Pursuing Justice as Director of Nashville’s Conviction Review Unit
On a spring day in 1999, Russell Maze called 911, frantic: his son Alex, just five weeks old, had stopped breathing. At the hospital, doctors noticed bruises on Alex’s head and abdomen. They quickly deduced that his injuries could only have been caused by “shaken baby syndrome.”
Over a year later, Alex died. Russell Maze was convicted of killing his son.
More than two decades later, the Nashville District Attorney’s office took the extraordinary step of asking the court to vacate Maze’s conviction. The medical examiner who helped convict him now believes Alex’s injuries were caused by an illness, not abuse.
In her closing arguments, an attorney with the DA’s office said, “The state got this wrong.”
Our guest today is that attorney. Sunny Eaton [https://www.linkedin.com/in/sunnyeatonlaw/] is senior director of the Conviction Review Unit [https://da.nashville.gov/conviction-review-unit/] and an assistant district attorney in the Nashville DA’s office. In this episode, Sunny talks about how a conviction review unit works and why her office chose the Russell Maze case to review. And she speaks candidly about the life-and-death stakes of her work and why pursuing actual innocence cases matters so much to her.
Read Pam Colloff's ProPublica/NYTimes feature on Russell Maze's case and Sunny Eaton's work to prove his innocence:
HE WAS SENT TO PRISON FOR KILLING HIS BABY. WHAT IF HE DIDN’T DO IT? [https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/11/magazine/russell-lee-maze-murder-conviction-dna.html]
Host: Hal Humphreys [http://www.findinvestigations.com/]
Guest: Sunny Eaton [https://www.linkedin.com/in/sunnyeatonlaw/]
Sponsored by: TLOxp® [http://tlo.com/?utm_source=pursuitmagazine&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=promotion]
Music provided by Jason White [http://www.reverbnation.com/jasonwhitemusic], who composed our theme.
Special thanks to Kim Green [https://aviatrixkim.com/], who produced this episode.
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Pursuit Magazine and PI Education are part of StoryboardEMP, a media and education company in Nashville, TN. Pursuit, a free online magazine for private investigators, explores all things investigative, from gumshoe techniques and surveillance tech to industry news and crime in media. PI Education, its sister brand, provides online continuing education for licensed PIs. Pursuit and PIed are owned and edited by husband-wife team Hal Humphreys, a PI, and Kim Green, a writer and radio producer.
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