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Few hopes for freedom left for woman serving life in shaken baby syndrome death

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The case of a woman convicted over 20 years ago for the death of her former-fiance’s son could be reexamined through a conviction integrity unit proposed by Democratic Attorney General candidate Great Kemp Martin.

Tasha Shelby has been serving a life sentence without parole at the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility since her 2000 capital murder conviction for the death of her stepson, Bryan Thompson IV.

Shelby’s attorney, family members and supporters believe she is innocent because of the toddler’s family history of seizures and evolving science behind “Shaken Baby Syndrome.”

They see a conviction integrity unit as one of the last options they could use to free Shelby.

“We’ve been fighting for Tasha for 26 years,” said Shelby’s aunt Penny Warner at a Tuesday press conference with Kemp Martin.

Last week a panel of the state Supreme Court denied her request for a new trial. That leaves Shelby with few options such as asking the attorney general to dismiss her charge or requesting a pardon from the governor’s office, which the supporters have done.

Democratic candidate for Attorney General, Greta Kemp Martin, talks about how she will serve Mississippians from all walks of life if elected, during a press conference held at the Sillers Building. in Jackson, Tuesday, Oct. 24, 2023. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today

Kemp Martin, who met and talked with Shelby last week, said her proposed conviction integrity unit could help her and others across the state. She said the unit would look at cases of innocence, wrongful conviction, prosecutorial misconduct and evidence.

“Her fate is sealed unless someone steps in to intervene,” Kemp Martin said.

Warner planned to visit Shelby after the press conference and tell her about the recent development in her case. The Tennessee native is the relative who lives closest to Shelby, and Warner said she makes the drive down to the Jackson area every few months.

Warner sees Shelby as one of her daughters and she’s waiting for the call that says she can come home. Her niece would live with her, and Warner has already prepared an outfit for her niece to wear when she gets out of prison.

“I cannot do what she has done,” Warner said about her niece being incarcerated for over 20 years. “She has remained so positive. She has a very strong faith and we all pray for her all the time. I kept thinking she’d be home by now.”

A seizure or shaken baby syndrome?

On the early morning of May 30, 1997, 22-year-old Shelby heard a thump and found 2½-year-old Bryan on the floor struggling to breath and having what appeared to be a seizure. She called the toddler’s father who was at work and they rushed the toddler to the hospital.

Tasha Shelby, second from the right, with attorney Valena Beety, far left, and researchers Emily Girvan-Dutton and Astrid Parrett., was convicted of murdering her fiance’s toddler son in 2000. During a hearing to determine whether she should receive a new trial, the state called only one witness: Dr. Scott Benton. Credit: Valena Beety

Prosecutors believed Shelby was responsible for the toddler’s brain injuries. An expert witness for the state who conducted the autopsy testified Bryan’s injuries showed someone intentionally shook him and banged his head against something – injuries consistent with “shaken baby syndrome.”

Yet in a similar later case in Alabama where state expert Dr. Scott Benton was a paid expert for the defense, he offered conflicting testimony.

West Virginia Innocence Project Director Valena Beety took on Shelby’s case in 2011 while working at the Mississippi Innocence Project. In interviews and court filings, Beety has argued that Shelby is innocent, and experts have cited advances in medical science that have undermined shaken baby syndrome – now referred to as abusive head trauma.

LeRoy Riddick, the medical examiner who ruled Bryan’s death a homicide, reexamined medical records and concluded a family history of seizures may have contributed to the toddler’s death and injuries that are consistent with shaken baby syndrome, so he changed the manner of death from homicide to an accident, Mississippi Today reported in its investigation “Shaky Science, Fractured Families.”

From Riddick’s updated opinion and evolving science about shaken baby syndrome, Shelby asked for a new trial. The state called child abuse pediatrician Benton to testify at Shelby’s 2018 Post-Conviction Relief hearing. He maintained that Bryan died from blunt force trauma with shaking.

The next year, a Harrison County Circuit Court judge upheld Shelby’s conviction, saying that shaken baby syndrome hasn’t been “debunked.”

Shelby tried the federal court by filing a habeas petition with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi in 2021, but earlier this year that petition was dismissed because it was time-barred.

Beety, Shelby’s attorney, filed another petition for post-conviction relief in March based on contradictory testimony by Benton, which was first reported in Mississippi Today’s “Shaky Science, Fractured Families” series.

She argued in the court records that the testimony Benton gave as an expert in 2022 for a man accused of child abuse in Alabama would have supported relief for Shelby at her 2018 post-conviction relief hearing.

The motion for post-conviction relief also cited new evidence: one of the jurors in Shelby’s case was the toddler’s great-uncle by marriage and had heard about the child’s death before trial, according to court records.

A panel of the state Supreme Court dismissed Shelby’s request for a new trial but allowed the George Cochran Innocence Project at Ole Miss to file an amicus brief to support her. Beety, Shelby’s attorney, said the order did not make sense, so she has filed a motion for clarification this week.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Mississippi Today

On this day in 1997

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mississippitoday.org – Jerry Mitchell – 2024-12-22 07:00:00

Dec. 22, 1997

Myrlie Evers and Reena Evers-Everette cheer the jury verdict of Feb. 5, 1994, when Byron De La Beckwith was found guilty of the 1963 murder of Mississippi NAACP leader Medgar Evers. Credit: AP/Rogelio Solis

The Mississippi Supreme Court upheld the conviction of white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith for the 1963 murder of Medgar Evers. 

In the court’s 4–2 decision, Justice Mike Mills praised efforts “to squeeze justice out of the harm caused by a furtive explosion which erupted from dark bushes on a June night in Jackson, Mississippi.” 

He wrote that Beckwith’s constitutional right to a speedy trial had not been denied. His “complicity with the Sovereignty Commission’s involvement in the prior trials contributed to the delay.” 

The decision did more than ensure that Beckwith would stay behind bars. The conviction helped clear the way for other prosecutions of unpunished killings from the Civil Rights Era.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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Mississippi Today

Medicaid expansion tracker approaches $1 billion loss for Mississippi

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mississippitoday.org – Bobby Harrison – 2024-12-22 06:00:00

About the time people ring in the new year next week, the digital tracker on Mississippi Today’s homepage tabulating the amount of money the state is losing by not expanding Medicaid will hit $1 billion.

The state has lost $1 billion not since the start of the quickly departing 2024 but since the beginning of the state’s fiscal year on July 1.

Some who oppose Medicaid expansion say the digital tracker is flawed.

During an October news conference, when state Auditor Shad White unveiled details of his $2 million study seeking ways to cut state government spending, he said he did not look at Medicaid expansion as a method to save money or grow state revenue.

“I think that (Mississippi Today) calculator is wrong,” White said. “… I don’t think that takes into account how many people are going to be moved off the federal health care exchange where their health care is paid for fully by the federal government and moved onto Medicaid.”

White is not the only Mississippi politician who has expressed concern that if Medicaid expansion were enacted, thousands of people would lose their insurance on the exchange and be forced to enroll in Medicaid for health care coverage.

Mississippi Today’s projections used for the tracker are based on studies conducted by the Institutions of Higher Learning University Research Center. Granted, there are a lot of variables in the study that are inexact. It is impossible to say, for example, how many people will get sick and need health care, thus increasing the cost of Medicaid expansion. But is reasonable that the projections of the University Research Center are in the ballpark of being accurate and close to other studies conducted by health care experts.

White and others are correct that Mississippi Today’s calculator does not take into account money flowing into the state for people covered on the health care exchange. But that money does not go to the state; it goes to insurance companies that, granted, use that money to reimburse Mississippians for providing health care. But at least a portion of the money goes to out-of-state insurance companies as profits.

Both Medicaid expansion and the health care exchange are part of the Affordable Care Act. Under Medicaid expansion people earning up to $20,120 annually can sign up for Medicaid and the federal government will pay the bulk of the cost. Mississippi is one of 10 states that have not opted into Medicaid expansion.

People making more than $14,580 annually can garner private insurance through the health insurance exchanges, and people below certain income levels can receive help from the federal government in paying for that coverage.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, legislation championed and signed into law by President Joe Biden significantly increased the federal subsidies provided to people receiving insurance on the exchange. Those increased subsidies led to many Mississippians — desperate for health care — turning to the exchange for help.

White, state Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney, Gov. Tate Reeves and others have expressed concern that those people would lose their private health insurance and be forced to sign up for Medicaid if lawmakers vote to expand Medicaid.

They are correct.

But they do not mention that the enhanced benefits authored by the Biden administration are scheduled to expire in December 2025 unless they are reenacted by Congress. The incoming Donald Trump administration has given no indication it will continue the enhanced subsidies.

As a matter of fact, the Trump administration, led by billionaire Elon Musk, is looking for ways to cut federal spending.

Some have speculated that Medicaid expansion also could be on Musk’s chopping block.

That is possible. But remember congressional action is required to continue the enhanced subsidies. On the flip side, congressional action would most likely be required to end or cut Medicaid expansion.

Would the multiple U.S. senators and House members in the red states that have expanded Medicaid vote to end a program that is providing health care to thousands of their constituents?

If Congress does not continue Biden’s enhanced subsidies, the rates for Mississippians on the exchange will increase on average about $500 per year, according to a study by KFF, a national health advocacy nonprofit. If that occurs, it is likely that many of the 280,000 Mississippians on the exchange will drop their coverage.

The result will be that Mississippi’s rate of uninsured — already one of the highest in the nation – will rise further, putting additional pressure on hospitals and other providers who will be treating patients who have no ability to pay.

In the meantime, the Mississippi Today counter that tracks the amount of money Mississippi is losing by not expanding Medicaid keeps ticking up.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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Mississippi Today

On this day in 1911

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mississippitoday.org – Jerry Mitchell – 2024-12-21 07:00:00

Dec. 21, 1911

A colorized photograph of Josh Gibson, who was playing with the Homestead Grays Credit: Wikipedia

Josh Gibson, the Negro League’s “Home Run King,” was born in Buena Vista, Georgia. 

When the family’s farm suffered, they moved to Pittsburgh, and Gibson tried baseball at age 16. He eventually played for a semi-pro team in Pittsburgh and became known for his towering home runs. 

He was watching the Homestead Grays play on July 25, 1930, when the catcher injured his hand. Team members called for Gibson, sitting in the stands, to join them. He was such a talented catcher that base runners were more reluctant to steal. He hit the baseball so hard and so far (580 feet once at Yankee Stadium) that he became the second-highest paid player in the Negro Leagues behind Satchel Paige, with both of them entering the National Baseball Hame of Fame. 

The Hall estimated that Gibson hit nearly 800 homers in his 17-year career and had a lifetime batting average of .359. Gibson was portrayed in the 1996 TV movie, “Soul of the Game,” by Mykelti Williamson. Blair Underwood played Jackie Robinson, Delroy Lindo portrayed Satchel Paige, and Harvey Williams played “Cat” Mays, the father of the legendary Willie Mays. 

Gibson has now been honored with a statue outside the Washington Nationals’ ballpark.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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