Georgia Supreme Court to hear appeal of 'shaken baby' murder case

ATLANTA — The Georgia Supreme Court has agreed to hear the appeal of a Gwinnett County man whom medical experts say was wrongly convicted of the shaken-baby murder of his son.

The high court on Monday said it will review a Sept. 25 order signed by Superior Court Judge Ronnie Batchelor that denied Danyel Smith’s request for a new trial. Smith’s legal team said scientific advances have led to a major shift in how the medical community diagnoses abusive head trauma — or shaken baby — cases. Earlier this year, Smith’s medical experts testified that 2-month-old Chandler died from natural causes brought on by seizures and a premature birth.

In a brief order, a unanimous Supreme Court said it wants to know if Batchelor applied “the appropriate legal framework for deciding extraordinary motions for new trial like Smith’s that are based on new expert analysis of existing physical evidence.”

Batchelor’s order, which Smith’s lawyers say is replete with grammatical errors and “clearly erroneous factual determinations,” was written by Gwinnett prosecutors and signed by the judge.

The Gwinnett DA’s office had asked the state Supreme Court not to hear Smith’s appeal, saying the case was correctly diagnosed and there is no evidence that “the scientific foundations for this conviction, under the specific facts of this case, have been undermined.”

Smith took the stand at his 2003 trial and strongly denied shaking his son to death. Last year, he turned down an offer by Gwinnett prosecutors to plead guilty to the crime in exchange for a sentence of time-served.

This will be the second time the state Supreme Court hears an appeal from Smith’s case. In 2022, Batchelor, signing another order prepared by the DA’s office, denied requests by Smith’s lawyers to hold a hearing on his new claims. This would include testimony from medical experts, including an eminent pediatric neurosurgeon, who would say they believe there were reasons other than violent shaking that caused Chandler’s death.

But later that year, the state Supreme Court reversed that decision and ordered the hearing to be held. This past spring, Batchelor held the hearings, which included testimony from both defense and prosecution experts, and later denied the request for a new trial.

In recent weeks, the Georgia Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and four dozen forensic science experts, including Innocence Project co-founder Barry Scheck, asked the Supreme Court to hear the latest appeal. The brief filed by the forensic experts said medical and technological advancements show that “outdated and unreliable” evidence was used to secure Smith’s conviction.

“We are grateful that the Supreme Court granted review,” said Southern Center for Human Rights attorney Mark Loudon-Brown, a member of Smith’s legal team. “After serving two decades in prison for a crime he didn’t commit, Mr. Smith declined an offer to plead guilty in exchange for his immediate freedom. We now look forward to presenting our case to Georgia’s high court.”

Gwinnett DA Patsy Austin-Gatson did not respond to a request for comment.