Terry Ceasor
Wrongfully convicted: December 19, 2005
Exonerated: September 30, 2021
St. Clair County
Terry Ceasor was convicted of child abuse in 2005, stemming from an injury his girlfriend’s two-year-old son sustained while under Ceasor’s case. Ceasor maintained that the child fell off a couch and hit his head on the floor, but the prosecution argued that the child’s injuries were the result of “shaken baby syndrome”/ “abusive head trauma.” The SBS/AHT theory has resulted in many innocent parents and caregivers being charged with crimes they did not commit.
The Innocence Clinic took the case in 2009 and argued that Ceasor’s attorneys had been ineffective in failing to present expert testimony that would corroborate Ceasor’s story. After more than a decade of litigation through state and federal courts, the Clinic secured victories for Ceasor in both the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and the Michigan Supreme Court. Ceasor was fully exonerated on September 30, 3021 when the prosecution dismissed all charges.
More details available at:
- The National Registry of Exonerations: Terry Ceasor
- The Detroit Free Press: Michigan Supreme Court overturns child abuse conviction — more than 15 years later
- The Port Huron Times Herald: Man who served 4 years on overturned child abuse conviction to have record expunged