change in sci­en­tif­ic con­sen­sus regard­ing ​“shak­en baby syn­drome,” a diag­no­sis that has sent hun­dreds of par­ents and care­givers to prison, includ­ing some to death row, but has now been debunked in med­ical and legal jour­nals. Two peo­ple, Sabrina Butler and Rodricus Crawford, have been exon­er­at­ed from death row after they were wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed of killing their chil­dren on the basis of false foren­sic tes­ti­mo­ny when the med­ical evi­dence showed no crime had occurred.

The dis­trict court ordered pros­e­cu­tors to retry or release Hill with­in 180 days. The state may appeal the ruling.

(Opinion and Order, Genesis Hill v. Betty Mitchell, United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, April 24, 2019.) See Innocence

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