Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #235 Jason Flom with Amanda Brumfield

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#235 Jason Flom with Amanda Brumfield · Wrongful Conviction

0:02
Speaker 1: Amanda Brumfield considered her friend, Heather Murphy and her children
0:05
Speaker 1: to be extended family, often caring for Heather's one year
0:08
Speaker 1: old daughter, Olivia. On the night of October third, two
0:12
Speaker 1: thousand and eight, Olivia had been sleeping in her playpen
0:15
Speaker 1: at Amanda's house when she woke up, attempted to climb
0:18
Speaker 1: out of the playpen, and fell head first onto the floor.
0:22
Speaker 1: Although she initially seemed fine, within two hours, she became
0:25
Speaker 1: unresponsive and later died at the hospital of a skull
0:28
Speaker 1: fracture and brain bleed. The medical examiner opined that the
0:32
Speaker 1: injuries weren't consistent with a playpen fall. In cases of
0:37
Speaker 1: the accidental death of a child, authorities often assume abuse
0:41
Speaker 1: and typically attributed to the last person to care for
0:44
Speaker 1: the child. In this tragic accident, that person was Amanda Brumfield,
0:49
Speaker 1: who was charged with multiple counts, including first degree murder
0:54
Speaker 1: ignoring a head injury in a different stage of healing.
0:57
Speaker 1: The medical examiner said that the injuries were of a
1:00
Speaker 1: that could only have come from abuse or a car accident,
1:03
Speaker 1: and the state said that Olivia was too young to
1:05
Speaker 1: have been able to climb out of the playpen. Amanda's
1:08
Speaker 1: expert witnesses were barred from testifying due to untimely disclosure
1:13
Speaker 1: to the prosecution. Without expert testimony to refute the state's case,
1:17
Speaker 1: and with the added pressure of national attention, in part
1:20
Speaker 1: because of Amanda's longest strange famous father, actor Billy Bob Thornton,
1:25
Speaker 1: Amanda was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to twenty years.
1:28
Speaker 1: It took the Innocis Project of Florida, along with the
1:31
Speaker 1: Center for Integrity and Forensic Sciences to finally set her
1:35
Speaker 1: free after nine long years. This is Wrongful Conviction. Welcome
1:52
Speaker 1: back to Wrongful Conviction. Today's episode, Well, this is going
1:57
Speaker 1: to upset you if you are apparent, if you are
2:00
Speaker 1: an uncle or an aunt, if you're someone who's ever
2:03
Speaker 1: babysat for someone's child, if you're someone who loves children,
2:06
Speaker 1: if you're someone who cares about justice. This story is
2:09
Speaker 1: it's important. Unfortunately, there are things about it that are
2:12
Speaker 1: typical and then there's some really extraordinary things about this
2:15
Speaker 1: case as well. And without further ado, I'm going to
2:20
Speaker 1: introduce our two guests today. One is going to be
2:22
Speaker 1: familiar to our audience. This is someone who well, I
2:26
Speaker 1: put her on a pedestal Kate Judson is the director
2:30
Speaker 1: of the Center for Integrity and Forensic Sciences, one of
2:34
Speaker 1: the leading experts in the world on Shaken Baby Syndrome.
2:38
Speaker 1: And Kate, I really appreciate you being back here again
2:41
Speaker 1: on the show.
2:42
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me Jason, that's always
2:44
Speaker 2: such a pleasure.
2:45
Speaker 1: And with her is the woman who lived through this
2:49
Speaker 1: unspeakable tragedy and Saga, Amanda Brumfield. Amanda was wrongfully convicted
2:56
Speaker 1: and when you hear her story, you're gonna want to
3:00
Speaker 1: scream and then you want to do something about it.
3:02
Speaker 1: So Amanda, thank you for being hearing for your courage.
3:06
Speaker 3: Well, thank you for having me. It's an honor to
3:08
Speaker 3: have the opportunity.
3:10
Speaker 1: And when I say this story is unique, I don't
3:12
Speaker 1: think we've ever covered the story of someone who was
3:14
Speaker 1: roughly convicted who also happens to be the daughter of
3:18
Speaker 1: a major movie star. I think that's only important to
3:21
Speaker 1: mention because if this could happen to Amanda, it could
3:25
Speaker 1: happen to anyone. Of course, Amanda, you were born back
3:29
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy nine. I don't want to give away
3:31
Speaker 1: your age, but it's part of your story. And your
3:34
Speaker 1: father was Billy Bob Thornton, right, correct, How was your childhood?
3:40
Speaker 3: My mom and my dad Billy had me in of course,
3:45
Speaker 3: July seventy nine. Mom and Billy split up when I
3:48
Speaker 3: was about one, and my mom remarried my dad, Jimmy,
3:52
Speaker 3: who then raised me until I was eighteen years old,
3:56
Speaker 3: even after he and my mom divorced when I was
3:59
Speaker 3: about nine ten in a small small town in Arkansas,
4:03
Speaker 3: graduated with all of thirty eight people and just kind
4:06
Speaker 3: of went from there.
4:08
Speaker 1: So would you describe your childhood? I mean, when you
4:10
Speaker 1: think back on it, was it a happy childhood?
4:13
Speaker 3: Absolutely? You know, we didn't have a lot, but I
4:16
Speaker 3: didn't know that we didn't have a lot. I had great,
4:19
Speaker 3: great grandparents who were involved, and a wonderful dad who
4:24
Speaker 3: was there for me and really instilled good values and
4:28
Speaker 3: morals and work ethic. So I had a great childhood.
4:32
Speaker 1: Okay, So now let's fast forward to two thousand and eight,
4:34
Speaker 1: where we get to the heart of the story. Amanda,
4:37
Speaker 1: tell us about your life at the time this happened
4:39
Speaker 1: and your relationship with Heather Murphy and her daughter Olivia.
4:43
Speaker 3: My then husband worked for a restaurant chain and one
4:48
Speaker 3: of his employees who was Olivia's mother. She just really
4:54
Speaker 3: didn't have much of anyone and I kind of stepped
4:57
Speaker 3: in to take care of Olivia when she was born.
5:01
Speaker 3: She was actually my goddaughter. We were in small town
5:04
Speaker 3: in Florida, just outside of Orlando, and I would take
5:08
Speaker 3: care of Olivia three or four nights a week, along
5:11
Speaker 3: with my own children, and a lot of times Olivia's
5:14
Speaker 3: sister Isabella as well. Heather, and now we're very good friends.
5:18
Speaker 3: We function like an extended family.
5:20
Speaker 1: Well, it sounds as wholesome as anything could probably be,
5:25
Speaker 1: and it's a scene that is probably taking place tonight
5:28
Speaker 1: in households and small towns and cities all across the country,
5:32
Speaker 1: right just friends and godparents doing what they can for
5:35
Speaker 1: each other, helping out. And then, of course, everything went
5:39
Speaker 1: as horribly wrong as anything could go, although, as is
5:43
Speaker 1: typical in these cases, at the outset, it wasn't clear
5:47
Speaker 1: what had happened or what the extent of the problem was.
5:50
Speaker 1: And it started with a fall, as so many of
5:52
Speaker 1: these shaken baby cases do. And this is where I
5:55
Speaker 1: like to turn to you, Kate, and I'm so glad
5:58
Speaker 1: you're here, because it's so important for people to understand
6:00
Speaker 1: this because these type of accidents happened. Children fall is
6:04
Speaker 1: this part of growing up, but sometimes the consequences are dire.
6:09
Speaker 1: Kate set the stage for us what happened that night
6:12
Speaker 1: and how did it result in Amanda going to prison?
6:16
Speaker 2: Well, Jason, Amanda's case really progressed, like so many of
6:21
Speaker 2: these cases involving shaken baby syndrome or abusive head trauma.
6:26
Speaker 2: She was a person who had a loving relationship with
6:31
Speaker 2: his child. There was no reason to believe she would
6:34
Speaker 2: ever do anything to hurt her. And while she was
6:37
Speaker 2: babysitting her goddaughter climbed out of a pack and play
6:42
Speaker 2: and fell onto a hard floor, a carpeted concrete floor.
6:47
Speaker 2: And what people sometimes say about these cases, and what
6:51
Speaker 2: was said in Amanda's case, is that that kind of
6:54
Speaker 2: a fall cannot be fatal or cause very serious injury
6:59
Speaker 2: in a child. And that's just not true, even though
7:02
Speaker 2: kids fall all the time, and most of the time
7:04
Speaker 2: they're not badly injured. In fact, kids have falls that
7:07
Speaker 2: we would expect to cause all sorts of problems and
7:10
Speaker 2: they walk away from it fine. Some children don't. Some
7:13
Speaker 2: children are catastrophically injured from falls that may not initially
7:17
Speaker 2: seem serious, and that can be for all different kinds
7:19
Speaker 2: of reasons, including reasons we don't know or understand. So
7:23
Speaker 2: it's fairly common to have a case like this where
7:27
Speaker 2: a child has an accident and then the last person
7:30
Speaker 2: caregiving is accused of abusing them, or the person to
7:34
Speaker 2: call nine one one is accused of abusing the child.
7:37
Speaker 1: And please anyone who hasn't already listened to our series
7:40
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction Junk Science. Our coverage of shaken Baby Syndrome
7:44
Speaker 1: features our guest today, Kate Judson. She and the host,
7:48
Speaker 1: my great friend Josh Dubin do an amazing job of
7:52
Speaker 1: really laying out in clear and concise terms why this
7:57
Speaker 1: is just absolutely junk science. And we're surely going to
8:01
Speaker 1: get into that today. And Kate, can you talk a
8:04
Speaker 1: little bit about the origins of shaken baby syndrome.
8:07
Speaker 2: Yes, well, Doctor Norman guth Kelch is often credited as
8:11
Speaker 2: being the first person to hypothesize about shaken baby syndrome,
8:15
Speaker 2: and doctor guth Kelch in his later years was definitely
8:20
Speaker 2: very concerned about the way his hypothesis was being used
8:24
Speaker 2: and he was the first pediatric neurosurgeon in Great Britain
8:28
Speaker 2: and he had these medical findings that are often associated
8:31
Speaker 2: with trauma, but the children had apparently suffered no trauma.
8:35
Speaker 2: So what we're talking about is what's sometimes called the
8:38
Speaker 2: constellation of findings or the triad of injuries that some
8:41
Speaker 2: physicians believe allow them to make a diagnosis of shaking,
8:44
Speaker 2: and that is subdural hematoma, which is bleeding between the
8:48
Speaker 2: brain and the skull under the protective coverings of the brain,
8:52
Speaker 2: retinal hemorrhage, which is bleeding in the back of the eye,
8:55
Speaker 2: and cerebral edema encephalopathy basically brains dwelling and brain dysfunction.
9:02
Speaker 2: And he saw these things and he thought, wow, these
9:05
Speaker 2: are normally associated with some kind of a trauma, right
9:08
Speaker 2: an accident or abuse, but he was confused because there
9:12
Speaker 2: was not external injury. Children often didn't have fractures or bruises,
9:16
Speaker 2: so he was wondering if it could be because at
9:20
Speaker 2: the time where he was from, in northern England, it
9:23
Speaker 2: was relatively common for parents to discipline naughty children by
9:27
Speaker 2: giving them what they often referred to as a good shake,
9:29
Speaker 2: and he was very concerned about this, and so he
9:32
Speaker 2: started cautioning in his writings against doing that. Basically saying,
9:37
Speaker 2: we don't really know why these children have this, but
9:40
Speaker 2: we think one of the reasons could be that they
9:41
Speaker 2: were shaken, and so parents should be told not to
9:44
Speaker 2: shake their children, and if a child comes in with
9:47
Speaker 2: these kinds of medical findings, doctors should ask the parent
9:50
Speaker 2: if the child might have been shaken. He wasn't saying
9:53
Speaker 2: that these findings were exclusively diagnostic of shaking, and he
9:57
Speaker 2: wasn't saying any of the stuff that I'm later like
10:01
Speaker 2: that the last person with the child must have shaken
10:03
Speaker 2: the child, or that these findings could only come from
10:05
Speaker 2: child abuse. He was just wondering about one possible mechanism.
10:10
Speaker 2: And so in his later years he started to write
10:13
Speaker 2: and speak urging a lot more caution, saying I was
10:18
Speaker 2: just wondering about this, and that's how science progresses. We
10:21
Speaker 2: come up with a hypothesis, and we learn about it,
10:23
Speaker 2: and we test it. And I'm really unhappy with the
10:26
Speaker 2: way that this has progressed.
10:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, progressed. The words just stuck right. It's a catchy phrase,
10:34
Speaker 1: and it seems like in the hands of people who
10:38
Speaker 1: maybe were intellectually incurious, this became something that became a
10:42
Speaker 1: fallback when they didn't know what had really happened. And
10:46
Speaker 1: I believe too that there's part of us humans that
10:50
Speaker 1: have trouble processing the death of a child as being
10:53
Speaker 1: something that can happen naturally. So sometimes subconsciously it's easier
10:58
Speaker 1: to blame someone.
11:00
Speaker 2: So many of the problems that we see in forensic
11:02
Speaker 2: sciences come from an idea that's seductive, right, an idea
11:07
Speaker 2: like we can compare these two things and tell without
11:11
Speaker 2: error who did the crime, or in these kinds of cases,
11:16
Speaker 2: we can look at the medical findings of the child
11:18
Speaker 2: and be sure that what happened was a homicide. And
11:21
Speaker 2: then if you want to save kids, it becomes so
11:24
Speaker 2: easy just keep them away from bad people who will
11:27
Speaker 2: hurt them. And that's a much less complicated answer to
11:32
Speaker 2: a world in which kids can be hurt by disease
11:36
Speaker 2: or congenital illness or falling down the stairs or falling
11:40
Speaker 2: out of their playpens.
11:41
Speaker 1: Okay, so, Amanda, if you could take us through this
11:45
Speaker 1: time period, this ten o'clock till the ambulance arrived, and
11:49
Speaker 1: what started off as a very normal average night with
11:53
Speaker 1: a child that seemed to be behaving normally, after this fall,
11:57
Speaker 1: if you could just take us through the sequence of
11:58
Speaker 1: events because I think people and really learn something from this.
12:02
Speaker 3: That night, Heather and I had taken all of the kids,
12:05
Speaker 3: meaning my children as well as her two, and we
12:08
Speaker 3: had gone to Chick fil A. The kids played eight
12:11
Speaker 3: I stopped for ice cream for all the kids. Once
12:14
Speaker 3: we got back to my house, all the kids played,
12:16
Speaker 3: we did baths and all that good stuff, and then bedtime.
12:19
Speaker 3: Heather and I sat in the living room just chit
12:22
Speaker 3: chatting like normal, and Olivia was still up. Around ten
12:27
Speaker 3: ten thirty, Heather had set the pack and play up
12:30
Speaker 3: and I laid Olivia down so she could go to sleep.
12:33
Speaker 3: Shortly after that, probably around eleven, Heather went home because
12:37
Speaker 3: she had to work the next day. After she left,
12:39
Speaker 3: I was just watching TV. I had to get up
12:41
Speaker 3: to use the bathroom, and whenever I came back around
12:44
Speaker 3: the corner, Olivia was on the side of the playpen,
12:46
Speaker 3: which she had tried several times before to climb out
12:49
Speaker 3: of the playpen, but just hadn't actually climbed out yet.
12:53
Speaker 3: When I saw her, I just said her name quickly,
12:56
Speaker 3: just said Olivia. And when I did is when she
12:59
Speaker 3: went off of the side of the When I came
13:02
Speaker 3: around the playpen, there was nothing to indicate that she
13:05
Speaker 3: had hit her head. She had looked to me like
13:08
Speaker 3: she had hit her butt, and that's when she had
13:09
Speaker 3: the small cut on her tongue, and I dabbed it
13:13
Speaker 3: with a paper towel to make sure it was okay,
13:15
Speaker 3: and checked her. She was fine, and then I let
13:17
Speaker 3: her down so she could play for a little while,
13:20
Speaker 3: and she played with some balls that we had in
13:23
Speaker 3: a little container there, and after some time she laid
13:26
Speaker 3: down on the love seat beside me and went to sleep.
13:32
Speaker 3: After she had been asleep for a little while, my
13:36
Speaker 3: then husband was on his way home and would call
13:39
Speaker 3: just to let me know that he was on his way,
13:41
Speaker 3: and I went to move Olivia into the playpen so
13:45
Speaker 3: that she could sleep, and uh, something just didn't feel right.
13:49
Speaker 3: She just didn't feel right. After I got off the
13:51
Speaker 3: phone with him, once he came in the door, I
13:53
Speaker 3: knew something was wrong. Her breathing steamed shallow, so I
13:56
Speaker 3: had started CPR. He called nine to one one, and
14:00
Speaker 3: shortly after the first responder got there and began CPR himself,
14:05
Speaker 3: and the next thing I knew was being at the
14:07
Speaker 3: hospital and them saying that she was pronounced dead at
14:09
Speaker 3: the hospital.
14:20
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14:55
Speaker 1: people and communities worldwide. So doctors examined Olivia and determined
15:08
Speaker 1: that she died of a skull fracture and a brain bleed. However,
15:12
Speaker 1: a medical examiner also opined incorrectly that the injuries were
15:17
Speaker 1: not consistent with a playpen fall. Right, So we know
15:21
Speaker 1: that in cases of accidental death of a child, the
15:23
Speaker 1: authority's default is to say that there was abuse, and
15:29
Speaker 1: as Kate pointed out, they typically attributed it to the
15:32
Speaker 1: last person who was around the child. That part would
15:36
Speaker 1: be logical if there was actual abuse, but of course
15:39
Speaker 1: in this case, it was an accident and you were
15:42
Speaker 1: the last person known to be with the baby. The case.
15:46
Speaker 1: On top of all the other problem is dree national
15:48
Speaker 1: attention because of the fact that you had a father
15:51
Speaker 1: who was by now a famous actor, right, And we
15:54
Speaker 1: know that has a big impact as well. When the
15:57
Speaker 1: media gets involved, it ramps up the price, and it
16:01
Speaker 1: also creates an environment in which it's less likely that
16:03
Speaker 1: you'll get a fair trial because it's hard to be
16:05
Speaker 1: an impartial juror when you've been reading that this woman
16:08
Speaker 1: as a monster who killed this baby, right, especially the
16:11
Speaker 1: small town with a famous father. But the fact is
16:14
Speaker 1: you weren't arrested for quite some time, right, right.
16:19
Speaker 3: It was approximately six months later. Olivia passed in October
16:23
Speaker 3: of two thousand and eight, and it was May of
16:26
Speaker 3: two thousand and.
16:26
Speaker 1: Nine, and by now, of course, in May of two
16:29
Speaker 1: thousand and nine, you were charged with first degree murder,
16:32
Speaker 1: among other things. So now let's go to trial. Orange Oscio,
16:36
Speaker 1: A chief medical examiner, jan Garavalia, determined that Olivia's death
16:41
Speaker 1: was a homicide based on the autopsy. She found a
16:45
Speaker 1: three and a half inch fraction on Olivia's skull, bleeding
16:48
Speaker 1: and swelling in her brain, hemorrhaging behind her eyes, and
16:50
Speaker 1: cuts on her tongue. Now. At trial, Garvalia and another
16:55
Speaker 1: expert testified that the skull fracture was quote inconsistent with
16:59
Speaker 1: an accident fall and could only be caused by a
17:02
Speaker 1: car accident or being slammed against a wall, proving that
17:05
Speaker 1: Olivia was abused end quote. The state also claimed, and
17:09
Speaker 1: this is bananas, that Olivia was too young to climb
17:13
Speaker 1: out of her playpen, as if there's an exact age
17:15
Speaker 1: when kids can climb out of her playpen, right, Kate
17:18
Speaker 1: tell us some of the other things that went wrong
17:21
Speaker 1: here at this critical, critical stage, Well.
17:24
Speaker 2: There were a couple of things about Amanda's case and
17:27
Speaker 2: about Olivia's death that really complicate the picture. One of
17:30
Speaker 2: the things that we were very concerned about when we
17:32
Speaker 2: looked at her case on post conviction was that the
17:35
Speaker 2: medical examiner did not preserve, as far as we could
17:38
Speaker 2: ever discover a piece of the bone the fracture itself,
17:42
Speaker 2: So there was no way to look at the fracture
17:44
Speaker 2: itself to tell how old it was. And that's important
17:48
Speaker 2: because Amanda had been nowhere near Olivia for the weeks
17:52
Speaker 2: leading up to her death. She was visiting her dad.
17:55
Speaker 2: She was out of the state, so it was really
17:58
Speaker 2: important to know how old this fracture was, and the
18:01
Speaker 2: reasons that we had to believe that it was older
18:05
Speaker 2: was that upon careful inspection of the tissues that were
18:10
Speaker 2: preserved from autopsy that were above and below the fracture,
18:16
Speaker 2: those appeared to have blood protonaceous material in them that
18:20
Speaker 2: was older. So it indicated that there could have been
18:25
Speaker 2: some older injury there, and that made it very likely
18:28
Speaker 2: that the fracture was an older fracture. And that's important
18:32
Speaker 2: because a child can and you know, it doesn't happen
18:35
Speaker 2: very often, but a child can be critically injured or
18:38
Speaker 2: die from a fall like that, from a fall out
18:41
Speaker 2: of a platepan into a hard floor, But a delicate child,
18:45
Speaker 2: a child with an injury, is more likely to be
18:48
Speaker 2: seriously injured in that kind of a fall. It makes
18:51
Speaker 2: more sense that someone who's already hurt would reinjure their
18:56
Speaker 2: existing injury, So that was really problematic. It was also
19:01
Speaker 2: really problematic the way that they tried to place the
19:05
Speaker 2: blame upon Amanda. So the story that the state told
19:09
Speaker 2: at trial to accuse her was really internally inconsistent. The
19:16
Speaker 2: timeline was very fuzzy. They said all sorts of things
19:21
Speaker 2: that weren't borne out by the physical evidence. So I'll
19:24
Speaker 2: give you one example. After Olivia had her fall, Amanda
19:27
Speaker 2: sat up with her for a little while, and, you know,
19:30
Speaker 2: as you might do with a child who's upset, let
19:32
Speaker 2: her play, gave her a snack. She had banana and
19:35
Speaker 2: some fruit snacks, and those were found in her stomach
19:40
Speaker 2: at autopsy. So there's pretty clear physical evidence corroborating what
19:46
Speaker 2: Amanda said. And yet at the trial, doctors testified that
19:51
Speaker 2: Amanda couldn't have been telling the truth because Olivia had
19:56
Speaker 2: a cut on her tongue that would have prevented her
19:59
Speaker 2: from eating. But that doesn't make any sense. We had
20:03
Speaker 2: incontrovertible physical evidence that she indeed eight, but instead the
20:09
Speaker 2: subjective speculation of the medical examiner seemed to sort of
20:16
Speaker 2: trump that objective evidence.
20:19
Speaker 1: And that testimony. It's going to hit hard with a
20:22
Speaker 1: jury because why would they doubt what this guy, this
20:25
Speaker 1: very learned and educated person is saying. Right, one would
20:30
Speaker 1: need to see evidence to the contrary in order to
20:33
Speaker 1: have any degree of healthy skepticism, even though we know
20:36
Speaker 1: that the standard is supposed to be beyond a reasonable doubt.
20:39
Speaker 1: But that's not the way it works. In courtrooms. Unfortunately,
20:42
Speaker 1: especially in cases like this, is really guilty until proven innocent,
20:45
Speaker 1: and that takes us to the defense. Was there any
20:49
Speaker 1: defense expert presented anything to counter this false narrative that
20:54
Speaker 1: the medical examiner was putting out there?
20:56
Speaker 3: There were two defense experts that were at the time.
21:01
Speaker 3: My experts had information to the effect, for example, the
21:05
Speaker 3: videos showing other children of similar age climbing out of
21:09
Speaker 3: playpens and cribs and such, of the old injury and
21:13
Speaker 3: what happens with when that iron starts to build up,
21:16
Speaker 3: and how that indicates that it's an old injury and
21:18
Speaker 3: had to have at least been I be least seventy
21:20
Speaker 3: two hours of healing that had already started. There was
21:23
Speaker 3: a lot of evidence that was critical to my case
21:26
Speaker 3: that my experts were not allowed to discuss because it
21:30
Speaker 3: had not been disclosed to the prosecution prior to the
21:33
Speaker 3: trial date. Their entire testimony wasn't even allowed.
21:37
Speaker 1: Oh so that's a big mistake on your defense team side.
21:41
Speaker 1: They had the evidence but couldn't present it because they
21:44
Speaker 1: had either forgotten or just botched it right.
21:47
Speaker 3: Well, my attorneys changed so many times through the Public
21:51
Speaker 3: Defender's office. My initial attorney had moved to another state,
21:54
Speaker 3: and then someone else came on, and then the very
21:56
Speaker 3: last attorney was added about ten days prior to trial,
21:59
Speaker 3: maybe fourteen days before trial.
22:01
Speaker 1: Wow, how long was the trial?
22:03
Speaker 2: Four days?
22:04
Speaker 1: Four days for a first degree murder case?
22:07
Speaker 3: And there was even a comment made on the first
22:09
Speaker 3: day of trial that they were sure they could get
22:12
Speaker 3: it wrapped up by the weekend because it was a
22:14
Speaker 3: Memorial Day weekend and the prosecutor had plans for Memorial
22:18
Speaker 3: Day weekend, right.
22:20
Speaker 1: And I'm sure the inference there was a you jury
22:22
Speaker 1: members probably want to get home too, You probably have
22:24
Speaker 1: some great stuff going on. Yeah, that doesn't sit very well.
22:28
Speaker 1: So okay, four day trial. Everyone's trying to get home
22:32
Speaker 1: from Memorial Day. You're facing a charge of could city
22:35
Speaker 1: to prison for the rest of your life or crying
22:36
Speaker 1: that you know and everybody should have known you didn't
22:39
Speaker 1: commit and the jury goes out. What were you thinking
22:42
Speaker 1: at this time?
22:44
Speaker 3: I still had this belief in this system that my
22:48
Speaker 3: entire life I had believed worked. I went in there
22:52
Speaker 3: knowing that I was going home because innocent people don't
22:55
Speaker 3: go to person. And when they said not guilty on
22:58
Speaker 3: the first two counts, I was like, finally, and then
23:01
Speaker 3: they say guilty on the third count, which was manslaughter.
23:04
Speaker 3: My entire world crumbled right then because what I knew
23:08
Speaker 3: is a working system failed, not just me, but my children.
23:12
Speaker 3: Right then, I mean, all I'm thinking is who's going
23:15
Speaker 3: to raise my daughters? What's going to happen? Now you
23:18
Speaker 3: just fall to the deepest pit of despair. There's no
23:21
Speaker 3: one who can hear you at that point. It's just
23:24
Speaker 3: a lonely dark place. They took me to Lowell Correctional
23:42
Speaker 3: which is in Oakalla, Florida. It's a maximum security women's facility.
23:47
Speaker 3: And of course, other than this, I've never been in trouble,
23:50
Speaker 3: arrested anything. So I'm going into one of the worst
23:53
Speaker 3: women's prisons in Florida and was there maybe two weeks
23:58
Speaker 3: and was placed into protective custom to because someone tried
24:01
Speaker 3: to extort money from my family because it was a
24:03
Speaker 3: hyprofolt case. And then they sent me all the way
24:06
Speaker 3: to Homestead, which is basically the end of Florida because
24:11
Speaker 3: of liability reasons. They didn't want me close to where
24:14
Speaker 3: family and the situations could all be close to the facility.
24:19
Speaker 1: So now you're far away from your family. Did you
24:21
Speaker 1: have opportunities to get visits while you were there.
24:24
Speaker 3: I did. In the beginning. My daughters went to stay
24:27
Speaker 3: with my mom because that was just the safest place
24:29
Speaker 3: for them to be at the time, and for about
24:31
Speaker 3: the first year she was good to bring them, and
24:33
Speaker 3: after that she just kind of used that situation to
24:36
Speaker 3: push me out and take them under her own wing.
24:39
Speaker 3: So then I was isolated for my children too. So
24:42
Speaker 3: for those first couple of years, it was nothing but
24:44
Speaker 3: crying and sadness and just loneliness. And on my second year,
24:48
Speaker 3: I just decided that I wasn't going to allow an
24:51
Speaker 3: injustice to completely strip me of who I was, and
24:54
Speaker 3: so I just turned it all around. I started taking
24:57
Speaker 3: college classes, I started into culinary arts and exercising and
25:01
Speaker 3: doing things that would better myself in my mind and
25:04
Speaker 3: keep me sharp.
25:06
Speaker 1: So good that you did too, because you had a
25:08
Speaker 1: lot of work to do, and I think it's safe
25:10
Speaker 1: to say you wouldn't be here today if not for
25:12
Speaker 1: the fact that you did find that extra gear. Right,
25:15
Speaker 1: So you originally denied a new trial. Right direct appeals
25:19
Speaker 1: concluded in late twenty thirteen, and the court didn't even
25:23
Speaker 1: have anything else to say. No additional comments. But then
25:27
Speaker 1: in twenty fifteen, the NSIS Project of Florida, and of
25:30
Speaker 1: course the Center for Integrity and Forensic Sciences, also on
25:34
Speaker 1: the CIFS, took on representation for you. Did you at
25:39
Speaker 1: this point start to see the light at the end
25:41
Speaker 1: of the tunnel?
25:42
Speaker 3: I did, And it couldn't have been at a better time,
25:45
Speaker 3: because I had hit a point that I was just done.
25:48
Speaker 3: It was so hopeless, and I was right on the
25:51
Speaker 3: verge of giving up. And then the NSS Project showed
25:55
Speaker 3: up and it was like everything started to turn around
25:58
Speaker 3: right at that moment.
25:59
Speaker 1: Right, Hey, how did you get involved? As many villains
26:03
Speaker 1: as there on this case are a number of heroes
26:05
Speaker 1: as well, and you're one of them. So tell us
26:07
Speaker 1: what happened back then, take us through it.
26:09
Speaker 2: So Amanda's case came to me when I was still
26:12
Speaker 2: working at the University of Wisconsin Law School, and she
26:16
Speaker 2: had a team of people who believed in her innocence,
26:20
Speaker 2: who wanted to see her get exonerated. And one of
26:23
Speaker 2: those was actually doctor John Plunkett, one of the experts
26:27
Speaker 2: who testified at her trial. He was so troubled by
26:31
Speaker 2: this case. He was very upset about the way that
26:34
Speaker 2: things had gone, and so I started to hear about
26:36
Speaker 2: her case from a number of different folks, and as
26:40
Speaker 2: I dug more into it, it was so clear that
26:43
Speaker 2: it was so similar to the other cases that I'd
26:46
Speaker 2: done with innocent clients who'd been wrongfully convicted with very
26:49
Speaker 2: similar facts, and so I knew that we would need
26:53
Speaker 2: a team that included local council in Florida. And the
26:57
Speaker 2: best person I could think of there was Steth Miller
26:59
Speaker 2: at the Innocence Project of Florida. So I called him
27:01
Speaker 2: up and we agreed to work on this case together.
27:04
Speaker 2: She had a pending deadline, so we actually had to
27:08
Speaker 2: pull it together fairly quickly. Amanda had some family members
27:12
Speaker 2: who were very devoted to her innocence who actually drove
27:17
Speaker 2: from Indiana to my office where I was working in
27:20
Speaker 2: Wisconsin with boxes and boxes of discovery and files and
27:26
Speaker 2: spent probably two days in my office scanning everything in
27:31
Speaker 2: And so we started working out basically this big brief
27:34
Speaker 2: and we filed at the beginning of twenty fifteen, and
27:37
Speaker 2: some of.
27:37
Speaker 1: The things in the motion, scientific and medical expert witness
27:41
Speaker 1: opinions were cited that proved that short distance falls like
27:45
Speaker 1: the one that little Olivia took from the playpen can
27:48
Speaker 1: cause serious injury and death, and had led the US
27:51
Speaker 1: Consumer Product Safety Commission to warn about the potentially lethal
27:55
Speaker 1: danger of short distance falls from playpens, shopping carts, child seats,
27:59
Speaker 1: and high chairs. They also presented evidence demonstrating that the
28:03
Speaker 1: States claimed that Olivia was too young to climb out
28:06
Speaker 1: of her playpen was patently false. They presented a twenty
28:11
Speaker 1: eleven study examining the injuries associated with cribs, playpens, and
28:15
Speaker 1: bassinettes of one hundred and eighty one thousand, six hundred
28:19
Speaker 1: and fifty four children younger than two years old. So
28:21
Speaker 1: this is like boom, right, Yeah.
28:24
Speaker 2: What that study showed is that children fall out of
28:27
Speaker 2: playpens and cribs relatively frequently, and they relatively frequently do
28:31
Speaker 2: it on their own.
28:32
Speaker 1: So fast forward now to twenty twenty, when Amanda was
28:36
Speaker 1: granted an evidential hearing that could have led to a
28:39
Speaker 1: new trial. Right, But within days of the hearing that
28:43
Speaker 1: was planned for early September twenty twenty, the state prosecutors
28:47
Speaker 1: came along and offered you a deal, Amanda. Right. They
28:49
Speaker 1: said that if you stop pressing your innocence in court,
28:52
Speaker 1: you could go home immediately rather than roll the dice,
28:55
Speaker 1: I guess, because even if the conviction was overturned at
28:58
Speaker 1: the new trial, you could have still faced an additional
29:01
Speaker 1: twenty years if you've been convicted again. Of course, who
29:03
Speaker 1: knows what they could have convicted you up. So how
29:06
Speaker 1: did you feel at this point? I mean, here you were.
29:08
Speaker 1: Now you've got the fantastic representation, people who not only
29:12
Speaker 1: really believe with you, but are eminently qualified and had
29:15
Speaker 1: actually done exactly what they set out to do, which
29:17
Speaker 1: is proven that you were as innocent as you always
29:20
Speaker 1: said that you were. And now here comes this Sophie's choice.
29:23
Speaker 3: Really right, after a certain amount of time that I
29:26
Speaker 3: had been incarcerated, I actually became a law clerk and
29:28
Speaker 3: started helping others on their cases. And after time and
29:32
Speaker 3: time again of seeing just how badly the system would
29:37
Speaker 3: railroad people, I just lost all faith in justice period.
29:42
Speaker 3: So I just came to a point where it's like,
29:44
Speaker 3: what do I do here? And at that point, my
29:46
Speaker 3: family needed me more than I needed to keep the
29:50
Speaker 3: fight going and risk still not being able to be
29:53
Speaker 3: there for them, because it was no longer about right
29:56
Speaker 3: or wrong. It was all about making sure that I
29:59
Speaker 3: was doing what was right for us family, even if
30:01
Speaker 3: it meant that I had to just accept the deal
30:04
Speaker 3: and go home.
30:05
Speaker 1: It's not hard for me to understand why you did
30:08
Speaker 1: what you did, even as hard as it must have been.
30:11
Speaker 1: So now you're free, And how has it been now
30:15
Speaker 1: that you've been free and home for a year.
30:17
Speaker 3: I have been incredibly blessed because I have an amazing husband,
30:22
Speaker 3: I have an amazing support system, so I didn't require
30:25
Speaker 3: a lot of external resources to get back on my feet.
30:29
Speaker 3: If it wasn't for that, I don't know how well
30:31
Speaker 3: I could have fared well.
30:33
Speaker 1: Amanda. All I can say is you're a hero to
30:36
Speaker 1: me and so many other people hearing your story. Now
30:40
Speaker 1: we have what I always say is my favorite part
30:44
Speaker 1: of the show. This is the part of the show
30:46
Speaker 1: that I think our listeners have come to expect them
30:49
Speaker 1: look forward to as well, which is called closing arguments,
30:52
Speaker 1: and closing arguments works like this. I thank you both again,
30:56
Speaker 1: Kate Judson and Amanda Brumfield, for being here and taking
31:00
Speaker 1: your time out to share this very very important story.
31:03
Speaker 1: And then I'm going to kick back in my chair,
31:06
Speaker 1: turn my microphone off, and leave my headphones on and
31:09
Speaker 1: just listen, Kate, I'll do respect to you, but we're
31:12
Speaker 1: going to save the best for last, and that's Amanda.
31:13
Speaker 1: She's the star, and we're going to let you share
31:17
Speaker 1: whatever else you want to share with our audience and
31:20
Speaker 1: with me, and then you can just pass the mic
31:23
Speaker 1: off to Amanda, and that's how we'll close out the show.
31:27
Speaker 2: Well, one of the things that I haven't gotten a
31:29
Speaker 2: chance to do yet is sing Amanda's praises. Amanda's story
31:32
Speaker 2: getting out there is I'm sure going to help others,
31:35
Speaker 2: but Amanda has already helped others. When she was inside
31:38
Speaker 2: the walls and she was helping in the law library
31:41
Speaker 2: as a law clerk. I know that she was helping
31:43
Speaker 2: other women with their cases, and in fact, she was
31:47
Speaker 2: a big part of why another one of our clients
31:50
Speaker 2: came to us and was also freed right around the
31:54
Speaker 2: same time. And so I know that Amanda has directly
31:57
Speaker 2: helped lots more people than I know about. But I
32:00
Speaker 2: can point to at least one person who's free today
32:02
Speaker 2: in part because of her advocacy. And I'm just so
32:07
Speaker 2: impressed by what she's been able to do since she's
32:10
Speaker 2: been out. I know, not from personal experience, but from
32:13
Speaker 2: talking to other folks who've been released, how very, very
32:15
Speaker 2: hard it is, but she's handling it with such strength
32:19
Speaker 2: and grace, and I'm so impressed. And what I would
32:22
Speaker 2: also like people to know is that there are still
32:26
Speaker 2: accusations being made under this same paradigm, under the same hypothesis,
32:31
Speaker 2: and they're happening all the time. And while it's true
32:36
Speaker 2: that children are abused and that children can be seriously
32:39
Speaker 2: injured or killed because of abuse, it's also true that
32:43
Speaker 2: abuse can be misdiagnosed with absolutely tragic consequences. Now tragic
32:49
Speaker 2: because an innocent person can go to prison like happened
32:53
Speaker 2: to Amanda, an innocent person can end up on death row,
32:57
Speaker 2: as has happened to some of the other folks on
33:00
Speaker 2: whose behalf we advocate, And even if someone doesn't go
33:04
Speaker 2: to prison, it can tear families apart as it works
33:07
Speaker 2: its way through both the criminal justice system and the
33:10
Speaker 2: child custody system. The other thing is that if a
33:13
Speaker 2: child is ill and their misdiagnosis haven't been abused, they
33:16
Speaker 2: don't get the treatment for their illness that they should get,
33:19
Speaker 2: or it's delayed, and so it's critically important that we
33:23
Speaker 2: re examine the way we look at these cases, and
33:26
Speaker 2: the incredible power that we allow a small collection of
33:30
Speaker 2: doctors to have over people's lives.
33:33
Speaker 1: Amanda.
33:34
Speaker 3: At first, I just want to say I'm incredibly humbled
33:37
Speaker 3: and grateful to even have the opportunity to get this
33:39
Speaker 3: word out and to be a part of something as
33:43
Speaker 3: big as an innocence movement like this. My biggest hope
33:48
Speaker 3: is that people will start to pay attention and not
33:51
Speaker 3: just allow media to determine how they see someone. That's
33:56
Speaker 3: how a lot of wrongful convictions happen. We don't use
33:58
Speaker 3: our own intuition, in our own minds to see what
34:03
Speaker 3: is real and what it's not. Instead, we're just quick
34:06
Speaker 3: to convict in our own minds and our own hearts,
34:09
Speaker 3: not knowing the circumstances or the facts, and just believing
34:12
Speaker 3: in theatrics and oh well, it must be right because
34:15
Speaker 3: it was on the news. We have to stand on
34:17
Speaker 3: our own feet and we have to listen. If it
34:19
Speaker 3: was not for the Innocence Project, if it wasn't for Kate,
34:21
Speaker 3: if it wasn't for Seth Melissa. In the beginning, Christa,
34:25
Speaker 3: everyone every step of the way worked so hard to
34:29
Speaker 3: get me home, and as much as it pained me
34:33
Speaker 3: to have to accept a plea at the same time,
34:36
Speaker 3: we still want because now I can be out here
34:38
Speaker 3: and help someone else to not end up in this
34:40
Speaker 3: same situation, and I can be a voice for somebody
34:43
Speaker 3: who may not have one.
34:51
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Rafel Conviction. I'd like to
34:54
Speaker 1: thank our production team Connor Hall, Justin Golden, Jeff Cliburn,
34:58
Speaker 1: and Kevin Wardis with research by La Robinson. The music
35:01
Speaker 1: in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated
35:04
Speaker 1: composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram
35:08
Speaker 1: at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction podcast, and
35:12
Speaker 1: on Twitter at wrong Conviction, as well as at Lava
35:15
Speaker 1: for Good. On all three platforms, you can also follow
35:18
Speaker 1: me on both TikTok and Instagram at It's Jason Flam.
35:22
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction is the production of Lava for Good Podcasts
35:25
Speaker 1: and association with Signal Company Number one