Conviction in Baby Death Linked to Expert’s Testimony

An Orange County jury, angered by a defense expert on sudden infant death syndrome, took just an hour and a half Monday to convict an Anaheim man of second-degree murder in the death of his baby son after a monthlong trial.

Later, all 12 jurors remained outside the courtroom to commend Deputy Dist. Atty. Jeoffrey L. Robinson, whose cross-examination of the defense expert, they said, made the difference.

But Robinson credited the conviction to a fellow deputy in his office, Richard M. King, for pursuing an exhumation of the baby’s body for a second autopsy after the first one failed to determine a specific cause of death.

Nicholas Aranda Jr., 31, faces an automatic term of 15 years to life in prison when he is sentenced March 1 by Superior Court Judge Richard L. Weatherspoon.

King is head of a new task force within the district attorney’s office set up to review baby deaths.

“We keep having these babies die and everybody says SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome),” Robinson said. “But we’re finding out that SIDS is a very narrow area, and some of these babies are being killed by their parents or their baby-sitters.”

Prosecutors argued that the baby, 10-week-old Anthony Aranda, was in his father’s care when he suffered numerous broken ribs and an eye injury on Oct. 13, 1987. His mother, Paulette, was at work at the time.

The baby was the second of the Arandas’ four children to die. Aranda and his wife had another child, an infant daughter, die less than a year earlier. That death was listed as the result of sudden infant death syndrome.

The Arandas’ other two children, a boy and a girl, have been taken out of Paulette Aranda’s home, Robinson said. Nicholas Aranda has been in custody since his arrest three years ago.

Anthony Aranda’s first autopsy showed injuries to the head, but the report showed doctors were unable to pinpoint when they occurred. But it was through King’s diligence, Robinson said, that the courts approved exhuming the body for further tissue samples. Prosecution experts testified that the second autopsy showed a newer injury, caused by “blunt force trauma,” than that shown in the first autopsy.

Aranda denied doing anything to cause the baby injury. It was he who called paramedics when the baby appeared to stop breathing. His wife, who has remained loyal to him, said she never saw her husband hurt the child.

Aranda’s attorney, Stuart A. Holmes, argued to jurors that the trial would amount to “a battle of the experts.”

“That’s what it was, all right, and your expert didn’t win,” one of the jurors told him later.

Holmes called Dr. Irving Root, a San Bernardino County forensic pathologist, who performs most of the autopsies there. He testified that tests on the baby’s body consistently showed symptoms of sudden infant death syndrome.

But prosecutors rebutted with testimony from Dr. Herbert F. Krous, the pediatric pathologist for Children’s Hospital in San Diego County, who is a renowned expert and author on sudden infant death syndrome. He used blow-ups of slides of tissue from the baby to dispute Root’s testimony. He also told jurors that Root’s conclusions about what happened to the baby left him “flabbergasted.”

“Krous was thumbs up, a great witness,” one of the jurors told prosecutor Robinson afterward.

Several jurors were so angry that they called Root “a liar” and a “hired gun”--a reference to his testimony that he has become involved in about 50 cases in the past year as a paid expert.

The jurors said their deliberations were so short in part because of Robinson’s cross-examination of Root.

“After that, we did not believe Dr. Root’s testimony had any credibility at all,” one of the jurors told Robinson later.

Robinson said he was delighted to hear the jurors’ comments because Root “has been cracking murder cases left and right; he can be very effective. But these guys who make big bucks traveling from county to county to testify, I think it’s time we took a look at what they’re doing.”

Root accused Robinson of having “a personal vendetta against me.” He said he stood by his testimony and that he was sorry the jury bought the prosecutor’s argument.

“We’re in a terrible pendulum where people are running scared,” he said. “They’re scared to say when a child is injured that it’s not child abuse.”

Robinson said that the jury verdict may help to slow down those experts who are so quick to cry “sudden infant death syndrome.”

“If it hadn’t been for Rick King’s determination, that’s what might have happened in this case,” Robinson said.