Judge Cites Autopsy Report, Ignores Vaccine Theory

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Shaken baby syndrome called into question
Judge rules that an error-filled autopsy report by disgraced former Orange-Osceola Medical Examiner Shashi Gore had "cast doubt on the entire trial."

Alan Yurko is Free; Judge Cites Autopsy Report, Ignores Vaccine Theory

USA --Embattled Alan Yurko, the 34-year-old Floridian sentenced to life in prison without parole for the alleged "shaken baby" murder of his infant son in l997, is a free man.

Yurko's six years and 125 days in various Florida prisons ended at 8 p.m. August 27 when he walked out of Orange County Jail following a deal reached by Circuit Judge C.Alan Lawson, state prosecutors and Alan Yurko's attorney which allowed both sides in the globally followed, contentious controversy to walk away with something in addition to Yurko's signal victory of being a free man again.

Following a five-day "evidentiary hearing" in the local circuit court that Alan and wife Francine Yurko had sought for years, the Florida man agreed to plead no contest to manslaughter charges and was sentenced to the six years, 125 days already served.

The deal fell well short of Yurko activists' intense battle to prove that mandated vaccinations played an essential role in the death of Alan Ream Yurko in 1997. The vaccine industry, while battered by scathing testimony from anti-vaccine experts during the hearing, was left intact and the state could still claim it secured a conviction.

After five days of at times vituperative testimony and heavy badgering of witnesses involving a panel of medical experts convened by The Yurko Project as well as statements by county and state authorities still defending the original murder verdict, Judge Lawson ruled that an error-filled autopsy report by disgraced former Orange-Osceola Medical Examiner Shashi Gore had "cast doubt on the entire trial."

Released into the arms of his wife and to the cheers of two dozen supporters outside the Orlando FL courtroom, Yurko thanked the thousands of people in the US and around the world (including the ICHF, which was an early champion of the Free Yurko movement) who had rallied to his cause:

"I can't begin to describe what the last seven years have been like," he told supporters and the local media. "Right now, I'm focused on the amazing love around me. I couldn't have done this--I didn't do this--it was all these people and thousands of other people."

Assistant State Atty. Robin Wilkinson, who said she and fellow prosecutor Chris Lerner had decided not to proceed with another trial and "end it now," nonetheless claimed a kind of victory:

"For, I believe, a week, we've heard that this child died of a vaccine reaction," said Wilkinson. "In the judge's ruling... he found that there was no credible evidence, that it's not accepted by medical science, which leads to one explanation left... this child was shaken to death."

While more than a dozen experts, including one from Australia, were called by the defense to support either the vaccination theory or the botched autopsy report or both in fighting for Yurko's innocence, the anti-vaccine attack failed to move the judge.

Yurko told supporters and the media that "I do admit to an amount of culpable negligence in my son's death," by which he said he meant his allowing his infant son to receive a series of vaccinations when he knew he was sick.

He added that his manslaughter no-contest plea was due to the fact that even if he had been granted a new trial he would have had to spend two to three more years in prison awaiting the outcome.

"I didn't shake my son, I didn't hurt him, I didn't abuse him," Yurko said. "But I was negligent. He was premature,and I should have done research information about vaccinations on the Web. I trusted the doctors. I assumed doctors knew what was good for my kid. This is about parents taking an active role in their children's welfare."

But Judge Lawson hung his own decison on the fatally flawed autopsy report by Medical Examiner Gore, whose involvement in this and other alleged cases of autopsy mistakes caused the Florida Medical Examiners' Commission earlier this year to bar him from doing any more autopsies.

Lawson found both that "there is no medical evidence that links the death directly to a vaccine" and that "the credible cause and manner of death cannot be gleaned from Mr. Gore's autopsy because of the very serious deficiencies that were found by the medical board and brought to light in this hearing."

The ICHF had earlier called on Florida Governor Jeb Bush to release Yurko on grounds of the Gore report alone.

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