Kathleen Folbigg has been released from her 20-year prison sentence into the arms of jubilant friends and loyal supporters.

After being found guilty of three counts of murder and one of manslaughter in a trial that lasted seven weeks in 2003, she was initially sentenced to 40 years. However, the sentence was later reduced on appeal to 30 years, with a minimum of 25.

Yesterday, Folbigg received an unconditional pardon.

Luke is joined by Professor Emma Cunliffe from the Peter A Allard School of Law at the University of British Columbia & author of ‘Murder, Medicine and Motherhood’, who sheds light on the issue of unexplained infant death being treated as a criminal justice problem since the 1990s. This shift has led to wrongful convictions in various jurisdictions.

Using Kathleen Folbigg’s murder trial and appeals as a case study, Professor Cunliffe’s aforementioned book explores how the burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt is affected by legal procedures, medical knowledge, and societal expectations of motherhood.

The professor strongly argues that Folbigg was unjustly convicted, with her research exposing how the court in the case was misled about the current understanding of infant death and relied on flawed assumptions that behavioral and scientific evidence independently proved guilt.

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