Robert G. Rubin – Criminal Defense Notable Cases:
Child Physical Abuse / Shaken Baby Syndrome / Abusive Head Trauma

State v. John Doe (2023): Detective Closes Aggravated Child Molestation/Aggravated Sodomy Investigation of Client After Defense Counsel Proves Neighbor’s Allegations Were False.

Defense Counsel:

Charges: Law enforcement was investigating the client for allegations of Aggravated Child Molestation, Aggravated Sodomy, and Cruelty to Children against multiple children.

Prosecution's Case:

A former neighbor accused the client, a medical doctor, of molesting the neighbor's children and his own children, and forcing his own children to molest the neighbor’s children. If arrested, prosecuted, and convicted, the client was facing a mandatory minimum 25 years up to Life in prison.

Further, in a separate matter, the Georgia Composite Medical Board was investigating whether the client violated the Board’s laws or rules by allegedly sexually harassing two employees.

Defense and Outcome:

The client was married to his wife for 25 years. They had 3 children together, two of whom were transgender. Their former neighbor had 4 children around the same age as the client’s children. Two of them were close friends with the client’s children. The two families were friendly and would sometimes get together socially for swimming, bonfires, and other family activities. They lived next door to each other for 10 years until the neighbors moved away in 2018.

In 2022, the client was contacted by DFCS, the police, and directly by the former neighbor, alleging that the client molested the neighbor’s 4 children, molested his own children, and had his children molest the neighbor’s children.

The client adamantly denied all the allegations. Defense Counsel met with him and his wife to discuss the allegations and prepare a defense. The client and his wife provided the texts in which the former neighbor made his allegations, photos and correspondence showing the history of all the relationships, and the social, psychological, and medical records for their own children.

Defense Counsel contacted the client’s children’s therapists, who had been working with them for several years prior to this allegation for ADHD, transitioning gender, and other mental health issues. The therapists confirmed that in their hundreds of hours of working with the family, the children made no mention of any kind of sexual abuse. Further, the therapists confirmed that they had no suspicion that the client was abusing his children.

Counsel also arranged for the client to take a polygraph, which he passed. He also underwent a psychosexual evaluation, which showed no indication of deviant sexual behaviors or sexual interest in children.

Defense counsel’s investigator interviewed the client’s children and numerous friends and family members. The children denied being abused by their dad or participating in or observing any abuse of the neighbor’s children. Countless friends and family who spent time around the client and all the children involved said they never saw anything suspicious. Instead, they observed that the kids acted completely normally around the client and each other – that everyone’s conduct and behavior was completely inconsistent with the alleged abuse.

Finally, Defense Counsel agreed to allow one of the client’s children to be interviewed by a forensic interviewer, who reported no disclosure of abuse or anything suspicious.

Defense Counsel presented all of this to the detective investigating the case. After reviewing the extensive materials supporting the client’s innocence, the detective closed her investigation without making an arrest.

Counsel also supplied to the Medical Board investigator proof that the complainant who alleged sexual harassment at work made false statements in her complaint. Defense counsel interviewed employees in the practice who contradicted the complainant’s allegations and provided the practice’s own internal investigation report, which contradicted many of the complainant’s allegations to the Board’s investigator. After reviewing the materials provided by Defense Counsel, the Board voted to close its investigation.

State v. John Doe (2012)

Defense Counsel:

Charges: Aggravated Battery, Cruelty to Children, Shaken Baby Syndrome

Prosecution's Case:

The alleged victim,a 9 month old baby boy, was alleged by the State to have received abusive head trauma from shaking by Defendant.

Defense and Outcome:

Following defense investigation of facts, preparation of case for trial, and presentation of evidence to the District Attorney, the arrest warrants were dismissed by District Attorney.

State v. John Doe: (2014)

Defense Counsel:

Charges: Felony Murder, Cruelty to Children, Shaken Baby Syndrome

Prosecution's Case:

The father violently shook his 2 month old son due to his son's fussiness, causing subdural and subpial hemorrhages and his death. He was facing Life in prison.

Defense and Outcome:

Following Defense Counsel’s intensive review of the facts of the case and their work with medical experts in pediatric neuroradiology, pediatric neuropathology, blood disorders, and acute life threatening events (ALTEs), defense counsel learned that the bleeding in the child's head was the result of a venous thrombosis (ruptured clot) and complications of cardiac arrest, not a violent shaking. After cross-examining the state's witnesses at trial and presenting their defense of the case to a jury, the state elected to dismiss all murder charges prior to the jury deliberating. The case concluded with the defendant accepting 4 years of probation to criminal negligence under the First Offender statute and no admission of guilt. After probation, the defendant will not have a record of the offense.

State v. John Doe (2016)

Defense Counsel:

Charges: Murder, 3 counts of Felony Murder, and one count each of Cruelty to Children in the First Degree, Aggravated Battery, and Aggravated Assault

Prosecution's Case:

Defendant was accused of violently shaking his girlfriend’s 9-month old baby to death. Doctors discovered the “triad” of symptoms commonly associated with “Shaken Baby Syndrome”: bleeding on the brain, swelling of the brain, and bleeding in the eyes. Autopsy revealed other injuries, including a broken leg, trauma in the neck, and multiple areas of bleeding and bruising inside and out. Medical personnel and police suspected child abuse. Police interrogated Defendant over a period of six hours. Initially, Defendant claimed the baby fell off the couch. But he eventually admitted to shaking the baby out of frustration and then accidentally dropping the baby. Defendant also reenacted the events on camera, showing police how he shook and dropped the baby.

Defense and Outcome:

Defendant’s case sat idle for nearly 2 years before Mr. Rubin and Mr. Hodges were hired. The court gave counsel only 4 months to prepare for trial. Counsel immediately obtained and studied the discovery. They learned that while Defendant admitted to shaking the baby, he claimed that the baby was unharmed by the shaking—that he was fine until Defendant accidentally tripped and dropped him later, at which point he became unresponsive. Although Defendant gave detailed descriptions of how he dropped the baby, nobody with the police, the hospitals, or the Medical Examiner’s office paid much attention to the drop as a possible cause of injury and death (if they learned about it all). To most, it was a clear case of “Shaken Baby Syndrome.”

Counsel subpoenaed additional medical records and forwarded all the records and case materials to several experts: a Medical Examiner from Florida, a former Pediatrician and “Shaken Baby Syndrome” researcher from Alabama, a retired Chief Medical Examiner of Georgia, and a Biomechanical Engineer from Georgia. All of them concluded that: 1). the baby’s head injuries could not have been caused by shaking; 2). the baby’s head injuries were consistent with the accidental drop Defendant described; and 3). all the other “injuries” noted at autopsy were consistent with life-saving interventions specifically described by emergency and medical personnel in the case.

Counsel presented all this evidence at trial, and the jury found Defendant NOT GUILTY of Malice Murder, 3 counts of Felony Murder, Cruelty to Children, and Aggravated Battery. He was found guilty of 1 count of Aggravated Assault for admittedly shaking the baby.

State v. John Doe (2006)

Defense Counsel:

Charges: Aggravated Assault, Cruelty to Children

Prosecution's Case:

The Defendant had a psychotic break and was taken to the police station by his parents. The police tried to get him to cooperate with them and release his one year old daughter to them. The Defendant refused to release his daughter while fighting the police. During the ensuing fight, he choked his daughter until she passed out.

Defense and Outcome:

The defense presented evidence of the paranoia and delusions of the Defendant at the time of this incident. However, instead of raising an insanity defense, the defense argued that the Defendant had no intention of hurting his daughter. In fact the evidence showed that the Defendant's goal during the fight was to protect his daughter from the police. After a 3 day trial the Defendant was found not guilty on all counts.