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July 21, 2004

Texas justice

This article is hard to get through:

Brandy Briggs sits in a Texas prison, serving a 17-year sentence for shaking her 2-month-old son so severely that he later died. But now, a medical examiner says the baby was never shaken at all....

On May 2, 1999, Briggs called 911, saying she had gotten up to feed her baby and found him barely breathing in his crib. Daniel was taken to the emergency room at one hospital, where the medical staff made a horrible mistake. They put a breathing tube in his stomach, not his lungs, and pumped air into his stomach for 42 minutes.

Daniel was transferred to another hospital, where the breathing tube mistake was corrected, and he was put on life support. He died in his mother's arms on May 9, 1999 — Mother's Day.

Briggs' nightmare only got worse. A Harris County assistant medical examiner ruled Daniel had died from "shaken baby syndrome," and his young mother was charged with murder.

Instead of questioning the medical evidence and fighting the case, the attorney told Briggs she should plead guilty to a reduced charge and spend some time on probation.

"He said there was no way we could win because he didn't have the money for the medical people he needed to testify for me," Briggs said. "He told me to take the plea that would be the only chance, that there wasn't no way the judge would give me prison time."

In October 2000, Briggs pleaded guilty to second-degree felony charges of injury to a child. Two months later, a judge sentenced her to 17 years behind bars.

Link via P6. If you can read any more on the subject without losing it, go here.

Posted by Mike at July 21, 2004 02:23 PM

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