Defense presses state witness Dr. Benton | Free News

PHILADELPHIA — The expected showdown between embattled expert witness Dr. Scott Benton and defense attorneys for capital murder suspects Brandon Gardner and Brooke Stringer did not materialize on Monday afternoon.

In questioning by Stringer’s attorney Tangi Carter, Benton confirmed that he was on the side of the prosecution in “the majority” of the hundreds of child-abuse cases he’s testified in over the years, with “approximately five” for the defense.

Benton said that he reviewed all available records in the case of Stringer’s baby 6-month-old Rosalee, who was airlifted to University of Mississippi Medical Center on Oct. 26, 2019 with what was described as a serious head injury.

Carter asked if Benton’s job at UMMC — as a professor of pediatrics and medical director of the Children’s Safe Center — is to investigate possible child-abuse cases and if her client was “100 percent cooperative” with him. He answered “yes” on both.

Carter referred to an injury that Rosalee suffered earlier in the month, on Oct. 2, at her daycare. Earlier testimony from local medical personnel indicated that Stringer took Rosalee for a checkup after a bruise appeared on her baby’s cheek, and a CT scan showed everything was normal.

Carter then referred to earlier testimony when she asked, “If an MRI is better, why was that not done on Oct. 2?”

Benton, who wasn’t involved in Rosalee’s treatment at that time, answered, “If the CT is normal, there’s no reason to go further.”

Carter asked if a concussion would show up on a CT scan, and he said, “No.”

She noted Benton’s concern about the bruise on the cheek of a baby Rosalee’s age, who isn’t yet able to crawl — or “is not yet cruising,” he said of the term used in the pediatric profession.

Benton agreed, testifying that there’s a saying: “Those who don’t cruise shouldn’t bruise.” That’s a “red flag” for abuse, he said.

But he also referred to the daycare injury as “trivial,” and not the cause of the baby’s death almost four weeks later.

Carter made note that the daycare is owned and operated by SCRMC for its employees and its personnel also performed the checkups and tests.

Benton did testify that he was not present for the autopsy and he did not discuss the findings with then-medical examiner Dr. David Arboe of the state crime lab, who ruled that the cause of baby’s death was blunt-force trauma and the manner of death was homicide.

He elaborated on earlier testimony that Rosalee had to have taken her bottle before the fatal head injury occurred. Stringer has contended all along that she put her baby on a pallet beside the bed and gave her a bottle before getting in the shower. Gardner was outside getting the carseat and other items from the car at the time, but when he came into the bedroom looking for his phone, he roused Rosalee and heard a “thud,” which he believed was her bumping her head on a nightstand. That’s been his story from the beginning, too.

The loss of the ability to swallow “is almost universal in a fatal head injury,” Benton said during redirect questioning by Assistant District Attorney Kristen Martin.

Gardner’s attorney Chris Collins asked Benton if his job could be described as a “bridge between medical and legal,” and the doctor said that’s “one of the functions.”

The attorney emphasized that Benton relied on the reports of others before talking to Gardner and Stringer himself while Rosalee was on life support at UMMC. Collins asked if he had the report about the injury at the daycare and all other relevant information.

“I’m sure there’s something I don’t know,” Benton said, “but I’m willing to listen.”

He acknowledged that Rosalee’s breathing tube did become “dislodged” as she was being transported to UMMC, but “that’s not uncommon” and “she had not been breathing for a length of time” before receiving medical care, Benton testified.

Collins also asked about Benton’s concern over the bruise to Rosalee’s cheek after the daycare incident.

The bruise in the “hollow part of the cheek” on a baby with limited mobility is “a sentinel sign of abuse,” Benton said, “but it’s not life-threatening.”

Martin asked Benton if he would be testifying in the case against Gardner and Stringer if he believed the injury at the daycare caused Rosalee’s death.

“No,” he said to that and her question if there was evidence anyone at the daycare injured her.

Martin asked Benton if he has testified in cases against daycares and school districts before, and he said, “Yes.”

In reference to earlier statements that Rosalee had been crying more than usual after the daycare injury, Martin asked if that was indicative of a serious injury.

“Babies usually get quiet” in cases like that, Benton said. “It’s the one not crying that you worry about.”

Martin concluded her questioning by asking Benton if he had “any motivation to falsely accuse” either of the defendants.

“No,” he said, noting that his primary job is “to get it right, get the truth.”

Before being cross-examined, Benton testified that his conclusion, “with a reasonable degree of medical certainty,” is that Rosalee’s death was “most likely an abusive event,” based on the fact that only two people were in the residence with her at the time she suffered the fatal blow to the head. “Self-injury” was excluded as a possibility, he said, because of the force required and a 6-month-old’s inability to deliver that force in a fall from the floor. “The ultimate conclusion was abusive head trauma.”

Carter filed a motion to strike Benton from testifying as an expert witness, noting that he’s not a pathologist and he didn’t examine Rosalee.

“Dr. Benton is merely a paid advocate for suspected victims of child abuse,” Carter wrote and cited cases in which his testimony was deemed “unreliable and inadmissible” and nothing more than “unsupported speculation.”

Benton’s work at UMMC and as an expert witness has come under scrutiny in recent months, following a three-part series by Mississippi Today that claimed he “got it wrong” in at least three cases in recent years. But the defense didn’t bring up any of that while he was on the stand.

Benton is the only board-certified child abuse pediatrician in the state and one of only 20 in the nation. Judge Dal Williamson ruled that Benton would be designated as an expert witness and the defendants will have a chance to counter his claims with their own experts. The judge allowed Benton’s testimony to be videotaped for the defense’s experts.

The defense’s experts have been the subjects of motions by prosecutors, too.

Dr. Peter J. Dehnel, a pediatrician from Minnesota, “barely gets through the gate” as an expert, Williamson ruled, and Dr. Stephen Godfrey, a pathologist from Missouri, had at least two conclusions excluded from his opinion.

Expert witnesses are allowed to hear other experts’ testimony, but non-expert witnesses are not allowed to be in the courtroom while others are testifying, unless released by attorneys on both sides after giving their testimony.

The defense did not release SCRMC Children’s Academy Director Laurie Hodge or Jones County DA Investigator Tonya Madison, indicating they may be called back to the witness stand by the defense.

It’s not known if the defendants will testify.

Prosecutors are not pursuing the death penalty, so the maximum sentence for the defendants, if convicted, is life in prison.

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