Lansing man convicted of murder in daughter's death a decade ago gets a new trial. Here's why
LANSING — A decade ago, John Sanders started serving a life prison sentence.
Two appeals of his murder and child abuse convictions did nothing to change that. But then came a third appeal, led by the Michigan Innocence Clinic at the University of Michigan Law School.
And now, nearly 11 years after his three-month-old daughter Janayjah was pronounced dead at Sparrow Hospital, Sanders and his new attorney are preparing for a new trial.
The first trial, much like the next, will be centered on testimony from medical experts. In the 2013 trial, the jury heard that Janayjah died from abusive head trauma, or shaken baby syndrome. It's a medical diagnosis that even at the time was undergoing a "shifting consensus," said Deborah Tuerkheimer, a Northwestern University law school professor who wrote a 2013 book on how the legal system had failed to adopt to this shift.
"When science began to look at the evidence base for this diagnosis, it became apparent that it rested on some flimsy grounds," she said. "That led some lawyers to start looking back on cases and bring to the courts this question of whether the science underpinnings of shaken baby syndrome were solid."
Ingham County Prosecuting Attorney John Dewane declined to comment for this story.
Mary Chartier, Sanders' new attorney, said in a statement to the State Journal that in the past she's taken on cases of people wrongly convicted due to "flawed medical testimony" when it comes to abusive head trauma.
"We've been successful in working with the University of Michigan Innocence Clinic in those cases to exonerate those wrongfully convicted," she added. "We believe this to be the case again, which is why we’re representing Mr. Sanders."
Sanders is currently scheduled for trial in April.
Janayjah’s death and her father's trial
On a January morning in 2013, Janayjah started crying so Sanders went to the kitchen to make her morning bottle.
But then the crying stopped.
He went to the bedroom and found her gasping for air, according to court records. He blew air into her face and tried to elicit a response. But that didn't work. He then laid his daughter down at the edge of the bed and tried to perform CPR, but didn't know how. Sanders called his uncle and they rushed the infant to the hospital.
Doctors at Sparrow Hospital determined she needed surgery to remove part of her skull, which would relieve some of the pressure on her brain, according to court records.
But that didn't work either.
Doctors put Janayjah on life support. Later that night she was taken off a ventilator and died.
Two of the doctors who testified at the trial, one who treated her at the hospital and one who performed the autopsy, told the jury that abuse caused Janayjah's injuries and death.
Dr. Stephen Guertin, founder of Sparrow's pediatric intensive care unit who retired this year, testified that "we were convinced pretty much from the beginning that violence had been done to the baby, and that is abusive," according to the motion that led to Sanders' new trial.
Guertin could not be reached for comment.
Joseph Ernst, Sanders' attorney at his initial trial, did not call any witnesses or mount a defense beyond cross examination of prosecution witnesses.
Ernst told the State Journal this week that he made "substantial efforts" to find a medical expert, which included research into medical theories, but couldn't find such a witness who could also be admitted in court and testify as an expert.
Judges must approve expert witnesses before they can testify. They must rely on established standards in that review to ensure scientific testimony is relevant and reliable.
"I trust the appeal process and I hope that it ends with a just outcome for Mr. Sanders," Ernst said, adding that, "I had a very hard time believing he was guilty."
On Dec. 5, 2013, a jury convicted Sanders of murder and child abuse. The following month he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Doctors point to infection as cause of death
Sanders twice appealed his convictions — and twice failed to get a new trial — before the Michigan Innocence Clinic got involved.
The clinic, run by student and staff attorneys, sent medical records and evidence to the Forensic Diagnostic Management Team at the University of Texas Medical Branch, where two doctors reviewed the files.
They reached much different conclusions than those presented at trial.
Janayjah had a cough and fever leading up to her hospitalization, according to court records. Additionally, a streptococcus infection had been detected in her blood, but that detail wasn't presented to the jury.
Dr. Erin Barnhart and Dr. Michael Laposata determined Janayjah died from complications from an infection.
"(T)here is no evidence from which to conclude that Janayjah was a victim of abuse," Barnhart wrote in her report.
While Barnhart and Laposata wrote their reports in 2018, Tuerkheimer, the Northwestern expert, said by 2013 the "old certainty had dissolved" and doctors had started to question whether abuse was truly the only source of injuries like the ones Janayjah suffered.
Third appeal leads to new trial
When arguing against a new trial during a hearing last year, prosecutors took the stance that the new medical testimony about the cause of Janayjah’s death did not amount to new scientific evidence.
The office’s position, according to court records, is that the applicable legal standard requires changes in the scientific field or shifts in scientific consensus. And they said none apply in the Sanders case because the controversy surrounding the shaken baby syndrome diagnosis does not equate to a shift in consensus.
Additionally, prosecutors argued that one of the medical experts who testified at trial acknowledged other potential causes for Janayjah’s injuries beyond abuse and that the judge instructed jurors that they were not required to believe the experts’ opinions.
Ingham County Circuit Court Judge Rosemarie Aquilina, who did not oversee the 2013 trial, agreed with some of the prosecution’s arguments, but ultimately ruled that Ernst not obtaining his own expert witness amounted to ineffective assistance of counsel.
The new medical opinions "cast serious doubt on (Sanders') actual guilt," Aquilina wrote in her order, and had the jury heard from Barnhart or Laposata during the 2013 trial, they "would have likely exonerated" him.
"Not only do these experts undermine the (prosecution's) evidence of guilt," she added, "they also present compelling evidence that the victim died from natural causes."
On Sept. 19, 2022 — 3,209 days after his conviction and 2,708 days after his last failed appeal — Aquilina granted Sanders a new trial.
Contact reporter Matt Mencarini at 517-377-1026 or mjmencarini@lsj.com. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter @MattMencarini.
This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: John Sanders, convicted of killing daughter Janayjah, gets new trial
