What Might Your Attorney Advise If You Are Facing a Charge of Shaken Baby Syndrome?

Interviewer: When you begin a case like this and someone contacts you, how does the process begin? What do you do? What do you tell them to bring when you initially meet with them?

Once You Retain an Attorney, It Is Advisable to Discontinue Communicating with the Police

Paul Cramm: The first and most important thing is that the client has no further contact with law enforcement. There’s always an overwhelming desire to want to tell your side of the story, to want to explain what happened, particularly for people who are truly and factually innocent.

They just can’t believe that they would ever be convicted of something that they know in their heart and mind that they did not do. The temptation to explain what happened is all but overwhelming. They just are convinced that if someone will just listen to what happened and what they experienced, that they would no longer be suspected. That could not be further from the truth.

This Is to Avoid Making Unintentional Incriminating Statements to Law Enforcement

The more the person talks, the more absolutely innocuous, senseless inconsistencies the prosecutor will rely on to try to discredit this person’s statements of facts. If this person said at one point they believed a time period was 3 minutes and if they later say it was 5 to 7 minutes—something as innocent as that will be used against that person to try to challenge their creditability.

I always advise my clients to have zero law enforcement contact. If they’re already subjected themselves to an interview, the last thing I want is for them to have a second interview. This is because these types of inconsistencies can be brought out. I don’t want my client to speak with anyone.

Number two on the list, is to just contact a preeminent expert consultation to review the case and to provide valid, reliable medical opinion as to what happened and what may have caused the child’s symptoms. That’s just a matter of working with the correct properly certified preeminent expert witnesses in the field.