MN Little one Abuse Specialist Dr. Nancy Harper’s Diagnoses Have Typically Been Known as Into Query — ProPublica

In court docket, Dr. Nancy Harper comes throughout as skilled and authoritative. Usually she begins her testimony by explaining her subspeciality: baby abuse pediatrics, which focuses on the prognosis and documentation of indicators of kid abuse. Her position, she usually reminds judges and juries, is solely medical. Whether or not or to not take away a toddler from their house, terminate the father or mother’s rights or, in probably the most severe instances, cost a caregiver criminally is less than her.

Based on Harper’s testimony, she and her group on the Otto Bremer Belief Heart for Protected and Wholesome Kids in Minneapolis deal with about 700 instances of suspected abuse every year. She has testified that 10% to twenty% of these wind up confirmed for bodily abuse, though it’s troublesome to find out if these figures are correct since baby safety instances aren’t public.

When Harper, the middle’s director, and her group diagnose abuse, mother and father and caregivers usually wrestle to problem these opinions. By Harper’s personal estimation, she’s by no means been flawed.

“I don’t suppose I’ve ever had a case the place I assumed it was abusive head trauma and the opposite specialist didn’t,” Harper testified in 2023, within the case of a day care supplier charged with the demise of a kid in her care.

The protection legal professional within the case pressed her: “Have you ever ever incorrectly recognized a toddler with abusive head trauma?”

“Not at the moment to my recollection,” she answered.

However in a handful of instances, judges and juries have discovered day care suppliers and oldsters not responsible of crimes after Harper has testified that abuse occurred, although a verdict can’t essentially be interpreted as a repudiation of Harper or some other skilled witness’ determinations or credibility.

Moreover, two federal lawsuits filed not too long ago accuse Harper of ignoring and even concealing various explanations for youngsters’s accidents. And, extra broadly, medical and authorized consultants are more and more questioning a number one baby abuse prognosis, shaken child syndrome, which is often known as abusive head trauma.

Harper didn’t reply to requests for remark. She has but to reply to both lawsuit. In previous court docket testimony, Harper has stated that each shaken child syndrome and abusive head trauma are thought-about scientifically legitimate diagnoses by the mainstream medical group. Any controversy, she has stated, exists primarily within the authorized world relatively than the medical one.

Kathleen Pakes, a former prosecutor who now specializes within the forensics of kid abuse instances for the Workplace of the Wisconsin State Public Defender, stated Harper’s declare of by no means making an incorrect prognosis strains credulity.

“There is no such thing as a different specialty in drugs that has zero error charge. None,” she stated.

Under are 4 instances during which Harper concluded there was abuse however courts or juries decided in any other case.

On July 12, 2017, an 11-month-old boy named Gabriel Cooper collapsed in his excessive chair on the day care that Sylwia Pawlak-Reynolds operated in South Minneapolis. Paramedics took him to Hennepin County Medical Heart, the place he was declared mind useless a day later.

Harper reviewed Cooper’s medical information and wrote that “within the absence of a well-documented constant extreme unintentional damage, non-accidental trauma or abusive head trauma stays the first diagnostic consideration.” The kid, she wrote, was primarily shaken to demise. Earlier than any legal fees had been filed, Pawlak-Reynolds boarded a aircraft for her native Poland to look after her ailing father, in accordance with her legal professional. In February 2018, prosecutors charged Pawlak-Reynolds with two counts of second-degree homicide, citing Harper’s prognosis.

Based on her husband, Will Reynolds, they didn’t understand Pawlak-Reynolds was pregnant when she boarded her flight to Poland. She remained there to offer delivery to their third baby, who’s now 6, whereas Reynolds remained in Minnesota with their two older youngsters, who are actually 13 and 16. Reynolds stated he and his spouse don’t have any confidence that she’s going to get a good trial, and that she fears she’s going to lose custody of their youngest baby if she reenters the nation. The household has now been separated for eight years.

Early within the case, Pawlak-Reynolds’ attorneys obtained the identical copy of Cooper’s hospital information that had been supplied to Minneapolis police, which included the paramedics’ report. The doc had been printed out at a considerably lowered scale, shrinking the textual content to the purpose that some fields had been illegible. Two years later, they obtained a second copy, printed at regular measurement, which revealed a doable alternate rationalization for the accidents: “Mother remembers [patient] did fall 2 days in the past, putting the again of his head.”

“That was the form of proverbial silver-bullet proof that we’re at all times in search of in each case and often by no means discover,” stated Brock Hunter, Pawlak-Reynolds’ lawyer.

Polish courts, together with an appeals court docket, have denied extradition requests from the U.S. 3 times, and the nation’s minister of justice has affirmed the rulings. The denials are significantly vital of Harper’s evaluation. Polish forensic consultants evaluated the case information and took be aware of a discovering by a neurology skilled employed by Pawlak-Reynolds, who wrote that Cooper carried a gene tied to a blood clotting dysfunction.

The ambulance report, the Polish judges wrote, “was hid from the protection.”

“Then, after the actual fact was made public, it didn’t have an effect on the actions of the American authorities in any manner,” a Polish district court docket choose wrote in 2022.

The Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Workplace licensed Cooper’s method of demise as “undetermined” and the date and place of damage “unknown,” a tacit disagreement with Harper’s opinion that Cooper would have collapsed “shortly after infliction of the trauma.”

The Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Workplace declined to remark.

Then in 2023, Hennepin County Lawyer Mary Moriarty wrote to Pawlak-Reynolds’ attorneys after assembly with them: “We agree that to resolve the present deadlock concerning Ms. Pawlak-Reynolds, the perfect course for all concerned is to dismiss the pending fees with out prejudice, and for her to return to the USA.”

However months later, Moriarty modified her thoughts.

In a press release to ProPublica, a spokesperson for the Hennepin County Lawyer’s Workplace wrote that the workplace is finishing a “ultimate, thorough evaluate” of the case that may embrace an analysis of “issues concerning the medical conclusions and the general power of the case.”

Gabriel’s mother and father, Joseph and Samantha Cooper, didn’t reply to requests for remark. In a tv interview in June, they denied that Cooper struck the again of his head two days earlier than his collapse. They stated that they need justice for his or her son.

Pawlak-Reynolds declined to remark by way of her legal professional. In late February, her husband filed a federal lawsuit towards Harper that claims she “knowingly and deliberately falsified, modified and erased exculpatory info” from her analysis of Cooper, and he or she recognized abusive head trauma to “promote her personal private, educational, reputational and monetary wants.”

Harper has but to reply to the lawsuit. A spokesperson for Hennepin Healthcare, which operates Hennepin County Medical Heart, declined to touch upon the case or the lawsuit.

“There is no such thing as a oversight,” Reynolds stated. “It’s the factor they’re most resistant towards and the factor that’s most important to cease this legacy of brutality, that ends in youngsters being taken away from harmless caregivers and harmless caregivers going to jail.”

In August 2017, Kathryn Campbell referred to as 911 after a 4-month-old woman at her day care appeared torpid and was “respiratory flawed.” First responders didn’t take the child to the hospital, however her mom finally did. On the hospital, MRI scans confirmed fluid within the child’s mind and docs famous small bruises.

Dr. Barbara Knox, a toddler abuse pediatrician then with the College of Wisconsin, advised police it was “apparent baby abuse.” The Dane County district legal professional charged Campbell with bodily abuse of a kid. Campbell pleaded not responsible.

However earlier than the 2021 trial, Knox left the College of Wisconsin after she was positioned on go away for “unprofessional acts that will represent retaliation” and intimidation of her personal employees. A Wisconsin Watch investigation solid doubt on Knox’s judgment in a number of instances of alleged abuse.

Knox didn’t reply to the Wisconsin Watch collection or to ProPublica’s requests for remark. After two households in Alaska sued her in 2022, alleging she had wrongly concluded their youngsters had been abused, Knox wrote in an affidavit that she has no management over whether or not police and baby safety companies staff take youngsters away from mother and father, that she didn’t “conspire” with police or anybody else on custody points, and that she didn’t personally consider one of many youngsters. The lawsuit was dismissed in 2024 after the households agreed to drop the matter.

Knox moved on to a job on the College of Florida. Based on a spokesperson for the college, Knox resigned as a pediatrician with the Little one Protecting Group in late June, efficient Aug. 15. He declined to touch upon the circumstances.

At Campbell’s trial, Knox’s identify was by no means talked about. As a substitute, Harper stepped in as an skilled witness. When Campbell heard Knox had been changed, she was initially hopeful.

“I’m like, oh, nice, new eyes,” Campbell stated. “They’re going to have a look at it and go, ‘That is nuts, I don’t agree with this.’ And I undoubtedly was flawed.”

Harper’s evaluation affirmed Knox’s prognosis of abuse. She advised the jury that the bruises had been probably brought on by squeezing by an grownup’s hand. A medical skilled employed by Campbell’s protection argued that the kid’s bleeding couldn’t be exactly dated and {that a} preexisting medical situation may have precipitated it.

After simply two hours of deliberation, the jury returned a not responsible verdict. Campbell stated she is grateful to have the case concluded, although she stated she remains to be haunted by the accusations towards her.

“That was the toughest factor too, going house after this case was executed, and being like, ‘Am I allowed to be alone with my youngsters now?’” she stated. “It’s all due to the quote-unquote consultants not doing their due diligence and searching additional into underlying points that these youngsters may have.”

In a press release to ProPublica, Dane County District Lawyer Ismael Ozanne expressed confidence in each Harper and Knox, saying “their testimony had been in line with many alternative medical professionals and consultants in their very own areas of observe.”

“You will need to be aware {that a} not responsible verdict by lay jurors hardly invalidates the widespread acceptance of abusive head trauma as a prognosis within the medical group nor wouldn’t it trigger us to have issues about Dr. Harper’s {qualifications} or data within the subject,” he added. “Jurors aren’t sure to just accept any skilled testimony as correct.”

Within the winter of 2022, a 4-month-old boy started respiratory abnormally at his day care in Mineral Level, Wisconsin. His mother and father took him to a hospital, the place he died days later. A police investigation decided that his day care supplier, Joanna Ford, left him and a number of other different youngsters alone in her house for over an hour whereas she went to a tattoo and piercing parlor.

Prosecutors used Harper as an skilled witness within the case. After evaluating the kid’s medical information, she concluded that his accidents had been “clinically diagnostic of abusive head trauma,” or, put one other manner, Ford shook the child violently. She was charged with first-degree reckless murder. Ford pleaded not responsible.

Ford’s protection legal professionals efficiently petitioned the choose within the case for a listening to to find out whether or not Harper’s skilled witness testimony could be scientifically legitimate and admissible at trial. In response to questions, Harper defined why the kid’s signs — mind swelling, blood underneath his cranium, harm to his eyes — pointed to abuse, and why, regardless of the controversy surrounding it, the prognosis of abusive head trauma was scientifically sound. She additionally defined that, as a result of the child was not strolling or crawling, the truth that none of his caregivers may clarify his accidents indicated abuse.

“Individuals ought to know what occurred,” she testified.

On cross examination by Ford’s legal professionals, Harper stated she couldn’t say for sure what time the abuse would have occurred, precisely how Ford had injured the child and that there are not any “nice biomechanical fashions” for shaken child syndrome.

A bit over a month later, Choose Lisa McDougal delivered a extremely vital ruling that barred Harper from telling the jury that the kid died as the results of “abusive head trauma, non-accidental damage, baby abuse or homicide.” She additionally took challenge with the concept that a scarcity of rationalization for accidents is indicative of abuse, calling it a “leap in logic.”

“Providing a conclusive opinion as to how an damage could have occurred crosses a line and doesn’t match inside the dictionary definition of what prognosis is,” McDougal stated. The choose additionally stated that Harper views herself as an advocate, and that that casts doubt on her “constancy to the scientific validation of abusive head trauma diagnoses, particularly when it’s a shut name.”

The homicide cost was dismissed. For leaving the youngsters alone, Ford pleaded responsible to the lesser cost of neglect of a kid the place the consequence is demise. She is serving a 10-year jail sentence. Ford, by way of her legal professional, declined a request for an interview. The Iowa County district legal professional additionally declined to remark.

On Feb. 4, 2022, Paul and Sarah Marshall hosted a dinner for her mother and father and a household buddy at their house in Hudson, Wisconsin. Afterward, their 7-week-old son, Fox, grew to become fussy. Paul Marshall carried him into the mother-in-law unit on the decrease stage of the home, which was cool and darkish, to attempt to calm him. He emerged minutes later in a panic, yelling that the child spit up and stopped respiratory.

Paramedics rushed Fox to Kids’s Minnesota, a hospital about 25 minutes throughout the state border in St. Paul. Medical doctors ran exams, and a scan confirmed Fox had a cranium fracture with fluid pooling on either side of his mind. He died days later.

Harper examined Fox, in addition to his twin sister, Liana, and located “cranium fractures, probably rib fractures, metaphyseal fractures.”

“This constellation of findings in a nonambulatory toddler is clinically diagnostic of inflicted damage or baby bodily abuse probably occurring on a couple of event,” she wrote.

However the Marshalls stated that wasn’t true. They advised Harper that Sarah Marshall had skilled a troublesome being pregnant with gestational diabetes and extreme anemia, and that Liana had a vacuum-assisted supply. Each twins had been to their common pediatrician over well being issues. Whereas Liana’s well being improved, Fox’s had not.

A spokesperson for Kids’s Minnesota declined to touch upon the case.

As a result of he was the final particular person alone with Fox earlier than he stopped respiratory, Paul Marshall was charged with first-degree reckless murder. He was additionally charged with bodily abuse of a kid for hurting Liana. Sarah Marshall stated there was no proof that her soft-spoken husband had damage their youngsters.

“The state needed to solid me as a naive fool,” she stated. “I selected to not imagine it due to the logic and details in my face. I had no cause to imagine the accusation.”

At Paul Marshall’s 2023 trial, his protection lawyer, Aaron Nelson, cross-examined the opposite docs who handled or evaluated Fox and Liana, and was in a position to spotlight factors of medical disagreement. A health care provider who examined Liana for genetic problems stated she couldn’t rule out rickets as a doable reason behind her bone fractures. A neuropathologist didn’t agree with Harper that Fox had a trauma-induced blood clotting dysfunction. By Harper’s personal admission on cross-examination, figuring out the age of the cranium fractures in youngsters Fox and Liana’s age was troublesome. Nelson referred to as six of his personal medical consultants to recommend that the troublesome delivery or a vitamin deficiency may clarify the twins’ accidents.

“How many individuals must be flawed for Dr. Harper to be proper?” Nelson stated in closing arguments.

After an 11-day trial, the jury discovered Marshall not responsible.

In a press release to ProPublica, St. Croix County District Lawyer Karl Anderson identified that Harper was not the one treating doctor who was involved that Fox and Liana had been abused.

“A not responsible verdict doesn’t imply that the jury concluded that the youngsters weren’t abused,” Anderson stated. “Slightly, it signifies that they didn’t conclude that the State proved that Paul Marshall precipitated the demise, past an inexpensive doubt.”

Six weeks after the trial, the household moved three hours away right into a century-old farmhouse that’s removed from the group that they felt wrongfully villainized by.

One of many cruelest impacts of the abuse prognosis, they stated, got here after it was clear that Fox would die and the hospital employees started making preparations for his organs to be donated. Sarah Marshall stated she had hoped to sometime hear her son’s coronary heart beating in one other baby’s chest. As a substitute, a court docket order put a halt to the process.

“They had been already treating him as proof,” she stated.

The expertise of going from a grieving father or mother to an accused assassin, her husband stated, has given the couple post-traumatic stress. Paul Marshall stated he’s grateful to be along with his spouse and youngsters, however what he calls a “damaged system” has left them uncertain whether or not or to not have one other child and even be left alone with one in all their daughters.

“You get pregnant. You go to your entire appointments. You voice your entire issues. You do every part you’re imagined to do as a father or mother and your baby nonetheless dies. And the state tells you it’s your fault,” Sarah Marshall stated. “I don’t perceive why I stay in a world like that.”