NJ high court bars shaken baby syndrome as ‘unreliable’ in child abuse cases

By:Dana DiFilippo-November 20, 2025 NEW JERSEY MONITOR

In a split ruling that has far-reaching implications for child abuse cases, the New Jersey Supreme Court on Thursday barred prosecutors from blaming shaken baby syndrome for children’s unexplained head trauma in criminal and custody cases.

Justice Fabiana Pierre-Louis, in a lengthy majority decision that five other justices joined, said the syndrome has not been generally accepted in the biomechanical community, making expert testimony about it unreliable and inadmissible in court. While child abuse is unquestionably reprehensible, the courts must ensure proceedings are fair to both defendants and their accusers, she wrote.

“Regardless of the severity or viciousness of a crime … only evidence that is sufficiently reliable and has probative value not outweighed by the evidence’s prejudicial effect may be presented to the jurors to inform their consideration of the charges against the accused,” she wrote. “That requirement extends to expert testimony, which must be properly admitted like all evidence.”

Thursday’s decision affirms lower court rulings that had declared shaken baby syndrome “junk science.”

Justice Rachel Wainer Apter penned a fiery and solo 44-page dissent that is sure to fuel the ongoing global debate about shaken baby syndrome, which is also known as abusive head trauma. She warned that “every other state” allows such testimony and “every other court that has considered the question” has upheld it as admissible.

It has been generally accepted in the medical community, Wainer Apter noted, citing endorsements by more than 20 professional medical organizations and a 2018 consensus statement by physicians and pediatric radiologists that the American Academy of Pediatrics backed.

The majority opinion places a handful of biomechanical engineers “on equal footing with the consensus perspective of every major medical society in the world and grants the former a veto over the latter. What’s more, it does so in a case about the admissibility of a medical diagnosis,” she wrote.

She added: “Judicial humility requires us to accept that we are judges, not scientists. Nor are we experts in the scientific method … In this case, recognizing that we are not scientists requires acknowledging that what the majority calls Shaken Baby Syndrome/Abusive Head Trauma (SBS/AHT), and what scientists simply call Abusive Head Trauma (AHT), is generally accepted by those who are.”

Scientific unanimity is not required for testimony to be valid, she added, citing a 1994 California appellate ruling.

In other cases where the New Jersey Supreme Court has deemed evidence scientifically deficient — including voiceprint analysis, claims that rapists share psychological traits, and height deductions based on a person’s shoe size — no major scientific association endorsed those claims, she added.

The courts should allow testimony on shaken baby syndrome and let jurors decide for themselves whether it’s scientifically sound, she wrote.

“Acknowledging a debate and granting a new trial to allow experts to dispute the merits of a particular medical diagnosis is entirely different from prohibiting a trial from taking place at all. The majority has chosen the latter,” she wrote.

Widespread impact

Defense attorneys celebrated the ruling, saying it gives new grounds for appeal for countless people convicted in cases with no signs of impact, visible injuries, or other evidence of abuse.

A person’s liberty cannot depend on expert evidence that lacks scientific grounding, cross-disciplinary support, or methodological reliability, the New Jersey Office of the Public Defender said.

“The Constitution demands more than speculation dressed in scientific language. It requires reliable, validated, scientific evidence. And that’s what the court said,” said Danica Rue, the office’s executive director of investigations and police accountability. “I would certainly hope that people are able to now seek justice where it was not meted out earlier.”

Attorneys for the state had warned that prohibiting testimony about shaken baby syndrome in criminal cases would represent “a significant setback to public safety” and interfere with state child welfare workers’ ability to remove children from parents and guardians suspected of abuse. About 1,300 cases of shaken baby syndrome are reported in the U.S. every year, according to the National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome.

Spokespeople for the state Attorney General’s Office, whose attorneys argued the case, declined to comment.

In the two unrelated cases decided by the court Thursday, authorities accused two fathers, Darryl Nieves and Michael Cifelli, of assaulting their children.

Nieves was charged with aggravated assault and endangering the welfare of a child after three incidents over a two-week period in February 2017, when his 11-month-old son became limp and appeared to lose consciousness. Cifelli was similarly charged after his 10-week-old son had to be hospitalized twice in December 2016 and January 2017 for vomiting and seizure-like behavior.

The babies, both born premature, were found to have the “triad of symptoms” typically associated with shaken baby syndrome — subdural hematomas, retinal hemorrhages, and encephalopathy, according to the ruling. But prosecutors in both cases couldn’t otherwise show the fathers assaulted the infants. The same Middlesex County pediatrician, Dr. Gladibel Medina, attributed both infants’ injuries to shaken baby syndrome.

The public defender’s office represented Nieves, who was barred from seeing his child for years while his prosecution and the appeals unfolded, Rue said.

“The impact that this decision will have on families in the state of New Jersey really cannot be overstated,” she said. “There are hundreds of people, perhaps more, who have been separated from their children, who have been criminally prosecuted and received felony convictions for this. There are people sitting in prison right now who have been convicted under this now debunked theory. So this is a tremendously important decision.”

The court’s majority said prosecutors should continue working to hold child abusers accountable — but must do so by showing physical evidence of trauma or other evidence of abuse.

Shaken baby syndrome could be considered in child abuse cases again someday “if new, reliable, scientific evidence is developed,” Pierre-Louis wrote.

“Science is constantly evolving, so the door is not forever closed on making such a showing of reliability,” she wrote.

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