HAMILTON — Prosecutors ended their part of a shaken baby case Friday in Butler County Common Pleas Court with graphic testimony about the extent of a Hamilton child's head and eye injuries.

        Defense lawyers then began presenting testimony intended to show that the baby's father didn't cause those injuries.

Howard

        James Neil Howard, 28, is accused of two felony counts of child endangering involving his infant son's life-altering brain and eye injuries. Mr. Howard's lawyers have argued that Draven Howard's difficult birth — which involved failed forceps and vacuum-extraction attempts followed by an emergency Caesaren section — could be to blame.

        Doctors who testified for the prosecution said they cannot say precisely when the injuries happened, but they discounted or dismissed the possibility that the child's serious problems could stem from his birth in January 2000.

        The doctors think Draven's most serious injuries occurred within hours, days or weeks of their discovery on April 4, 2000, when the child had severe breathing difficulty. Mr. Howard is accused of hurting his child on April 1 and April 4 last year, two occasions when the child went to hospitals with breathing problems.

        Dr. Constance West, a pediatric ophthalmologist at Children's Hospital Medical Center, said Draven exhibited some of the worst retinal hemorrhages she has seen.

        She also testified that the baby suffered tearing of the retina in a spot near the optic nerve — and that “all the reported cases” of that type of injury have been linked to shaken baby syndrome.

        “There isn't anything else that ever looks like this,” Dr. West said.

        Dr. Marguerite Care, a radiologist at Children's who specializes in examining images of children's brains, showed the jury black-and-white depictions of Draven's brain and said, “This is a devastating brain injury.”

        She said the baby's brain had pockets of older fluid as well as smaller spots of blood that could have been up to 14 days old when they were found on April 4, 2000.

        Dr. Care said the child's most significant brain injury appeared to have occurred from lack of blood flow. “We don't quite understand why it happens,” she said.

        A key defense witness, Mr. Howard's wife, Angelique, 28, testified that doctors seemed to ignore her concerns about Draven's bulging fontanelle and a bump on the back of his head. She also said doctors did not inform her and her husband that vacuum-assisted births have sometimes caused brain injuries.

        Assistant Prosecutor Steve Tolbert showed the jury a lengthy home video of Draven, which he said illustrated that Draven was “fine,” and developing normally prior to April 2000. Mrs. Howard disagreed, and said that he did have abnormalities that might not be apparent on the video.

        Mrs. Howard testified that her husband never treated their son badly and she was the primary caregiver for the child.

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