The Philosophy of Convict at any Cost Continues in Harris County
By: Houston Criminal Lawyer John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair
Dr. Patricia Moore is the former associate medical examiner in Harris County. The Houston Chronicle (Sept. 14, 2009) reported that the doctor has been “repeatedly disciplined for failing to follow procedures and for favoring the prosecution in 1998 and 1999” in child death cases.
During Dr. Moore’s tenure with the Harris County Medical Examiner’s Office, she conducted a number of autopsies in children’s deaths whose results have been challenged as not being medically accurate. One of those autopsies involved the 1998 death of a 4-month-old baby, who died in the care of a babysitter named Cynthia Cash, and led the Harris County District Attorney’s Office to file criminal charges against Cash.
Ken Cash, the babysitter’s husband, recently told the Chronicle that “they [District Attorney’s office] railroaded her in that autopsy report. She is innocent.”
Ken Cash’s claim of innocence for his wife recently gained significant support after it was recently discovered that the Harris County Medical Examiner’s office in February 2008 revised the autopsy that served as the genesis of the criminal charge filed against Cynthia Cash and the subsequent prison sentence she received.
According to the Chronicle, the new autopsy report changed the cause of death from “homicide” to “undetermined” and also added that it found no evidence of trauma. This assertion was given credence by Dr. Richard M. Hirshberg, a neurologist expert who reviewed the 2008 revised autopsy report. Hirshberg, who testified at Cash’s trial as a defense expert witness that he had found none of what the Chronicle called “classic signs of shaken baby syndrome,” told the newspaper for its September 14 article: “It’s my firm belief now as it was during the Feb. 5, 1999, trial that [Cynthia Cash] is innocent.” (more…)
