January 12, 2022 • 38 mins
Stephanie Spurgeon was a married mother of two who had been running a daycare facility from her home for 15 years. On August 21, 2008, Stephanie took care of 1 year old Maria Harris for the first time. Maria’s grandmother picked her up that day, but soon noticed Maria was unresponsive. After 8 days in the hospital, Maria passed away. Since Stephanie was the last supervisor of the child, she was accused of murder and convicted of manslaughter based on the prosecution’s dubious argument of soft impact Abusive Head Trauma.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Stephanie Spurgeon was a married mother of two and a
licensed childcare provider who had been running a daycare facility
from her home in Florida for fifteen years. On August
twenty one, two thousand and eight, one year old Maria
Harris spent her first day at Stephanie's daycare. Maria's grandmother
had picked up a sleeping Maria that day, but soon
after had noticed that Maria was unresponsive and in distress.
(00:26):
Ignoring other potential root causes and relying on the junk
science of shaken baby syndrome, doctors opined that brain bleed
and swelling were signs of child abuse, placing blame on
the brand new childcare provider, Stephanie Spurgeon, and when Maria
died seven days later, the charges were upgraded to murder,
but with the lack of external injuries, the state changed
(00:49):
its shaken baby theory, concocting a new narrative in which
Maria had been repeatedly struck against the soft surface. The
defense failed to pivot to this new theory, instead presenting
a shape can baby syndrome defense, and with the state's
uncontested yet totally dubious soft impact theory. The jury found
Stephanie guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter and sentenced
(01:11):
her to fifteen years in prison. With the help of
multiple innocence projects and a current candidate for state's attorney,
Stephanie was able to present the proper expert testimony. This
proved the state's ludicrous soft impact theory, win a new trial,
and ultimately be set free after nine long years. This
(01:31):
is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction. Today's episode
is well, I'm gonna be honest with you, it's terrifying
(01:52):
because this is a story that is both unique and
also somehow not uncommon, and it involves an innocent woman
working at a daycare center who got caught up in
the criminal legal system for no reason of her own making.
I'm going to introduce our incredible guests today, because we
(02:14):
have three, including the woman who lived through this nightmare herself,
Stephanie Spurgeon. First, I'm going to introduce are very distinguished group.
Seth Miller is here. He's the executive director of the
Innocence Project of Florida. Does incredible work day in and
day out, pushing huge boulders uphills of justice. So Seth,
(02:34):
thanks for being here. Thanks Jason, thrilled to be here
and with him and with us. Is Alison Miller no relation.
She is an attorney with Ripley wisen Hunt and is
also currently running for the State's Attorney Office of Florida.
And I hope people will support her because we need
people like you in positions like that. But for the
(02:56):
time being, we're happy to have you right where you
are and right here on the mike. So, Alison Mill
are welcome to Ronval Conviction. Thank you so much for
having me. And Stephanie, what can I say, I feel
like the whole human race owes you a debt of
gratitude for sharing your story and for just being the strong,
courageous woman that you are, and I appreciate you being here.
(03:16):
So Stephanie to you. Also welcome to Ronfo Conviction. Thank you, Jason.
It's my pleasure. And so Stephanie. This is a story
that we've heard time and time again where somebody like
yourself is doing you know, let's call it what it is,
essential work. Where would we be as a society without
daycare center? The working world would grind to a halt.
(03:36):
And yet people like you too often end up in
situations like the one we're talking about today. I mean,
it really makes my heart hurt. But let's please take
us back before this incident happened in two thousand and eight.
Can you tell us what your life was like back then.
I was married for nineteen years, and I had two
beautiful children. We had a beautiful life. We were a
(03:59):
well knit family. We did a lot of family vacations.
I was a license in home daycare provider for fifteen years.
The parents that would come into my home, they became
part of my family, their kids became part of my family.
We would celebrate holidays together, in different things. It was
very fulfilling. I was able to work with children. I
(04:21):
was able to be at home with my own children.
I decided at one point to go into special needs children.
So I took lots of children that came in who
had speech issues or different disabilities, and I grew a
real heart for these kids because not a lot of
places would accept any special needs children. And then I
(04:43):
decided to branch off a little bit further and start
taking teenage parent children. So Esther Harris was actually the
very first team mom that I took. She was seventeen
years old when I was introduced to her, Maria. And
so not only are you taking care of other people's kids,
you're doing it in your own home, opening your doors
(05:06):
and your heart and taking care of kids who have
issues that other people well might not want to open
their home to or or their hearts, right. I mean,
so this case, I'd like to say it happened a
long time ago, but it really didn't write. I mean,
it would feel a little bit better if it was
back before we had science evolved to a place that
it was at in two thousand eight, which is when
(05:27):
this tragedy occurred, of course. And I said tragedy, not crime.
That's deliberate, because that's what it was. And so, Seth,
do you want to set the stage for us of
what happened on that awful day and how this became
a criminal matter. When I think about these cases when
a child dies, a lot of times the folks involved
in trying to figure out how that happened kind of
(05:48):
go nutty. They aren't able to take sober views of
what might have happened to that child. And that's what
happened here in this case. Stephie Spurgeon was running in
a home daycare to home. It was better business. Bureau
rated had generations worth of children who come through the
daycare who really positive experiences, their families have positive experiences.
And the child, Maria Harris, was our first day at
(06:10):
the daycare, and yet on this day, this poor child
was suffering from what was clearly a distress, a medical situation.
When Maria's grandmother, Patricia came and picked her up that day,
Maria had been sleeping. So I reached into the pack
and play and I picked her up, and she kind
of stirred in my arms, and I passed her to Patricia,
(06:31):
and she stirred in Patricia's arms, and then Patricia took
her and placed her in the car and drove her home.
Thirty minutes later is when we got the phone call. Maria,
I guess was deteriorating as she was sleeping, and I
was unaware that there was any issue because I simply
thought she was asleep. At the end of the day,
the child was growing up. The child was crying and
(06:53):
was clearly kind of lifeless in a lot of ways,
and called nine one one. It took a child to
the hospital. And when we're on the way to the hospital.
They tested the child's blood sugar and the child had
high four hundreds of blood sugar. And I don't know
if any of y'all have diabetes or test your blood
sugar regularly, but that is four to five times the
normal level. So this child is in major distress. What
(07:14):
they do when they get this child to the hospital
is they realize after doing a number of tests on
the child that the child suffering from a brain lead
a subdural hematoma, and the child has brain swelling and
that has led to the child having retinal hemorrhages. And
instead of treating the child for what looked like a
diabetic situation, a diabetic distress because the child had the
(07:37):
subdural hematona, because the child had the brain swelling and
the retinal hemorrhages, the doctors immediately assumed that this was
an abusive situation because they thought that this was the
three ingredients, the triad as they call it, caused by
taking baby syndrome or what is more commonly known now
is abusive head trauma. So that had a chance to
try to treat this child to maybe ameliorate or even
(07:59):
prevent and a bigger problem or death, to treat this metabolic,
this diabetic situation, but instead they assumed it was abuse.
And we're often running taking a medical situation and elevating
it to the crime, and unfortunately child died seven days later.
The idea that this might have been prevented if they
just simply focused on the problem at hand rather than
(08:21):
turning this into wild accusations of child abuse makes my
blood boil. I mean, and I think it's worth mentioning.
As we've covered extensively on our show Junk Science and
other episodes of Wrongful Conviction as well, just a general
overview of the theory of shaking baby syndrome or SPS. Now.
It was initially introduced as a hypothesis by British pediatric
(08:44):
neurosurgeon Dr Norman guth Kelch, who was trying to explain
a cause for an explicable child deaths in which a
child or baby, toddler whatever had presented subdual hematoma otherwise
known as bleeding in the brain retinal hemorrhage, so you
know bleeding in the eye is in brain swelling or
cerebral a demon Now. Dr cuth Kelch hypothesized that perhaps
(09:06):
a typical method of scolding a child in Great Britain
at the time, giving the child a good shake. Maybe
that was the cause for unintended or unexplained child deaths
in which this triad of medical findings occurred. He never
was able to prove this, He just hypothesized it and
caution parents against the practice. Understandably, however, since that hypothesis,
the criminal legal system just sort of random up with
(09:28):
this idea, right leaping to the conclusion that any child
presenting those symptoms, especially if there was any other bruisings,
had been fatally abused like sort of one size fits all,
which is ridiculous, and that the person less responsible for
the child therefore must have been the culprit. And I
think we as people understanding the inner workings of the
human mind, when bad things happen, we want to be
(09:50):
able to say there's someone or something responsible for that
bad thing happening. And so where there was a legitimate
science maybe at the inception, this idea has been horribly
bastardized to get convictions involving Usually the depth of infants
are toddlers, and Stephanie's case is a perfect example of that.
(10:11):
Where there is legitimate scientific evidence that this child was
in medical distress that went ignored by medical professionals because
it was easier to say, oh, this child must have
been harmed. Yeah, And it's worth noting that in recent years,
as doctors and larger and larger numbers have been challenging
the notion of shaking baby syndrome, they've identified get this,
(10:33):
over eighty different pre existing conditions that can cause what
they call the triad of findings that were historically just
attributed to shaking baby syndrome almost automatically. Right. So the
science is there, but I mean, I wish I could
say when the criminal legal system is going to catch up.
It's entirely possible that it never will because science, let's face,
(10:54):
it looks forward, while the legal system only looks backward
at precedent, sort of the opposite. And so Stephanie, if
you could take us back to when you were arrested,
what all happened before the trial. My first arrest was
August August twenty two, maybe two thousand and eight. I
(11:14):
was arrested on aggravated child abuse. I went to Nells
County Jail. I was housed in a solitaire cell because,
of course, my face was on the news. And I
was able to bond out the next day. I think
it's important to say my bond was fifty thou dollars,
and my parents got an attorney for me, which was
fifty thousand dollars, So right away we're in the hole.
(11:38):
I came home and was unable to have a daycare
of course, so I had no income, so that became
an issue immediately. Maria passed away seven days later. I
was re arrested six weeks later, on November eighth, two
thousand eight, on capital felony murder. I just taken my
(12:00):
son to his bus stop in the morning, and when
I came back home, I put up in the driveway,
like three squad cars surrounded me, and everybody come racing out,
screamed and yelling, and put me in cuffs and put
me in the back of the cruiser and took me
back to County Jail. When they brought me in from
booking that day, they brought me straight to a solitaire
(12:21):
cell in the lobby area, and I could look out
and see my face on the news. And as I'm
looking at my face on the news, I'm looking at
the other inmates that are in there getting processed in
and they're all looking back at me and that solitaire cell.
So it was a very scary situation. There was a
(12:42):
grand jury hearing, and the attorney that I had that
was he wouldn't try a capital case, so we had
to hire another firm and they cost us a hundred thousand.
I ended up getting indicted and then we moved for
a bond hearing. My bond hearing was successful, except it
(13:02):
was three hundred and fifty thousand dollars with an angle
monitor and no contact with any child in the age
of twelve. I thought there was no way that my
family was ever going to be able to come up
with those kind of funds because we had already spent
so much. They did come up with it. They fundraised,
(13:23):
they drained all of their savings, accounts, everything, and one night,
on January two thousand and nine, after I think eighty
nine days in a solitaire cell, I was released at
two am, so I was able to come home and
wake both of my kids up. My daughter and I
ended up sitting on the front porch and a rocking
(13:44):
chair and watch the sunrise together. It was very hard
to sleep because I kept thinking I was going to
wake up and be back in there. The nightmare I
would be there again. This episode is underwritten by a
(14:06):
i G, a leading global insurance company, and by Accenture,
a global professional services company with leading capabilities in digital,
cloud and security. Working to reform the criminal justice system
is a key pillar of the ai G pro Bono program,
which provides free legal services and other support to many
nonprofit organizations and individuals most in need as part of
(14:28):
Accenture's commitment to racial and civil justice. Accenture's Legal Access
Program provides pro bono legal services in partnership with more
than forty organizations, bringing meaningful change to people and communities worldwide.
(14:48):
There were signals even before the trial that the state
was going to move away from a shaking baby syndrome diagnosis.
The real issue in this case is that we had
these presentations in the brain and the skull, and the
doctors were used to saying so this could only be abused,
it's shaking baby syndrome. The problem is these things are
normally associated with signs of abuse external injuries, and this
(15:11):
child did not have a scratch or bruise or not
even a single mark on her, and so the doctors
are trying to figure out, well, how can we make
this abuse and explain away the fact that there's no
visual injuries on this child? And this is how what
they call the child abuse pediatrician I'm using air quotes.
She came up with the theory that, well, the reason
there's no injuries that are apparent on the outside is
(15:33):
because this child was slam repeatedly on a soft surface
like a crib mattress. So this case is nutty, right,
because you don't see it very often that the state
changes their theory sort of midstream, right, So then they
came up with this soft impact theory. But the crazy
thing is it seemed like her attorneys were defending a
(15:58):
different theory than the one that the state was trying
to convict her on. Am I mistaken about that? That's
exactly right. The defensetourney was very focused on shaking BNY syndrome.
And when I deposed this attorney in post conviction, I
asked them about cases that he had done previously, and
what I found out was that he had done a
series of shaking baby syndrome cases where he got favorable
(16:18):
results for his clients. So he had his pat experts
and a formula for how he would approach these cases.
But he simply failed to learn his own case well
enough to know that he could not simply employ the
same formula that he employed in other cases where shaken
baby syndrome was a theory. Because not all cases are
the same, they're not creating equal In this case, the
(16:38):
state had already abandoned the shaken baby syndrome theory for
this soft impact theory. And so we're pressing along. In
a case they get to buy a mechanical expert. They
do the thing that a lot of people don't do.
They get the right expert. They prepared that expert, but
they prepared them for the wrong theory. And there was
this striking moment in the trial where after the defense
(16:59):
attorney sits down, he thinks he's done a great job
with the biomechanical expert. And the first question the state
asked the expert when they get up is who told
you that this was a shaking baby syndrome case. It
was a devastating moment in the trial. And of course
he could have put his expert back up, got them
to prepare all the calculations, and he failed to do
(17:19):
that because he just didn't even understand his own case.
The State of Florida, in their prosecution of Stephanie, relied
on one particular pediatrician that they frequently rely on. It's
so hard because these doctors and experts come in to
court couched with credibility and reliability, and especially in areas
(17:39):
like Vanilla's and Pasco County where we've used the same
experts forever, it's hard helping whoever the fact finder is,
jurors or judges to understand this is a misapplication of science.
And so you get doctors that come in and they
use words that we as average folks don't understand, and
(18:00):
it sounds like, well, it must be true. And then
at the end it's with the conclusion that this child
died as a result of intentionally inflicted abusive trauma. Yeah,
so the deck is truly stacked against even someone like Stephanie. Right,
she gets swept under this title wave of nonsense that
comes from preconceived biases and notions and things. Right, because
(18:22):
someone sees her in the defendive chair, they automatically assumed
somebody who was there must have done something to be there. Right,
there's that you have to overcome. Then, as you said,
there's all the medical stuff. A guy gets up there
and reads his credentials sounds very impressive, and then spouting
these theories that most jurors are not equipped to understand
or unpack, so they think they're doing the right thing.
And I have empathy for them too for making these mistakes.
(18:44):
And Stephanie, you've lived through this, so I want to
get back to you. What was this like from your
perspective as a mom nineteen years married, you know, upstanding
citizen to say the least, Well, Jason, I was absolutely devastating,
to say the least. Kept waiting for the truth to prevail.
I knew that I didn't hurt Maria, so I knew
(19:06):
that something would eventually come to surface that would show
what had happened. It was terrifying, terrifying for me, It
was terrifying for my children. It was terrifying from my
then husband. It was awful, and in the end, it
destroyed our whole family. I got a divorce, went to prison,
(19:26):
and my kids grew up without their mom. How old
were the kids when this happened. My son was twelve
and my daughter was seventeen. So Stephanie, when the jury
went out. Can you tell us what you were thinking
at that time? Did you think that finally this wrong
would be righted and this nightmare would come to an end.
(19:49):
I just kept thinking that eventually they would realize that
there's no way that I did this, That nobody hurt Maria.
There had to have been something else. The jury deliberated
for twenty one and a half hours before they came
back with an acquittal of capital failony murder but a
guilty charge and manslaughter. I heard a horrible noise from
(20:14):
behind me, and it was my son crying out. It
was surreal. It just felt like I was in a fog.
I remember mouthing I love you to my family before
they helped being out of court room and put me
back in that solitaire. So I got to prison. I
(20:44):
was absolutely terrified and had to learn very quickly how
to adapt in a maximum security prison. You have to
always pay attention to what's going around you, and you
have to kind of learn how to bob and weave
between people. You didn't want to draw any attention to yourself.
It's a very scary place, and not only is it
scary from the other inmates, but not all the officers
(21:07):
are on the up and up. The officers are also
very scary. So I got to prison, and naturally I
was quite angry, and I knew that if I didn't
do something with my anger, I was just going to
go down a dark path. So I threw myself into
learning about my own case, and I got certified and
(21:30):
became a law clerk, which of course is how I
met a man of Bromfield. We were co workers in
the law library. We both left the maximum security prison
and we found ourselves at a faith and character based
war camp and that was a much safer environment, albeit
did not have a c so it was extremely excruciatingly odd,
(21:53):
but I traded the heat for the safety, and I
worked with Amanda in the law library and we did
every think we could for other people in there, meanwhile,
both learning each other's case as well as our own case.
And that's how I survived. Yeah. I don't know where.
I don't know where they fake people like you that
(22:13):
find this sort of otherworldly strength, spirit, courage, whatever you
want to call it. But I'm just glad you did,
and I'm glad that Amanda Broomfield did as well. I mean,
she just recently joined us here on wrongful convictions, and yeah,
I'm so freaking glad that you both found the strength
to pull through and be here. Well, I had a
good support system, Jason. I had wonderful parents and my
(22:36):
brother and my children, and they made sure I had
all of my needs because you know, in prison they
don't give you shampoo and deodorant and things like that.
You have to buy these things. Thankfully, I had an
amazing support system that are still my support system. And
you know, it was very touching because not only did
(22:56):
I have a support system for my family, but my
clients and the childcare. All of my daycare babies that
I've raised grew up and sent me checks while I
was in prison to help pay for whatever I needed
in there. So these daycare babies that I raised were
taking care of being while I was in prison. Well
(23:17):
that's full circle, isn't it. I Mean, it's a little
bit of light in a miserable dark place and speaks
to your character as well. So, Seth Alison, how did
this then eventually make its way to your desks? And
how did the process finally right itself? You know what's
unique I think about this case is that it got
(23:38):
to us so much earlier than a lot of other cases.
I've gotten guys out of prison who have spent thirty
or thirty five or over forty years in prison, and
once you find out about that one thirty years on
the line, it's very hard to rectify that. It's a
reclamation project that sometimes it's beset with procedural problems that
doesn't really allow you to turn it around. But here
(23:58):
we were able to get in on the initial post
conviction motion, where you have all of the potential claims
available to you have no procedural problems. And so we
only did that because Stephanie wrote to us almost immediately
after her initial appeal was denied. And what was interesting
is that she had written to us. I was litigating
another case with Kate Judson, and we come to find
(24:20):
out that this other person's case, Amanda Brownfield and Stephanie
we're friends in prison, and that's kind of how Stephanie
got hooked up with us. I remember being in the
car driving home from a different prison visit talking to
Kate about Stephanie's application and saying, Hey, you want to
do another one, and that was kind of like, yeah,
let's get it this case has some crazy issues in it.
So what became clear to us is what we've already
(24:42):
talked about. The lawyer didn't use the bio mechanical engineer
that he had at his disposal to rebut the state's
soft impactory how this supposed abuse happened. What happens is
that juries are looking for an answer, and the prosecution
gave them an answer. It's incumbent upon the defense to
rebut that if you don't, your client's going to be convicted.
(25:02):
And so what happened here is that not only did
they not give them an answer, they put up another
expert who agreed that this was from violent trauma. So
the defense expert agreed is from violent trauma, and they
never went into any of them lying medical issues that
were very clear that existed. So that was kind of
what we focus. Can we get the biomic an engineer
to look at the studies through the calculations to prove
that slamming on a soft surface can't cause these injuries?
(25:25):
And can we talk to pediatric endochronologist, pediatric genesist, forensic
pathologists or clinical pathologists, a new radiologist to look at
all of this material in the case. To help us
understand whether this could even be trauma and if it wasn't,
trauma could come from another underlying medical issue, particularly issue
of related diabetes. And when we were able to do that,
(25:46):
what we found out is that we had an expert,
a biomechanical expert, who was able to say with supreme
confidence that this slamming on a soft service could not
have scientifically caused this child's injuries, because he did the
pre eminent study of just this type of scenario, and
it proven that a human of Stephanie's size can't create
enough force to cause those injuries in that child's brain
(26:08):
without also causing massive external injuries of course there were none,
and so scientifically that they couldn't do that. Our experts
together showed that this was a situation where the child
had a blood clot in their brain. The blood clot
in their brain caused spillover bleeding into the brain because
blood couldn't get out of the brain back to the
(26:28):
other parts of the body, and that caused swelling in
the brain, which caused the retinal hemorrhages which caused this
child's disease. And all of this was caused by thicking
of the blood due to a diabetic situation. And so
we had this evidence now, but the key was to
show that the trial council violated Stephanie's constitutional right to
council and effective assistance of that council by not bringing
about all of this information, all of which would prove
(26:51):
that there was no crime here and that this child
died from a tragic a medical situation that was just undiagnosed.
So that's what we did. What was it like, Stephanie,
when all of a sudden You've got sort of the
dream team, right, I mean the Florida Innocence Project. Those
of us who worked in the Innocence moviment know that
the Florida innescens Project is held in the highest regard.
(27:12):
So when you got the letter or a call or
whatever it was saying that they were going to represent you,
what was that like, Well, it was a phone call
from Seth at the Florida Innocence Project and he patched
through Kay Judson. At that time, she was with the
Innocence Project of Wisconsin now with the Center for Integrity
and Forensic Science. And I also had Josh Teffer, who
(27:35):
is with the Exoneration Project out of Chicago, so it
was unbelievable to know that not only did I managed
to get one innocence project, but I managed to get
three projects all working. And I guess I just kind
of like threw up my hands and was just like, finally, finally,
like I knew there had to be something there, and
(27:57):
finally somebody founded, right, all of a sudden, you've got
the literal dream team on your side, And Alison, can
you take us through how you got involved in what
eventually led to Stephanie's freedom. I love this. This, This
is my favorite part of the story. So Seth with
Kate and Josh did that lengthy post conviction hearing in
front of Judge Burgess, which he denied. They appealed, and
(28:21):
the Second District Court of Appeal overturned that denial of
the post conviction motion, finding Stephanie's original trial lawyers to
be ineffective. Seth and I have worked on a number
of different cases or just sort of floated in the
same circles myself at the trial court level and set
more in the post conviction world. I couldn't remember when
(28:41):
Stephanie's case was overturned. Set and I having this meeting
of the minds where he was like, you know, myself
and Kate and Josh obviously still want to be involved,
but we need somebody who does trial work. And I
was like, well, I would love to be involved. And
so that's when I got appointed. Was like, okay, we're
back for a new trial. And instead of the State
of Florida saying we concede, the state indicated it intended
(29:05):
to retry Stephanie. And so we were like, bring it,
y'all are prosecuting an innocent woman and we're going to
embarrass you. Was the mentality that we had. It was
all new prosecutors, all new defense attorneys, and we were
gearing up for a battle. Frankly, to make a very
long story short, the state would not agree to not
(29:28):
go forward, but to bring an end to this for everyone,
the Harris family, Spurgeon family, the state was willing to
accept what we call an Alfred please, where a defendant
pleads guilty but it's still exerting his or her innocence,
saying I'm pleading guilty but because I believe it's in
my best interest to do so, not because I'm legally
(29:49):
admitting to doing what I'm accused of, and I think
we all felt like because of all the shortcomings in
the criminal justice system as they exist, the over reliance
on this pediatrician who doesn't seem to understand science. I
couldn't tell Stephanie there was no chance that a jury
would convict her. Yet Stephanie wanted her life back, she
wanted her family back, she wanted to be able to
(30:10):
put her toes in the ocean, and so for everyone's sake,
she agreed to enter this Alfred plea and bring resolution
to the case. So, look, no one could fall at you,
Stephanie for making the decision that you made. People make
it all the time. I can find a lot of
falls in the state for dangling that sword over your
head again. So when did you come home, Stephanie? And
(30:33):
can you tell us what it was like walking out
into the fresh air? Give us as much as you can. Well,
it was definitely hot. I had an entourage of people
out there along with Netflix. We're doing a series, so
everybody was filming. I got in the car and the
first thing that did was hand me a cell phone.
I didn't know what to do with it. I think
(30:54):
they were just so excited to finally give me some
piece of technology, and I went to wall Laws. My
kids had always told me about Watlas, and when I
walked in, it was just so overwhelming, all the lights
and all the things to look at. And I know
that probably sounds so silly, but when you've been trapped
inside for so long, and I must look like I
(31:16):
was from outer space because my eyes are staring at
the lights, I'm sure my mouth was open. It was interesting.
I allowed Netflix to come home with me and film
me coming in, and that was a really difficult thing
to allow them to film me and my most weakest,
vulnerable moment of happy tears. That I did allow it
(31:36):
because I wanted to help bring more knowledge when the
series finally does air, amen to that, and I think
we all who work in this field for those happy moments. So, Stephanie, you,
on top of all the other unspeakable treatment that you
had to endure, you also, as you mentioned, had to
spend a king's ransom, you know, to try to defend yourself,
(32:00):
just a thousands of dollars. And you aren't a rich
person going into this, So you now have a bigger
support system, right over a hundred thousand people who are
listening to your voice. Now. I'm sure many of them
would like to do something to help you if they could.
Is there some way for people to donate, or is
there anything else that you could think of that they
might be able to do. I have a go fund
me and I would appreciate anything that anybody could do
(32:23):
to help me get back on my feet. I've been
home a year now and I really haven't been able
to build up a whole lot, so I would appreciate that.
Thank you. Jason, Yes, and we will link to that
in a bio of our episodes. So please take a
moment right now, if you're listening and you have something
you can spare, please go to the link in the
bio and donate, and we're going to join you in
(32:44):
doing that and trying to help make this next period
of your life a little bit less difficult. And listen
if you're sitting at home wondering how we can help
to prevent these wrongful convictions from happening in the future,
besides serving on juries and voting like we talked about,
don't eight to Allison Miller's campaign. We're gonna again have
the link in the bio. But Alison, what is the
(33:05):
way if people just want to write it down right now,
and we're going to get a bunch of hopefully money
flowing your way and help fix this system that wrongthly
convicted Stephanie Spurgeon, Amanda Broomfield and so many others. Well,
that would be amazing. My website is Miller for State
Attorney dot com. You can get involved and you can
donate securely and easily through my website. I'm on pretty
(33:27):
much every social media platform. So now we turned to
my favorite part of the show, and everyone who's a
regular listener knows what to expect, and by that I
mean closing arguments, and for anyone who's new to this,
closing arguments works very simply. First, I once again think
our incredible guests today, Alison Miller, attorney and candidate for
(33:51):
State's Attorney in the State of Florida, Seth Miller, executive
director of the Florida Innocence Project and personal hero of mine,
and stephinitely expurge in my new personal hero. And what
happens next is I turned my microphone off and leave
each of yours on so that you can share any
final thoughts that we hadn't may be covered yet, or
(34:12):
anything else you want to say. And I'm just going
to kick back in my chair. Let's start with Seth
and Allison and then just hand the mic off to
Stephanie and she'll take us out. So one of the
things that I think about coming out of these cases
working on others now is how these things keep happening.
We talked about it here, and I wonder what we
can do to prevent them from happening in the future,
(34:34):
and how we can end what is like a cottage
industry of medical fabrication, and so that to me is
the next step of this. We should continue to get
people out of prison who are innocent, who put in
prison for accidents or for things that have medical causes
that weren't even crimes at all. This is the leading
cause of rumful conviction and women. We have to also
(34:54):
think about how we can prevent it in the first place,
and there has to be a change in the medical community.
If medical doctors are still being trained everyday medical school
to make the same mistakes that the medical doctors in
this case in other cases have made, and to me,
that's the next stage of how do we prevent this
and really just eradicate this fabrication from the criminal legal system. Jason,
(35:16):
I want to echo what you said, is that Seth
and Stephanie especially our personal heroes of mine as well,
and Stephanie is part of the reason why I am
running for state attorney. If people like us don't do
this type of work, then nothing will ever change. People
have to be more involved in their local down bound elections,
(35:39):
whether it's called the district attorney or the state attorney.
We have to take ownership in what prosecution looks like
in our jurisdictions or this sort of thing will continue
to perpetuate. And so if elected State Attorney, I don't
intend to prosecute child abuse cases based exclusively on the
testimony of Dr Sally Smith already enlisted people like Seth
(36:01):
and Kate understanding we're going to have to continue prosecuting
child abuse. Of course, everyone wants child abuse prosecuted, but
we need to do it with reliable forensic evidence. And
we have seen repeatedly in this jurisdiction at they least
that this pediatrician is a danger and everyone frankly seems
willing to ignore it. Stephanie closing arguments, well, I would
(36:22):
like to start by thanking Allison. I appreciate your confidence
in me coming into this. I also, of course have
to thank Seth the Florida Innocence Project, Kate Judson from
the Center of Integrity and Forensic Sciences, Josh Teffer from
the Exoneration Project, all of their staff, the experts, and
(36:42):
all the law students, because it took an army to
bring me home. And I'd also like to thank all
the people who donate and support organizations like this, because
if it wasn't for your support, people like me would
still be trapped behind those person eights. I'd like to
urge law enforcement and medical staff to not assume abuse
(37:07):
when they see a triad of injuries, to not race
in emotionally charged and being more diligent. I hope that
my story brings awareness to shaking baby syndrome and abuse
and head trauma. I appreciate you allowing me to share
(37:27):
my story for the first time today. Thank you Jason.
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I'd like to
thank our production team Connor Hall, Justin Golden, Jeff Clyburne,
and Kevin Wardis. With research by Lila Robinson. The music
in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated
(37:49):
composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram
at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and
on Twitter at wrong Conviction. As it is at Lava
for Good on all three platforms, You can also follow
me on both TikTok and Instagram at It's Jason flam Raval.
Conviction is the production of Lava for Good podcasts in
(38:11):
association with Signal Company Number one
Stephanie Spurgeon was a married mother of two and a
licensed childcare provider who had been running a daycare facility
from her home in Florida for fifteen years. On August
twenty one, two thousand and eight, one year old Maria
Harris spent her first day at Stephanie's daycare. Maria's grandmother
had picked up a sleeping Maria that day, but soon
after had noticed that Maria was unresponsive and in distress.
(00:26):
Ignoring other potential root causes and relying on the junk
science of shaken baby syndrome, doctors opined that brain bleed
and swelling were signs of child abuse, placing blame on
the brand new childcare provider, Stephanie Spurgeon, and when Maria
died seven days later, the charges were upgraded to murder,
but with the lack of external injuries, the state changed
(00:49):
its shaken baby theory, concocting a new narrative in which
Maria had been repeatedly struck against the soft surface. The
defense failed to pivot to this new theory, instead presenting
a shape can baby syndrome defense, and with the state's
uncontested yet totally dubious soft impact theory. The jury found
Stephanie guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter and sentenced
(01:11):
her to fifteen years in prison. With the help of
multiple innocence projects and a current candidate for state's attorney,
Stephanie was able to present the proper expert testimony. This
proved the state's ludicrous soft impact theory, win a new trial,
and ultimately be set free after nine long years. This
(01:31):
is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction. Today's episode
is well, I'm gonna be honest with you, it's terrifying
(01:52):
because this is a story that is both unique and
also somehow not uncommon, and it involves an innocent woman
working at a daycare center who got caught up in
the criminal legal system for no reason of her own making.
I'm going to introduce our incredible guests today, because we
(02:14):
have three, including the woman who lived through this nightmare herself,
Stephanie Spurgeon. First, I'm going to introduce are very distinguished group.
Seth Miller is here. He's the executive director of the
Innocence Project of Florida. Does incredible work day in and
day out, pushing huge boulders uphills of justice. So Seth,
(02:34):
thanks for being here. Thanks Jason, thrilled to be here
and with him and with us. Is Alison Miller no relation.
She is an attorney with Ripley wisen Hunt and is
also currently running for the State's Attorney Office of Florida.
And I hope people will support her because we need
people like you in positions like that. But for the
(02:56):
time being, we're happy to have you right where you
are and right here on the mike. So, Alison Mill
are welcome to Ronval Conviction. Thank you so much for
having me. And Stephanie, what can I say, I feel
like the whole human race owes you a debt of
gratitude for sharing your story and for just being the strong,
courageous woman that you are, and I appreciate you being here.
(03:16):
So Stephanie to you. Also welcome to Ronfo Conviction. Thank you, Jason.
It's my pleasure. And so Stephanie. This is a story
that we've heard time and time again where somebody like
yourself is doing you know, let's call it what it is,
essential work. Where would we be as a society without
daycare center? The working world would grind to a halt.
(03:36):
And yet people like you too often end up in
situations like the one we're talking about today. I mean,
it really makes my heart hurt. But let's please take
us back before this incident happened in two thousand and eight.
Can you tell us what your life was like back then.
I was married for nineteen years, and I had two
beautiful children. We had a beautiful life. We were a
(03:59):
well knit family. We did a lot of family vacations.
I was a license in home daycare provider for fifteen years.
The parents that would come into my home, they became
part of my family, their kids became part of my family.
We would celebrate holidays together, in different things. It was
very fulfilling. I was able to work with children. I
(04:21):
was able to be at home with my own children.
I decided at one point to go into special needs children.
So I took lots of children that came in who
had speech issues or different disabilities, and I grew a
real heart for these kids because not a lot of
places would accept any special needs children. And then I
(04:43):
decided to branch off a little bit further and start
taking teenage parent children. So Esther Harris was actually the
very first team mom that I took. She was seventeen
years old when I was introduced to her, Maria. And
so not only are you taking care of other people's kids,
you're doing it in your own home, opening your doors
(05:06):
and your heart and taking care of kids who have
issues that other people well might not want to open
their home to or or their hearts, right. I mean,
so this case, I'd like to say it happened a
long time ago, but it really didn't write. I mean,
it would feel a little bit better if it was
back before we had science evolved to a place that
it was at in two thousand eight, which is when
(05:27):
this tragedy occurred, of course. And I said tragedy, not crime.
That's deliberate, because that's what it was. And so, Seth,
do you want to set the stage for us of
what happened on that awful day and how this became
a criminal matter. When I think about these cases when
a child dies, a lot of times the folks involved
in trying to figure out how that happened kind of
(05:48):
go nutty. They aren't able to take sober views of
what might have happened to that child. And that's what
happened here in this case. Stephie Spurgeon was running in
a home daycare to home. It was better business. Bureau
rated had generations worth of children who come through the
daycare who really positive experiences, their families have positive experiences.
And the child, Maria Harris, was our first day at
(06:10):
the daycare, and yet on this day, this poor child
was suffering from what was clearly a distress, a medical situation.
When Maria's grandmother, Patricia came and picked her up that day,
Maria had been sleeping. So I reached into the pack
and play and I picked her up, and she kind
of stirred in my arms, and I passed her to Patricia,
(06:31):
and she stirred in Patricia's arms, and then Patricia took
her and placed her in the car and drove her home.
Thirty minutes later is when we got the phone call. Maria,
I guess was deteriorating as she was sleeping, and I
was unaware that there was any issue because I simply
thought she was asleep. At the end of the day,
the child was growing up. The child was crying and
(06:53):
was clearly kind of lifeless in a lot of ways,
and called nine one one. It took a child to
the hospital. And when we're on the way to the hospital.
They tested the child's blood sugar and the child had
high four hundreds of blood sugar. And I don't know
if any of y'all have diabetes or test your blood
sugar regularly, but that is four to five times the
normal level. So this child is in major distress. What
(07:14):
they do when they get this child to the hospital
is they realize after doing a number of tests on
the child that the child suffering from a brain lead
a subdural hematoma, and the child has brain swelling and
that has led to the child having retinal hemorrhages. And
instead of treating the child for what looked like a
diabetic situation, a diabetic distress because the child had the
(07:37):
subdural hematona, because the child had the brain swelling and
the retinal hemorrhages, the doctors immediately assumed that this was
an abusive situation because they thought that this was the
three ingredients, the triad as they call it, caused by
taking baby syndrome or what is more commonly known now
is abusive head trauma. So that had a chance to
try to treat this child to maybe ameliorate or even
(07:59):
prevent and a bigger problem or death, to treat this metabolic,
this diabetic situation, but instead they assumed it was abuse.
And we're often running taking a medical situation and elevating
it to the crime, and unfortunately child died seven days later.
The idea that this might have been prevented if they
just simply focused on the problem at hand rather than
(08:21):
turning this into wild accusations of child abuse makes my
blood boil. I mean, and I think it's worth mentioning.
As we've covered extensively on our show Junk Science and
other episodes of Wrongful Conviction as well, just a general
overview of the theory of shaking baby syndrome or SPS. Now.
It was initially introduced as a hypothesis by British pediatric
(08:44):
neurosurgeon Dr Norman guth Kelch, who was trying to explain
a cause for an explicable child deaths in which a
child or baby, toddler whatever had presented subdual hematoma otherwise
known as bleeding in the brain retinal hemorrhage, so you
know bleeding in the eye is in brain swelling or
cerebral a demon Now. Dr cuth Kelch hypothesized that perhaps
(09:06):
a typical method of scolding a child in Great Britain
at the time, giving the child a good shake. Maybe
that was the cause for unintended or unexplained child deaths
in which this triad of medical findings occurred. He never
was able to prove this, He just hypothesized it and
caution parents against the practice. Understandably, however, since that hypothesis,
the criminal legal system just sort of random up with
(09:28):
this idea, right leaping to the conclusion that any child
presenting those symptoms, especially if there was any other bruisings,
had been fatally abused like sort of one size fits all,
which is ridiculous, and that the person less responsible for
the child therefore must have been the culprit. And I
think we as people understanding the inner workings of the
human mind, when bad things happen, we want to be
(09:50):
able to say there's someone or something responsible for that
bad thing happening. And so where there was a legitimate
science maybe at the inception, this idea has been horribly
bastardized to get convictions involving Usually the depth of infants
are toddlers, and Stephanie's case is a perfect example of that.
(10:11):
Where there is legitimate scientific evidence that this child was
in medical distress that went ignored by medical professionals because
it was easier to say, oh, this child must have
been harmed. Yeah, And it's worth noting that in recent years,
as doctors and larger and larger numbers have been challenging
the notion of shaking baby syndrome, they've identified get this,
(10:33):
over eighty different pre existing conditions that can cause what
they call the triad of findings that were historically just
attributed to shaking baby syndrome almost automatically. Right. So the
science is there, but I mean, I wish I could
say when the criminal legal system is going to catch up.
It's entirely possible that it never will because science, let's face,
(10:54):
it looks forward, while the legal system only looks backward
at precedent, sort of the opposite. And so Stephanie, if
you could take us back to when you were arrested,
what all happened before the trial. My first arrest was
August August twenty two, maybe two thousand and eight. I
(11:14):
was arrested on aggravated child abuse. I went to Nells
County Jail. I was housed in a solitaire cell because,
of course, my face was on the news. And I
was able to bond out the next day. I think
it's important to say my bond was fifty thou dollars,
and my parents got an attorney for me, which was
fifty thousand dollars, So right away we're in the hole.
(11:38):
I came home and was unable to have a daycare
of course, so I had no income, so that became
an issue immediately. Maria passed away seven days later. I
was re arrested six weeks later, on November eighth, two
thousand eight, on capital felony murder. I just taken my
(12:00):
son to his bus stop in the morning, and when
I came back home, I put up in the driveway,
like three squad cars surrounded me, and everybody come racing out,
screamed and yelling, and put me in cuffs and put
me in the back of the cruiser and took me
back to County Jail. When they brought me in from
booking that day, they brought me straight to a solitaire
(12:21):
cell in the lobby area, and I could look out
and see my face on the news. And as I'm
looking at my face on the news, I'm looking at
the other inmates that are in there getting processed in
and they're all looking back at me and that solitaire cell.
So it was a very scary situation. There was a
(12:42):
grand jury hearing, and the attorney that I had that
was he wouldn't try a capital case, so we had
to hire another firm and they cost us a hundred thousand.
I ended up getting indicted and then we moved for
a bond hearing. My bond hearing was successful, except it
(13:02):
was three hundred and fifty thousand dollars with an angle
monitor and no contact with any child in the age
of twelve. I thought there was no way that my
family was ever going to be able to come up
with those kind of funds because we had already spent
so much. They did come up with it. They fundraised,
(13:23):
they drained all of their savings, accounts, everything, and one night,
on January two thousand and nine, after I think eighty
nine days in a solitaire cell, I was released at
two am, so I was able to come home and
wake both of my kids up. My daughter and I
ended up sitting on the front porch and a rocking
(13:44):
chair and watch the sunrise together. It was very hard
to sleep because I kept thinking I was going to
wake up and be back in there. The nightmare I
would be there again. This episode is underwritten by a
(14:06):
i G, a leading global insurance company, and by Accenture,
a global professional services company with leading capabilities in digital,
cloud and security. Working to reform the criminal justice system
is a key pillar of the ai G pro Bono program,
which provides free legal services and other support to many
nonprofit organizations and individuals most in need as part of
(14:28):
Accenture's commitment to racial and civil justice. Accenture's Legal Access
Program provides pro bono legal services in partnership with more
than forty organizations, bringing meaningful change to people and communities worldwide.
(14:48):
There were signals even before the trial that the state
was going to move away from a shaking baby syndrome diagnosis.
The real issue in this case is that we had
these presentations in the brain and the skull, and the
doctors were used to saying so this could only be abused,
it's shaking baby syndrome. The problem is these things are
normally associated with signs of abuse external injuries, and this
(15:11):
child did not have a scratch or bruise or not
even a single mark on her, and so the doctors
are trying to figure out, well, how can we make
this abuse and explain away the fact that there's no
visual injuries on this child? And this is how what
they call the child abuse pediatrician I'm using air quotes.
She came up with the theory that, well, the reason
there's no injuries that are apparent on the outside is
(15:33):
because this child was slam repeatedly on a soft surface
like a crib mattress. So this case is nutty, right,
because you don't see it very often that the state
changes their theory sort of midstream, right, So then they
came up with this soft impact theory. But the crazy
thing is it seemed like her attorneys were defending a
(15:58):
different theory than the one that the state was trying
to convict her on. Am I mistaken about that? That's
exactly right. The defensetourney was very focused on shaking BNY syndrome.
And when I deposed this attorney in post conviction, I
asked them about cases that he had done previously, and
what I found out was that he had done a
series of shaking baby syndrome cases where he got favorable
(16:18):
results for his clients. So he had his pat experts
and a formula for how he would approach these cases.
But he simply failed to learn his own case well
enough to know that he could not simply employ the
same formula that he employed in other cases where shaken
baby syndrome was a theory. Because not all cases are
the same, they're not creating equal In this case, the
(16:38):
state had already abandoned the shaken baby syndrome theory for
this soft impact theory. And so we're pressing along. In
a case they get to buy a mechanical expert. They
do the thing that a lot of people don't do.
They get the right expert. They prepared that expert, but
they prepared them for the wrong theory. And there was
this striking moment in the trial where after the defense
(16:59):
attorney sits down, he thinks he's done a great job
with the biomechanical expert. And the first question the state
asked the expert when they get up is who told
you that this was a shaking baby syndrome case. It
was a devastating moment in the trial. And of course
he could have put his expert back up, got them
to prepare all the calculations, and he failed to do
(17:19):
that because he just didn't even understand his own case.
The State of Florida, in their prosecution of Stephanie, relied
on one particular pediatrician that they frequently rely on. It's
so hard because these doctors and experts come in to
court couched with credibility and reliability, and especially in areas
(17:39):
like Vanilla's and Pasco County where we've used the same
experts forever, it's hard helping whoever the fact finder is,
jurors or judges to understand this is a misapplication of science.
And so you get doctors that come in and they
use words that we as average folks don't understand, and
(18:00):
it sounds like, well, it must be true. And then
at the end it's with the conclusion that this child
died as a result of intentionally inflicted abusive trauma. Yeah,
so the deck is truly stacked against even someone like Stephanie. Right,
she gets swept under this title wave of nonsense that
comes from preconceived biases and notions and things. Right, because
(18:22):
someone sees her in the defendive chair, they automatically assumed
somebody who was there must have done something to be there. Right,
there's that you have to overcome. Then, as you said,
there's all the medical stuff. A guy gets up there
and reads his credentials sounds very impressive, and then spouting
these theories that most jurors are not equipped to understand
or unpack, so they think they're doing the right thing.
And I have empathy for them too for making these mistakes.
(18:44):
And Stephanie, you've lived through this, so I want to
get back to you. What was this like from your
perspective as a mom nineteen years married, you know, upstanding
citizen to say the least, Well, Jason, I was absolutely devastating,
to say the least. Kept waiting for the truth to prevail.
I knew that I didn't hurt Maria, so I knew
(19:06):
that something would eventually come to surface that would show
what had happened. It was terrifying, terrifying for me, It
was terrifying for my children. It was terrifying from my
then husband. It was awful, and in the end, it
destroyed our whole family. I got a divorce, went to prison,
(19:26):
and my kids grew up without their mom. How old
were the kids when this happened. My son was twelve
and my daughter was seventeen. So Stephanie, when the jury
went out. Can you tell us what you were thinking
at that time? Did you think that finally this wrong
would be righted and this nightmare would come to an end.
(19:49):
I just kept thinking that eventually they would realize that
there's no way that I did this, That nobody hurt Maria.
There had to have been something else. The jury deliberated
for twenty one and a half hours before they came
back with an acquittal of capital failony murder but a
guilty charge and manslaughter. I heard a horrible noise from
(20:14):
behind me, and it was my son crying out. It
was surreal. It just felt like I was in a fog.
I remember mouthing I love you to my family before
they helped being out of court room and put me
back in that solitaire. So I got to prison. I
(20:44):
was absolutely terrified and had to learn very quickly how
to adapt in a maximum security prison. You have to
always pay attention to what's going around you, and you
have to kind of learn how to bob and weave
between people. You didn't want to draw any attention to yourself.
It's a very scary place, and not only is it
scary from the other inmates, but not all the officers
(21:07):
are on the up and up. The officers are also
very scary. So I got to prison, and naturally I
was quite angry, and I knew that if I didn't
do something with my anger, I was just going to
go down a dark path. So I threw myself into
learning about my own case, and I got certified and
(21:30):
became a law clerk, which of course is how I
met a man of Bromfield. We were co workers in
the law library. We both left the maximum security prison
and we found ourselves at a faith and character based
war camp and that was a much safer environment, albeit
did not have a c so it was extremely excruciatingly odd,
(21:53):
but I traded the heat for the safety, and I
worked with Amanda in the law library and we did
every think we could for other people in there, meanwhile,
both learning each other's case as well as our own case.
And that's how I survived. Yeah. I don't know where.
I don't know where they fake people like you that
(22:13):
find this sort of otherworldly strength, spirit, courage, whatever you
want to call it. But I'm just glad you did,
and I'm glad that Amanda Broomfield did as well. I mean,
she just recently joined us here on wrongful convictions, and yeah,
I'm so freaking glad that you both found the strength
to pull through and be here. Well, I had a
good support system, Jason. I had wonderful parents and my
(22:36):
brother and my children, and they made sure I had
all of my needs because you know, in prison they
don't give you shampoo and deodorant and things like that.
You have to buy these things. Thankfully, I had an
amazing support system that are still my support system. And
you know, it was very touching because not only did
(22:56):
I have a support system for my family, but my
clients and the childcare. All of my daycare babies that
I've raised grew up and sent me checks while I
was in prison to help pay for whatever I needed
in there. So these daycare babies that I raised were
taking care of being while I was in prison. Well
(23:17):
that's full circle, isn't it. I Mean, it's a little
bit of light in a miserable dark place and speaks
to your character as well. So, Seth Alison, how did
this then eventually make its way to your desks? And
how did the process finally right itself? You know what's
unique I think about this case is that it got
(23:38):
to us so much earlier than a lot of other cases.
I've gotten guys out of prison who have spent thirty
or thirty five or over forty years in prison, and
once you find out about that one thirty years on
the line, it's very hard to rectify that. It's a
reclamation project that sometimes it's beset with procedural problems that
doesn't really allow you to turn it around. But here
(23:58):
we were able to get in on the initial post
conviction motion, where you have all of the potential claims
available to you have no procedural problems. And so we
only did that because Stephanie wrote to us almost immediately
after her initial appeal was denied. And what was interesting
is that she had written to us. I was litigating
another case with Kate Judson, and we come to find
(24:20):
out that this other person's case, Amanda Brownfield and Stephanie
we're friends in prison, and that's kind of how Stephanie
got hooked up with us. I remember being in the
car driving home from a different prison visit talking to
Kate about Stephanie's application and saying, Hey, you want to
do another one, and that was kind of like, yeah,
let's get it this case has some crazy issues in it.
So what became clear to us is what we've already
(24:42):
talked about. The lawyer didn't use the bio mechanical engineer
that he had at his disposal to rebut the state's
soft impactory how this supposed abuse happened. What happens is
that juries are looking for an answer, and the prosecution
gave them an answer. It's incumbent upon the defense to
rebut that if you don't, your client's going to be convicted.
(25:02):
And so what happened here is that not only did
they not give them an answer, they put up another
expert who agreed that this was from violent trauma. So
the defense expert agreed is from violent trauma, and they
never went into any of them lying medical issues that
were very clear that existed. So that was kind of
what we focus. Can we get the biomic an engineer
to look at the studies through the calculations to prove
that slamming on a soft surface can't cause these injuries?
(25:25):
And can we talk to pediatric endochronologist, pediatric genesist, forensic
pathologists or clinical pathologists, a new radiologist to look at
all of this material in the case. To help us
understand whether this could even be trauma and if it wasn't,
trauma could come from another underlying medical issue, particularly issue
of related diabetes. And when we were able to do that,
(25:46):
what we found out is that we had an expert,
a biomechanical expert, who was able to say with supreme
confidence that this slamming on a soft service could not
have scientifically caused this child's injuries, because he did the
pre eminent study of just this type of scenario, and
it proven that a human of Stephanie's size can't create
enough force to cause those injuries in that child's brain
(26:08):
without also causing massive external injuries of course there were none,
and so scientifically that they couldn't do that. Our experts
together showed that this was a situation where the child
had a blood clot in their brain. The blood clot
in their brain caused spillover bleeding into the brain because
blood couldn't get out of the brain back to the
(26:28):
other parts of the body, and that caused swelling in
the brain, which caused the retinal hemorrhages which caused this
child's disease. And all of this was caused by thicking
of the blood due to a diabetic situation. And so
we had this evidence now, but the key was to
show that the trial council violated Stephanie's constitutional right to
council and effective assistance of that council by not bringing
about all of this information, all of which would prove
(26:51):
that there was no crime here and that this child
died from a tragic a medical situation that was just undiagnosed.
So that's what we did. What was it like, Stephanie,
when all of a sudden You've got sort of the
dream team, right, I mean the Florida Innocence Project. Those
of us who worked in the Innocence moviment know that
the Florida innescens Project is held in the highest regard.
(27:12):
So when you got the letter or a call or
whatever it was saying that they were going to represent you,
what was that like, Well, it was a phone call
from Seth at the Florida Innocence Project and he patched
through Kay Judson. At that time, she was with the
Innocence Project of Wisconsin now with the Center for Integrity
and Forensic Science. And I also had Josh Teffer, who
(27:35):
is with the Exoneration Project out of Chicago, so it
was unbelievable to know that not only did I managed
to get one innocence project, but I managed to get
three projects all working. And I guess I just kind
of like threw up my hands and was just like, finally, finally,
like I knew there had to be something there, and
(27:57):
finally somebody founded, right, all of a sudden, you've got
the literal dream team on your side, And Alison, can
you take us through how you got involved in what
eventually led to Stephanie's freedom. I love this. This, This
is my favorite part of the story. So Seth with
Kate and Josh did that lengthy post conviction hearing in
front of Judge Burgess, which he denied. They appealed, and
(28:21):
the Second District Court of Appeal overturned that denial of
the post conviction motion, finding Stephanie's original trial lawyers to
be ineffective. Seth and I have worked on a number
of different cases or just sort of floated in the
same circles myself at the trial court level and set
more in the post conviction world. I couldn't remember when
(28:41):
Stephanie's case was overturned. Set and I having this meeting
of the minds where he was like, you know, myself
and Kate and Josh obviously still want to be involved,
but we need somebody who does trial work. And I
was like, well, I would love to be involved. And
so that's when I got appointed. Was like, okay, we're
back for a new trial. And instead of the State
of Florida saying we concede, the state indicated it intended
(29:05):
to retry Stephanie. And so we were like, bring it,
y'all are prosecuting an innocent woman and we're going to
embarrass you. Was the mentality that we had. It was
all new prosecutors, all new defense attorneys, and we were
gearing up for a battle. Frankly, to make a very
long story short, the state would not agree to not
(29:28):
go forward, but to bring an end to this for everyone,
the Harris family, Spurgeon family, the state was willing to
accept what we call an Alfred please, where a defendant
pleads guilty but it's still exerting his or her innocence,
saying I'm pleading guilty but because I believe it's in
my best interest to do so, not because I'm legally
(29:49):
admitting to doing what I'm accused of, and I think
we all felt like because of all the shortcomings in
the criminal justice system as they exist, the over reliance
on this pediatrician who doesn't seem to understand science. I
couldn't tell Stephanie there was no chance that a jury
would convict her. Yet Stephanie wanted her life back, she
wanted her family back, she wanted to be able to
(30:10):
put her toes in the ocean, and so for everyone's sake,
she agreed to enter this Alfred plea and bring resolution
to the case. So, look, no one could fall at you,
Stephanie for making the decision that you made. People make
it all the time. I can find a lot of
falls in the state for dangling that sword over your
head again. So when did you come home, Stephanie? And
(30:33):
can you tell us what it was like walking out
into the fresh air? Give us as much as you can. Well,
it was definitely hot. I had an entourage of people
out there along with Netflix. We're doing a series, so
everybody was filming. I got in the car and the
first thing that did was hand me a cell phone.
I didn't know what to do with it. I think
(30:54):
they were just so excited to finally give me some
piece of technology, and I went to wall Laws. My
kids had always told me about Watlas, and when I
walked in, it was just so overwhelming, all the lights
and all the things to look at. And I know
that probably sounds so silly, but when you've been trapped
inside for so long, and I must look like I
(31:16):
was from outer space because my eyes are staring at
the lights, I'm sure my mouth was open. It was interesting.
I allowed Netflix to come home with me and film
me coming in, and that was a really difficult thing
to allow them to film me and my most weakest,
vulnerable moment of happy tears. That I did allow it
(31:36):
because I wanted to help bring more knowledge when the
series finally does air, amen to that, and I think
we all who work in this field for those happy moments. So, Stephanie, you,
on top of all the other unspeakable treatment that you
had to endure, you also, as you mentioned, had to
spend a king's ransom, you know, to try to defend yourself,
(32:00):
just a thousands of dollars. And you aren't a rich
person going into this, So you now have a bigger
support system, right over a hundred thousand people who are
listening to your voice. Now. I'm sure many of them
would like to do something to help you if they could.
Is there some way for people to donate, or is
there anything else that you could think of that they
might be able to do. I have a go fund
me and I would appreciate anything that anybody could do
(32:23):
to help me get back on my feet. I've been
home a year now and I really haven't been able
to build up a whole lot, so I would appreciate that.
Thank you. Jason, Yes, and we will link to that
in a bio of our episodes. So please take a
moment right now, if you're listening and you have something
you can spare, please go to the link in the
bio and donate, and we're going to join you in
(32:44):
doing that and trying to help make this next period
of your life a little bit less difficult. And listen
if you're sitting at home wondering how we can help
to prevent these wrongful convictions from happening in the future,
besides serving on juries and voting like we talked about,
don't eight to Allison Miller's campaign. We're gonna again have
the link in the bio. But Alison, what is the
(33:05):
way if people just want to write it down right now,
and we're going to get a bunch of hopefully money
flowing your way and help fix this system that wrongthly
convicted Stephanie Spurgeon, Amanda Broomfield and so many others. Well,
that would be amazing. My website is Miller for State
Attorney dot com. You can get involved and you can
donate securely and easily through my website. I'm on pretty
(33:27):
much every social media platform. So now we turned to
my favorite part of the show, and everyone who's a
regular listener knows what to expect, and by that I
mean closing arguments, and for anyone who's new to this,
closing arguments works very simply. First, I once again think
our incredible guests today, Alison Miller, attorney and candidate for
(33:51):
State's Attorney in the State of Florida, Seth Miller, executive
director of the Florida Innocence Project and personal hero of mine,
and stephinitely expurge in my new personal hero. And what
happens next is I turned my microphone off and leave
each of yours on so that you can share any
final thoughts that we hadn't may be covered yet, or
(34:12):
anything else you want to say. And I'm just going
to kick back in my chair. Let's start with Seth
and Allison and then just hand the mic off to
Stephanie and she'll take us out. So one of the
things that I think about coming out of these cases
working on others now is how these things keep happening.
We talked about it here, and I wonder what we
can do to prevent them from happening in the future,
(34:34):
and how we can end what is like a cottage
industry of medical fabrication, and so that to me is
the next step of this. We should continue to get
people out of prison who are innocent, who put in
prison for accidents or for things that have medical causes
that weren't even crimes at all. This is the leading
cause of rumful conviction and women. We have to also
(34:54):
think about how we can prevent it in the first place,
and there has to be a change in the medical community.
If medical doctors are still being trained everyday medical school
to make the same mistakes that the medical doctors in
this case in other cases have made, and to me,
that's the next stage of how do we prevent this
and really just eradicate this fabrication from the criminal legal system. Jason,
(35:16):
I want to echo what you said, is that Seth
and Stephanie especially our personal heroes of mine as well,
and Stephanie is part of the reason why I am
running for state attorney. If people like us don't do
this type of work, then nothing will ever change. People
have to be more involved in their local down bound elections,
(35:39):
whether it's called the district attorney or the state attorney.
We have to take ownership in what prosecution looks like
in our jurisdictions or this sort of thing will continue
to perpetuate. And so if elected State Attorney, I don't
intend to prosecute child abuse cases based exclusively on the
testimony of Dr Sally Smith already enlisted people like Seth
(36:01):
and Kate understanding we're going to have to continue prosecuting
child abuse. Of course, everyone wants child abuse prosecuted, but
we need to do it with reliable forensic evidence. And
we have seen repeatedly in this jurisdiction at they least
that this pediatrician is a danger and everyone frankly seems
willing to ignore it. Stephanie closing arguments, well, I would
(36:22):
like to start by thanking Allison. I appreciate your confidence
in me coming into this. I also, of course have
to thank Seth the Florida Innocence Project, Kate Judson from
the Center of Integrity and Forensic Sciences, Josh Teffer from
the Exoneration Project, all of their staff, the experts, and
(36:42):
all the law students, because it took an army to
bring me home. And I'd also like to thank all
the people who donate and support organizations like this, because
if it wasn't for your support, people like me would
still be trapped behind those person eights. I'd like to
urge law enforcement and medical staff to not assume abuse
(37:07):
when they see a triad of injuries, to not race
in emotionally charged and being more diligent. I hope that
my story brings awareness to shaking baby syndrome and abuse
and head trauma. I appreciate you allowing me to share
(37:27):
my story for the first time today. Thank you Jason.
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I'd like to
thank our production team Connor Hall, Justin Golden, Jeff Clyburne,
and Kevin Wardis. With research by Lila Robinson. The music
in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated
(37:49):
composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram
at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and
on Twitter at wrong Conviction. As it is at Lava
for Good on all three platforms, You can also follow
me on both TikTok and Instagram at It's Jason flam Raval.
Conviction is the production of Lava for Good podcasts in
(38:11):
association with Signal Company Number one
Hosts And Creators
Lauren Bright Pacheco
Maggie Freleng
Jason Flom
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