MS Coast woman serving life for shaking a baby to death wins appeal for new hearing
A Jackson County woman who pleaded guilty in 2007 to shaking an infant to death has won an appeal that will give her a chance to argue that her plea and life sentence should be overturned.
Circuit Court Judge Dale Harkey in 2018 denied Amy Wilkerson a hearing to determine whether her appeal warranted a new hearing in the July 2005 death of the 8-week-old infant. The state Court of Appeals reversed his rulings on two of numerous grounds that she argued, finding that Wilkerson is entitled to the hearing.
Wilkerson, who was 29 years old when she cared for the infant, says scientific evidence developed after her plea has in many cases discredited shaken baby syndrome as a cause of death.
The appellate court agreed that changes in the scientific understanding of shaken baby syndrome do constitute new evidence and grounds for a hearing.
At the hearing, Wilkerson will be allowed to present expert testimony that the infant’s brain injury predated the baby’s time in her care, with bleeding around the brain possibly starting at birth.
She also will be allowed to argue that her counsel was ineffective for failing to file a motion to suppress her confession. Wilkerson maintains her confession was illegally obtained because she said multiple times that she wanted an attorney while being questioned by a Jackson County sheriff’s investigator.
Her confession came after the investigator said he was turning off the audiotape of their conversation. She did not realize that a hidden video recorder was still running.
During the 32-minute video conversation, she said twice more that she wanted an attorney. The investigator, who has since retired, told Wilkerson that refusing to talk further about what happened would show him that she was not “prepared to do the right thing” and had “no soul.”
Wilkerson then agreed that Jones could turn back on the audiotape. On the tape, she admitted shaking the baby, as his father had done in the past, so the infant would wake up.
“And it wasn’t anything hard,” she said.
The appeals court said the judge must determine at Wilkerson’s hearing whether her attorneys received a copy of the videotaped portion of her interview, which is in question.
If the attorneys reviewed the videotape, then the judge must decide if their representation was deficient because they failed to file a motion to suppress the confession.
The judge must also decide whether the motion to suppress her confession might have resulted in a different outcome in the case.
Wilkerson initially pleaded not guilty to capital murder, which carries the death penalty. She changed her plea to guilty on the advice of her attorneys because of the confession and after a defense report from a since-discredited pathologist concluded shaken baby syndrome caused the infant’s death.
Wilkerson is being represented by attorneys with the Wisconsin and Mississippi Innocence Projects. The nonprofit Innocence Project Network has reviewed more than 100 convictions based on physician testimony that shaken baby syndrome was the cause, saying the cases need to be re-evaluated.
The diagnosis relies on a constellation of symptoms — bleeding around the brain, swollen brain and bleeding in the retina — that experts have concluded can occur for a number of other reasons, including falls, disease and birth.
In addition to a reduced murder charge, a misdemeanor child abuse charge against Wilkerson was dropped in exchange for her guilty plea. The abuse charge was filed because of visible injuries to a toddler whom she had been babysitting.
The infant who died, Tristan Michael Chinn, was a heart donor. His family said at the time that his heart went to a four-month-old baby.
This story was originally published November 27, 2020 at 8:00 AM.
