Father accused of abusing 11-week-old daughter heads to trial; had only been "in charge" of baby for 50 minutes (Brighton, Michigan)

Notice that Mom is being accused of neglect because she left the baby with Dad while she got a haircut.

On one hand, mothers are told not to be suspicious of men, and to involve fathers in every way.

And then they are blamed when Daddy f**** up and they bought into his cover story. Notice that Mom has lost custody because she believed the father's explanation (BS) for the baby's injury, and nothing else.

Dad is identified as JOSHUA QUINCY BURNS.

http://www.livingstondaily.com/article/20140626/NEWS01/306260014/Father-accused-child-abuse-heads-trial

Father accused of child abuse heads to trial

Jun. 26, 2014

Written by Lisa Roose-Church

Daily Press & Argus

A Brighton father will head to Livingston County Circuit Court for trial on a child abuse charge alleging he harmed his then-11-week-old daughter, a judge ruled Tuesday.

Assistant Prosecutor Betsy Geyer Sedore said the testimony from a two-day preliminary hearing that concluded Tuesday showed Joshua Quincy Burns was responsible for “serious physical harm” to his daughter in March while her mother was getting a haircut.

Sedore said there were no problems when the child’s mother was caring for her, but during an estimated 90-minute time frame when the father was in charge, “an incident” occurred that resulted in multiple doctor visits for the infant, who suffered retinal hemorrhaging, among other injuries.

Defense attorney Michael Cronkright opposed the bind-over, saying the prosecution has to show “more than a child was injured,” but that his client’s “reckless act caused the injury.”

Cronkright said the state’s expert witness, a pediatric child abuse physician, “dismissed out of hand” that anything else could have caused the infant’s injuries.

“The only explanation before the court is some incidental response to a fall kind of activity,” he said. “There has to be some evidence my client did something to cause the injuries, and there’s no evidence.”

Sedore disagreed with Cronkright’s characterization that it was a “minor offense,” countering that exact details of what happened to the infant March 15 are unknown because the prosecution can’t force the defendant to say what happened.

“He was left alone with the child. The child exhibits injuries; the child ends up vomiting and having problems,” Sedore told the court. “They have to take the child to the (emergency room on) numerous different occasions, and when they finally look into her eyes, they see retinal hemorrhaging that goes multilayers and all the way around, basically, on both eyes. ... The child was with no one else.”

Sedore’s statement summarized testimony provided by Dr. Bethany Mohr, a pediatric child abuse physician with C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital who specializes in brain trauma in infants.

Mohr testified that Burns’ infant daughter had retinal hemorrhaging in both eyes, which is an indicator of child abuse, as well as bruising.

She said Burns told her that he “grabbed” the infant’s face when she fell while sitting on his lap and she had him demonstrate how it occurred by using a doll. She said she was “taken aback with his aggression” when he grabbed the doll’s face.

However, she said Burns’ story did not explain the infant’s intracranial and ophthalmological injuries.

Burns’ wife, Brenda Burns, testified that her husband told her their daughter “lurched forward” and he caught her on her face. She said when she arrived home that she saw a fingerprint on her daughter’s face and redness around the infant’s eye.

On cross-examination, Brenda Burns was asked if she had any reason to doubt her husband’s story.

“Not at all,” she replied. The infant has been placed in the custody of the Department of Human Services pending the outcome of an abuse/neglect case filed against both Burns and his wife.

The neglect/abuse case is set for trial in July.