The person serving a life sentence says the verdict was wrong.
The District Attorney’s office in Nashville, which prosecuted the case over 25 years ago, says the verdict was wrong.
Attorneys from the Tennessee Innocence Project say the verdict was wrong.
The state of Tennessee’s medical examiner at the time of the trial recanted his previous testimony and said the verdict was wrong.
An appellate court judge didn’t go so far as to say the verdict was wrong, but insisted that the new scientific evidence warranted serious reconsideration.
Unfortunately for Russell Maze, who is serving a life sentence for a murder conviction in his infant son Alex’s death, the other two justices on the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals panel weren’t as moved as their colleague. The ruling to deny his appeal on October 31, 2025, stood in stark contrast to the recent trend of orders to remand cases and exonerations in convictions involving diagnoses of shaken baby syndrome as medical experts continue to question their validity.
Scientific Advances March On, but Does Criminal Justice Keep Pace?
Alex Maze, whose legal name was Bryan, had a short and difficult life of five weeks. The son of Russell and Kaye Maze, he spent 13 days after his birth in a neonatal intensive care unit. During the ensuing three weeks, health care issues led his parents to seek medical attention for him seven additional times. He was alone with his father when he stopped breathing on May 3, 1999. Emergency personnel were unable to revive him.
A doctor diagnosed that, given the internal bleeding around his brain and eyes, Alex had died as a result of being violently shaken due to child abuse. This was confirmed by Dr. Bruce Levy, the chief medical examiner of Nashville at the time. Russell Maze was convicted in separate trials of aggravated assault before Alex’s death and murder by shaken baby syndrome after his death. He was sentenced to life in prison. His wife took an Alford plea for aggravated assault that allowed her to avoid prison time.
Given the medical knowledge available at the time, Alex’s death had been caused by shaken baby syndrome. As science and medicine made advances, some began to wonder if a mistake had been made.
When Admitting a Mistake Still Isn’t Enough
In 2023, the Conviction Review Unit (CRU) of the Nashville District Attorney’s Office began reinvestigating Maze’s case. Research had indicated that shaken baby syndrome was long prone to misdiagnosis due to its shared symptoms with other ailments. In March 2024, armed with the testimony of experts who questioned Dr. Levy’s diagnosis, the CRU presented its findings to Judge Steve Dozier, the same justice who’d overseen Maze’s conviction, in an attempt to get Maze’s conviction set aside. In rejecting the claim, Judge Dozier scoffed at an expert’s belief that if Dr. Levy were present, he’d admit he’d gotten it wrong.
Perhaps someone should have asked Dr. Levy himself, as it wasn’t until after the hearing that he did just that. In a sworn affidavit, Dr. Levy stated that, given advances in medical knowledge and factoring in medical records he claimed he wasn’t given access to at the time of his original diagnosis, Alex Maze had likely died of either natural causes or a natural disease process. He recanted his previous trial testimony that the child had died from shaken baby syndrome.
Armed with this admission, the CRU worked with the Tennessee Innocence Project to present the case in the state Court of Criminal Appeals. The scales of justice, however, failed to tip in favor of exoneration. The majority ruling from the panel upheld Judge Dozier’s ruling, stating that attorneys for Maze had failed to prove that the scientific evidence presented was either truly “new” or clearly proved that Maze was innocent. While Levy’s admission was considered, they ruled that it carried no more weight than other evidence from the case.
The other member of the panel, Judge Tom Greenholtz, strenuously dissented with the majority’s ruling, insisting that if Dr. Levy questioned the medical science at the time, the court should as well. He was disappointed that his benchmates were dismissing the sworn testimony of a pathologist that no homicide had occurred.
It certainly disappointed Maze as well, who has never wavered from proclaiming his innocence. His next path forward is to petition the Tennessee Supreme Court, but it is not at all clear they will take up the case. Given the recent revelations and medical advances, some may question whether or not Russell Maze is truly responsible for the death of his son. For now, he remains guilty in the eyes of the law.
Related Resources
- What Are the Rules of Evidence? (FindLaw’s Learn About the Law)
- Appeals, Appellate Court, and Costs (FindLaw’s Criminal Procedure)
- Post-Conviction Proceedings (FindLaw’s Criminal Rights Law)
