Redevelopment of Norris University Center’s East Lawn to begin this summer
April 5, 2024
EVANSTON, Ill. --- At a hearing in a federal court last week, a nearly 10-year-old letter discovered by students working with Northwestern University’s Medill Justice Project raised questions about the conviction of a Chicago-area day care worker serving 20 years for the death of an infant in her care.
In that 2003 letter, a key police detective said the forensic pathologist conducting the infant’s autopsy questioned whether the day care worker had violently shaken the baby in what is known as “shaken-baby syndrome” or abusive head trauma. The hearing judge heard both from the letter’s author and the pathologist.
The Medill Justice Project is creating the nation’s first shaken-baby criminal database available to the public. A project of the Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications, it examines potentially wrongful convictions, probes national systemic criminal justice issues and conducts groundbreaking research.
