Jones v. State

• Decision Date: 01 December 2020
• Docket Number: No. 0087,0087
• Parties: CLARENCE JONES, III v. STATE OF MARYLAND
• Court: Court of Special Appeals of Maryland

CLARENCE JONES, III v. STATE OF MARYLAND

No. 0087

COURT OF SPECIAL APPEALS OF MARYLAND

September Term, 2019

December 1, 2020

Circuit Court for Baltimore County

Case No. 03-K-98-003820

UNREPORTED

Kehoe, Reed, Kenney, James A., III (Senior Judge, Specially Assigned), JJ.

Opinion by Kenney, J.

*This is an unreported opinion, and it may not be cited in any paper, brief, motion, or other document filed in this Court or any other Maryland Court as either precedent within the rule of stare decisis or as persuasive authority. Md. Rule 1-104.

In 1999, after a bench trial in the Circuit Court for Baltimore County, appellant Clarence Jones was convicted of second-degree murder and child abuse of his infant son, Collin Jones, based on a diagnosis of Shaken Baby Syndrome ("SBS").¹ He was sentenced to thirty years of incarceration for second-degree murder and a concurrent fifteen years for child abuse.² In 2016, Mr. Jones filed a Petition for Writ of Actual Innocence. Following a seven-day hearing, the circuit court denied relief. Mr. Jones filed a timely appeal, presenting two questions for our review:³

1. Did the circuit court err in ruling that most of Mr. Jones's evidence was not "newly discovered" as defined in § 8-301 of the Criminal Procedure Article ("CP")?

2. Did the court err in ruling that there is no substantial or significant possibility of a different result at trial had the trier of fact heard all of Mr. Jones's newly discovered evidence?

For the reasons that follow, we reverse and remand for further proceedings.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Collin was born on June 21, 1998 at the Greater Baltimore Medical Center; he was pronounced dead at Sinai Hospital on August 31, 1998. According to his pediatrician, Dr. Shari Reichenberg, he had several medical complications at birth. A traumatic vaginal delivery resulted in scalp bruising, "overlapping sutures" (material holding infant skull bones together), and red blood spots (petechiae) "on his skin, bleeding from the gums, [and] bleeding from the nose." Collin spent six days in in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit because "he had swallowed some meconium," which is newborn stool, and had respiratory difficulties. He also had thrombocytopenia, which is a blood clotting disorder causing a low platelet count.⁴

On July 14, 1998, Collin was brought to Dr. Reichenberg's office after "spit[ting] up some blood and not eating" the night before. When he presented "pale and clammy and [was] breathing rapidly," Dr. Reichenberg ordered a chest x-ray. Because he was still "breathing very rapidly and was pale," when he returned from the x-ray, she "sent him to the emergency room at Sinai." Based on the x-ray scans, which showed bacteriainfiltrates or consolidation, Dr. Reichenberg diagnosed Collin with pneumonia.⁵ When he did not respond within the normal time range to a course of IV antibiotics and his respiratory rate had increased, he was transferred to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. He was discharged on July 19, 1998.

On August 25, 1998, after feeding Collin, Mr. Jones let him sleep. But later, hearing "sputtering noises coming from Collin," and seeing "baby formula emanating from his nose and mouth," Mr. Jones took Collin, now nine-weeks old, to the emergency room at Sinai.

Upon arrival at the hospital, Collin was in respiratory distress with an "undulating" heart rate "between 60 to 80." Within hours of his arrival, doctors had concluded that Collin's collapse was "due to [SBS]." Dr. Bernhard Zunkeler, a neurosurgeon, after noting in his 11:30 pm report that Collin had "no external signs of trauma" and that his hemorrhages "may be 7-14 days old or may reflect low hematocrit⁶ of the blood," concluded that the "only possible cause [was] forceful 'abuse.'"

On August 26, 1998, Detective Phillip Marll of the Baltimore County Police Department "was notified to respond in reference to . . . a possible shaken baby case." After speaking with the treating physicians, Dr. Timothy Polk and Dr. Aaron Zuckerberg, he interviewed Collin's parents at their Baltimore County apartment.

After the interview, Detective Marll asked the parents to accompany him and his partner to the Baltimore County Police Department to provide written statements. After obtaining his statement, Detective Marll asked Mr. Jones "a series of questions to follow up on the written statement he wrote." "[O]ne of the questions was, 'If you didn't cause the injuries to Collin, then who did?'" According to Detective Marll:

During our interview with him he became upset with the questioning, saying, "it didn't happen, it didn't happen." At this time I told him, "it did happen. All you have to do is go to the hospital and see him lying there. The doctors aren't lying. They aren't making this up. Your son has been shaken."

Mr. Jones became loud and kept repeating, "it didn't happen. I didn't hurt him. No one hurt him. I didn't drop him."

Detective Marll stated that Mr. Jones said "I slightly shook Collin since he was having difficulty breathing" while driving to the hospital. "And he showed us how he shook him, barely moving his hand back and forth" and said "he knew that wasn't enough to hurt Collin."

Collin's condition continued to deteriorate. He showed signs of increased brain tissue-damage and swelling from lack of oxygen (hypoxic-ischemic-encephalopathy⁷ or "HIE"). He was pronounced dead on August 31, 1998. The hospital's death report listed intracerebral edema as the principal diagnosis, with Disseminated Intravascular Coagulation⁸ ("DIC"), sepsis, brain death, acute respiratory failure, and blood in the stool as secondary diagnoses.

The Trial

Mr. Jones was charged with first-degree murder and child abuse following Collin's death.

At the March 1999 trial, Detective Marll testified:

[Mr. Jones] went on to say that he - that [when Collin's mother] . . . went to work approximately 2:00 p.m. on the 25^th of August . . . Collin was laying in the swing. He was awake, he was smiling, acting well and alert.

He said that after she left, he kept Collin in the swing and was preparing to do weight lifting, work out in the spare bedroom of the residence. He said the swing was located in the living room and he kept an eye on Collin from the spare bedroom where he was doing his weight lifting.

Mr. Jones continued to say he worked out to approximately five o'clock p.m. at which time Collin began to cry. He said he completed his routine and prepared a seven-ounce bottle of Similac baby formula. He said Collin drank approximately six ounces before he fell asleep. He said he laid him in the portable crib on his back with a foam protector against his head to keep him from rolling on his side and stomach.

After he did that he said he pushed the crib to the weight room, the spare bedroom, and turned the radio on to symphonic music, and began to prepare to take a shower in the bathroom located off the spare bedroom. And after taking a shower, he said he went into the master bedroom and fell asleep for approximately one and one-half to two hours.

He said upon waking up Mr. Jones heard sputtering noises coming from Collin. When he checked Collin, he observed the baby formula emanating from his nose and mouth. He said he wiped the formula away and noticed his breathing was difficult. And he said he immediately transported Collin to Sinai Hospital, since Collin had been treated at that facility in July for pneumonia.

The State presented medical expert witnesses who testified to a reasonable degree of medical certainty that the cause of Collin's death was violent shaking:

• Dr. Dennis Chute, an expert in forensic pathology, explained that SBS is "a constellation of findings that's the result of violently shaking an infant . . . swelling of the brain, bleeding on the open surface of the brain near the membranes that cover the brain, and bleeding into the retinas of the eyes." He identified Collin's "cause of death [as] Shaken Baby Syndrome."

• Dr. Aaron Zuckerberg, an expert in pediatric critical care, testified that the cause of Collin's injuries and death "was [the] complete cessation of blood flow to hisbrain and he was shaken." He explained "[t]hat retinal hemorrhage,⁹bleeding into the eye in a child is pathognomonic,¹⁰defines child abuse, defines severe acceleration/deceleration shaking." (Emphasis added).

• Dr. Allen Walker, a pediatric critical care consultant, testified that "Collin's injuries were the result of shaking, violent shaking, resulting primarily in brain injury which caused his death." (Emphasis added). According to Dr. Walker, the violent shaking caused torn axons and extensive bleeding.

• Dr. Timothy Polk, an ophthalmology consultant, testified that he could "imagine no possible cause other than violent shaking to cause [Collin's] injuries." And given "the entire constellation . . . [he could] come to no conclusion other than violent shaking" as the cause. Dr. Polk, like Dr. Zuckerberg, identified retinal hemorrhaging in infants as virtually pathognomonic of violent shaking and the most likely explanation of Collin's death.¹¹ (Emphasis added).

• State's experts at Mr. Jones's 1999 trial explained that they considered, but rejected, disease as a cause for Collin's death. For example, Dr. Zuckerberg found no evidence of septicemia¹² because septicemia shows "end organ effects" like renal damage and cardiac and pulmonary dysfunction. Dr. Polk concluded from Collin's normal platelet count when he arrived at the emergency room that Collin did not have a clotting disorder. And he also discounted septicemia because, while it could cause retinal hemorrhages, they are "moderate and localized, exclusive to the retina" and would not account for Collin's other eye injuries. Heruled out Terson's syndrome¹³ based on the eye injuries found alongside the retinal hemorrhages.

Dr. Rudiger Breitnecker, a forensic pathologist, testified for the defense:

I thought it was [] Shaken Baby Syndrome, and that's the end of it.

But looking over the history and studying

...