On December 5, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals grant­ed (5 – 3) Cathy Lynn Henderson a new tri­al based on recent sci­en­tif­ic devel­op­ments about the death of a baby who had been in her care. At one point, Henderson had been two days from exe­cu­tion. The appeals court accept­ed the fac­tu­al find­ings of a dis­trict judge who ruled ear­li­er this year that no rea­son­able juror would have con­vict­ed Henderson if pre­sent­ed with new sci­en­tif­ic dis­cov­er­ies relat­ed to the death of Brandon Baugh. The appeals court stopped short of find­ing actu­al inno­cence, but grant­ed Henderson a new tri­al. The prosecution’s star tri­al-wit­ness, for­mer med­ical exam­in­er Roberto Bayardo, changed his ini­tial diag­no­sis, explain­ing that advance­ments in the under­stand­ing of pedi­atric head injuries now indi­cate that rel­a­tive­ly short falls onto a hard sur­face could pro­duce injuries sim­i­lar to those he dis­cov­ered dur­ing the baby’s 1994 autop­sy. Henderson had claimed the baby died after slip­ping from her arms and falling onto a concrete floor.

(C. Lindell, ​“Henderson grant­ed new tri­al in baby’s 1994 death,” Austin American-Statesman, December 5, 2012). See Innocence and Arbitrariness.

Citation Guide