Dr.
Distefano, the Coroner, testified almost the same as rehearsed at
the first trial. To
Ramsey’s barrage of scenarios and hypotheticals, “Would you
expect to see these injuries (plural) from running and tripping,
normal household falls, a trivial fall from a piano bench ‘like I
described’?”, (slipping off and falling on his butt), “any simple
fall?” The answers
were all “No”, and even I would answer “of course not!” I would not expect
any child to die from
any trivial, simple,
non-fatal fall regardless of the height.
“Dr.
Distefano, could you expect to find these injuries in a
child who had been hit with a baseball bat? Could you expect to see
these injuries in a child who had been picked up and thrown
against a wall?” The
single word answer Ramsey wanted and coached to get is “Yes”, and
I agree. But
witnesses are not allowed to volunteer: “I would also
expect in these scenarios accompanying bruising from the
grip required to inflict such injuries. I’ve seen it too many
times during my ten years of licensed child care in Idaho. If for no other reasons,
and there are many others, this is how I know Marie could not have
injured my Ben.
Based on
the information Distefano had, which he testified came from his
investigator, John Pojmon, who got it from George Klatt (who
perjured the probable cause affidavit), who, among other things
(“confession”), told him the fallacy he erroneously assumed as
fact and testified, “The Schoonovers refused to talk to the
police, so I didn’t ask to interview them”.
Dr.
Distefano testified he did not know what Ben fell from, how he
fell, or what he fell on.
“That was a good bit of information I did not
receive.” He did not
know the accident was unwitnessed. “He fell a lot, fell while
running, fell off a rocking horse, fell off a ladder.” Four scenarios that he was
told came from the Schoonovers and none of these scenarios would
likely result in death.
When Jim
Rowan cross-examines and starts to ask about a fall from
standing on a piano bench, he is interrupted with one of
many objections by Ramsey, as Post says, “Where does the piano
bench come from, because we have no testimony about
that?”2
Considering the height of a piano bench, Dr. Distefano did
volunteer, “I am not
excluding that a child could fall from a height, land on an
extremely hard floor, assuming the hardest (cement), and suffer a
fatal injury.”
29
Dr.
Distefano answered Kevin Adam’s questions concerning retinal
hemorrhages. It was
established they are caused by a variety of conditions: “Intracranial pressure,
deceleration in an impact injury, CPR.” Dr. Distefano excluded
“Shaken Baby” as a diagnosis which contradicted Dr. Barton’s
initial misdiagnosisof “shaken baby”, because there was no skull
fracture or impact evidence in his written
report.
Dr.
Block would testify that retinal hemorrhages “are usually found in
automobile accidents and child abuse.”
Ramsey’s
closing argument, days later, would ‘refresh’ the jury’s memory of
what they heard: “You
heard Dr. Block, the expert in the field of child abuse, no one
better(17).
Dr. Block said these retinal hemorrhages are only found in severe
automobile accidents and child abuse cases like this
one.18”
Dr.
Distefano twice testified he considers a “Dr. John Plunkett to be
a reliable authority forensic pathologist whose opinion deserves
the respect of listening.”
Ramsey nitpicks that “Just because Dr. Plunkett is reliable
doesn’t mean the article he wrote
is.”19
The
Plunkett article19 is a thirteen page report of 19
short fall head impact fatalities. Some falls are as short as
two feet (0.67 meters).
Case 5 is a 23-month old who was straddling a rail twenty
eight inches (0.7 meters) off the floor. Jaci fell onto a 3/8”thick
piece of carpet remnant covering the concrete floor. She lost consciousness and
was removed from life support 36 hours after the fall. The fatal accident was
videotaped by her grandmother.
M.
Ramsey objected no less than twelve times to keep the knowledge in
Dr. Plunkett’s article from the jury. Dr. Plunkett’s article
contains the basic physics of acceleration impact loading
(whiplash) and impact velocity, which clearly explains how our
boy’s fall from a piano bench not only equates to, but exceeds
that of a motor vehicles rear end impact of 30 MPH, which killed
one of two restrained boys.20
The
Plunkett article contains 92 references from around the world,
including “The Mistaken Diagnosis of Child Abuse: A Form of Medical
Abuse?”21
A simple
round table inquiry before or after the discovery that the
Klatt/Ramsey Probable Cause Affidavit was perjured would have
rectified Dr. Barton’s mistaken diagnosis, Dr. Distefano’s
incomplete misinformation, Dr. Block would simply be moot and all
of this would have been avoided.
30
Attorney
John Crockett of Pryor has in his files letters from both Marie
and John requesting an interview with Ramsey before they had any
knowledge of the Probable Cause
Affidavit. Ramsey
refused any kind of
discussion. He had
taken Klatt’s perjured Probable Cause at face value and publicly
cried, “Fire”, when there was none. Rather than accept
responsibility for this bad act error in judgment, there was “no
way out” but to start a fire where there was none, and then fight
it in the public eye with everything he could invent to put it
out. Expending two
innocent lives in the process for a front page smile and “I
won!”
No
physician would testify that our Benjamin did not experience a
rotational backward fall from a table or piano bench onto a cement
surface, receive a 12mm occipital fracture from that fall, develop
an acute subdural hematoma, retinal hemorrhages, brain swelling,
and die.
Dr.
Distefano controverted Dr. Block’s adamant insistence that this
was “Shaken Baby Syndrome”, stating tersely that there was no
evidence to support that theory.
Dr.
Block did concede “nobody is saying that a child can’t die from a
low-distance fall.”
But when he was asked about the video tape of Jaci’s 42”
fall, he suspected that of being “Shaken Baby” too, and stated,
“We don’t know what happened before the video was made … or after
it was turned off.
Did her grandmother pick her up after she dropped the
camera and shake her?
We do know that people do that!”
A murder
trial where employment22 and two lives are at stake is
no laughing matter.
The response of the jury to Dr. Block’s comment was clear
indication that the State’s case was in
jeopardy.
The
State rested its case after all parties stipulated that Ben was
transported from St Francis Hospital to the Medical Examiner
without incident.
