NJ high court rules shaken baby syndrome testimony unreliable and
inadmissible in child abuse cases
[November 21, 2025]
By PHILIP MARCELO
New Jersey’s highest court ruled Thursday that expert testimony about
shaken baby syndrome is scientifically unreliable and inadmissible in
two upcoming trials, a decision that comes as the long-held medical
diagnoses have come under increased scrutiny.
The New Jersey Supreme Court determined that a diagnosis of shaken baby
syndrome, which is also known as abusive head trauma, is not generally
accepted within the “biomechanical community” and is therefore not
“sufficiently reliable” for admission at the trials.
The 6-1 ruling deals with the trials of two men facing charges in
separate cases, where the young victims showed symptoms that have come
to be associated with shaken baby syndrome.
The justices, using an abbreviation for the syndrome, concluded in their
lengthy decision that “there was no test supporting a finding that
humans can produce the physical force necessary to cause the symptoms
associated with SBS/AHT in a child."
But Justice Rachel Wainer Apter, in a strongly worded dissent, said the
other justices put more weight on the views of individual biomechanical
engineers over the “consensus perspective of every major medical society
in the world.”
That, she said, includes all the medical discipline involved in the
diagnosis and treatment of shaken baby syndrome — pediatrics, child
abuse pediatrics, neurology, neuroradiology, neurosurgery, radiology,
ophthalmology and emergency medicine.
Wainer Apter also noted that every other U.S. state allows testimony in
court on the syndrome and “every other court that has considered the
question” has held such evidence as admissible.
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“No case has ever concluded that evidence of SBS/AHT is unreliable,” she
wrote. “And no case has ever found its reliability sufficiently
questioned to preclude its admission at a civil or criminal trial.”
According to the Mayo Clinic, the syndrome is a result of forcefully
shaking an infant or a toddler, which can damage or destroy a child’s
brain cells and cause permanent brain damage or even death. Symptoms
include bleeding around the brain, brain swelling and bleeding in the
eyes.
Prosecutors and medical societies say the syndrome is the leading cause
of fatal head injuries in children younger than 2 years of age, with
more than 1,000 cases reported in the U.S. each year, according to the
National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome.
But defense lawyers and some in the medical and scientific communities
argue that shaken baby diagnosis is flawed and has led to wrongful
convictions, pointing to overturned convictions or dropped charges in
California, Ohio, Massachusetts and Michigan.
The state attorney general's office declined to comment Thursday, but
the public defender's office hailed the decision as a “landmark” moment,
saying it reflected the importance of relying on “reliable,
well-supported scientific evidence” in criminal cases.
"Where the science is uncertain, the stakes are simply too high to
permit unsupported expert opinions to decide a person’s guilt or to
justify separating children from their parents,” Cody Mason, a managing
attorney in the public defender's office, said in a statement.
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