When your case is at the intersection of science and the criminal law, there can be no better with whom to navigate the intersection than Boston-area attorney Elaine Whitfield Sharp.
Elaine has a way of placing the record under the a microscope and finding meaningful ways to disassemble the junk science and assumptions that so often underlie the government’s case. Elaine’s personal and professional credibility with many of the nation’s top experts open avenues that are otherwise difficult to open.
Elaine has a personal policy of not taking a case to trial unless she believes the client is innocent. The experts, many of whom are physicians who have taken the Hippocratic Oath, know of Elaine’s position.
In my case, we began with a charge of first-degree murder arising out of an alleged shaken baby. A host of physicians testified that the baby was violently shaken and my client’s confession confirmed it *.
With Elaine’s help, we poked one hole after another in the State’s scientific theories.
On the eve of the scheduled Frye hearing at which we sought to exclude all of the State’s so-called ‘scientific evidence,’ the State came through with a plea offer involving minimal incarceration and which was too difficult to pass up in light of the potential death sentence my client was facing.
Ed Stafman
Member of NACDL & FACDL
Appointed as Learned Counsel in Multiple Federal Death Penalty Cases
24 years of Criminal Defense experience in serious cases
Counsel in More than 50 capital cases, including 2 “shaken baby” cases
*The client agreed she shook the child to revive him, and did not admit to the police to shaking the child to harm him in any way.