CrimProf Keith Findley Gets Client a New Trial in Shaken Baby Case

Twelve years after Audrey Edmunds of Waunakee was sent to prison on charges of shaking a baby to death, a Wisconsin appeals court has overturned her conviction and ordered a new trial, based on new research on shaken baby syndrome.

Edmunds’s attorney,University of Wisconsin Law School CrimProf Keith Findley, co-director of the Wisconsin Innocence Project at the UW Law School, called the January 31 decision "absolutely wonderful" for Edmunds, who has always insisted on her innocence. Edmunds was a day-care provider when the seven-month-old child died after being dropped off with her in 1995.

"It’s an enormous decision for Audrey, but I also think it’s absolutely the right decision," Findley said. "It’s the just outcome in this case."

Edmunds has been serving an 18-year sentence after being convicted in 1996.

At the time of Edmunds’s conviction, doctors who raised the questions that are now being asked were viewed as extremists, Findley said, while now they are part of the mainstream. [Mark Godsey]