And they are hard to find 'round h're:
"Autopsy notes in baby’s death raise questions about DA’s role; Medical examiner says he was bullied" by Yvonne Abraham Globe Columnist October 13, 2015
The medical examiner who reversed a homicide finding in the death of a 6-month-old Malden baby maintains in case notes that Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan and her office “bullied” him to stick with the original homicide ruling, even though new evidence made that conclusion not “honest.”
Initially, forensic pathologist Peter Cummings ruled that the 2010 death of the baby, Nathan Wilson, was a homicide, the result of abusive head trauma, or shaken baby syndrome. His father, Geoffrey Wilson, was charged by Ryan’s office with the baby’s murder.
But experts hired by his defense counsel found a rare genetic defect that made members of the Wilson family prone to ruptures of veins and arteries, providing an alternative explanation of the baby’s death. Cummings decided to file an amended death certificate changing the cause of death from “homicide” to “could not be determined.”
That's been the subject of much consternation of late.
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Cummings said that the DA and her staff had not wanted him to change his finding. He called the way they dealt with his office on the case “unethical and unprofessional.” He accused them of “M.E. shopping” in the hopes of getting a different opinion.
“I told them I felt bullied and at times as though I was being forced to sign the case out in a way I did not think was honest,” Cummings wrote in the case notes, obtained by the Globe.
The district attorney rejects the claims and said she is “puzzled” by them, since her dealings with Cummings and his colleagues were respectful.
“Did we ask for second opinions?” she said. “Yes we did, we absolutely did. Nobody does anything medical without a second opinion. And in the end we did agree with his conclusion, and we were bound by that.”
In the Wilson case, Ryan said, her office was the only party speaking up for the child, since both parents were united in their denial that Geoffrey Wilson had hurt his baby. Ryan said she could not drop the case against him lightly.
“Who else would have cried foul here?” she asked. “If the claim is that I am very careful before I exercise that power then yes, I am.”
But Cummings’s notes suggest Ryan went beyond careful. The claim is that her office tried to pressure a medical expert to stick with his original conclusion even in the light of the new information.
Nonetheless, Cummings appears to have withstood the pressure and moved ahead with revising the baby’s cause of death.
Ryan, who fought a heated primary election Sept. 9, dropped the murder charge against Geoffrey Wilson on Sept. 18....
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I wish I could say differently, but the state (and authority) are the biggest bullies around.
Well, almost:
Judge dismisses ex-Concord-Carlisle student’s bullying lawsuit
Lawyer says Concord-Carlisle aggressively addressed bullying claims
What is it about some people, huh?
UPDATE: Middlesex DA’s office shows troubling attitude about evidence
Wow. She also the one who bullied the Irish nanny who is thankfully back home in Ireland.
