Judge sets aside life sentence in shaken baby case

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A California man is set to walk out of prison after 15 years after a judge Friday set aside his life sentence for shaking his 4-month-old daughter to death in 2001.

Sacramento County Superior Court Judge James Arguelles set aside Zavion Johnson’s second-degree murder conviction amid questions over the medical experts’ testimony that convicted him. Prosecutors agreed that current medical science wouldn’t support Johnson’s conviction but are considering whether to seek a new trial.

Johnson, then 18, said he accidently dropped his daughter, Nadia, in the shower and she struck her head in November 2001.

Doctors reported possible abuse after they discovered she had a fractured skull and other head injuries. Johnson was convicted and sentenced to 25-years-to-life after medical experts testified that the damage only could have come from violent shaking.

But the experts now say the telltale pattern of injuries isn’t so clear, and Nadia could indeed have died from a fall.

His is among a nationwide series of recent legal challenges to what used to be accepted evidence of “shaken baby syndrome.”

At least 14 people nationwide already had been exonerated since 2011 in shaken baby cases, attorneys said, citing the National Registry of Exonerations.