A far cry from "CSI"

Now for those of you that know me well, you'll know I'm a murder-mystery, criminal justice tv show junkie. Shows like "CSI" "NCIS" and "Law and Order" have always been my favorite shows to tune in to. One thing that has always been painfully obvious to me is how truely unrealistic these shows are. When I saw the title of this article, it definately pulled me in. It turns out the author was writing about a recent case where a grandmother who had been jailed nearly fifteen years ago for the death of her seven week-old grandson. Gov. Jerry Brown, of California, has been reviewing this grandmother's case so as to possibly grant her clemency in her case. Why? You might ask. He's reconsidering her case because it is one of countless cases that were tried on the witnesss testimony of a forensic pathologist that may have been flawed. Not one man in particular, mind you, but the whole field. Preforming an autopsy of a child or a baby can't be easy, and a forensic pathologist's work is only made harder by their lack of sufficiant funds and equiptment.

This author did a very good job at persuasion in this article. There was logos, where he quoted studies done by reputable organizations like the National Academy of Sciences. He also had quotes from interviews with several different experts on the subject. He established ethos when he described the work he had done in the past, which included whole studies on America's corenors and medical examiners. He stated he has studied "roughly two dozen instances where people were wrongly accused of killing babies or small children." The article is also given pathos when the readers thinks about all the innocent people who've been jailed for faulty autopsies of children and babies. This was a particularly sad article all around, and hopefully the funds needed to prevent things like this from happening will be provided in the future.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-thompson-shaken-baby-syndrome-20120108,0,1962455.story