Undoing Wrongful Convictions

New scientific developments, addressed throughout this book, which challenge the SBS hypothesis present challenges for courts that relied upon the outdated and unchallenged hypothesis to convict caregivers of child abuse. The law is notoriously slow to respond to scientific advances, and its strong fealty to finality makes reopening old convictions, even those that are dependent on flawed science, procedurally difficult. This chapter addresses the challenges posed for courts by shifting SBS science and analyses the bases, and slowly developing movement to reopen old SBS convictions based upon outdated and flawed science.