From the February 2004 Idaho Observer:

Yurko returns to court March 26

Preliminary issues to be addressed and trial date to be set in landmark case

CENTURY, Florida -- After serving nearly six years of a life sentence for allegedly shaking his infant son to death, Alan Yurko, 36, is just six weeks away from scheduling a trial that may reverse one of the nation's most unjust prosecutorial trends.

Yurko rushed his infant son to the hospital after the sickly baby stopped breathing in 1996. The distraught father was then taken into custody, charged, tried, convicted and sentenced to life plus 10 years in prison after prosecutors convinced a jury that Baby Alan died from shaken baby syndrome (SBS).

Rather than accept a life sentence for a crime he did not commit, Yurko began to research. He discovered that his son died from the administration of contraindicated vaccines complicated by medical malpractice at the hospital. It seems Baby Alan's death was hastened by an attending physician to facilitate the harvest of his organs.

In the process of his investigations, Yurko found that hundreds of men and women have been imprisoned for SBS and that many of them are innocent of the crime of killing or injuring their children.

Last March, Yurko won an appeal and was granted a new trial. The new trial is about to begin, but preliminary issues will be addressed in a “case management” hearing scheduled for March 26, 2004.

Much attention is being focused on the Yurko case. There is some concern that the state will settle out of court to avoid the embarrassment of a highly visible public trial.

Yurko has already been able to impeach the credibility of the state's witnesses. Yurko hopes to be admitted as co-counsel so that he may have the opportunity to question and cross-examine the state's witnesses himself. “I have been studying this material day and night for almost four years and am qualified to help with my own defense,” Yurko said.

He has also won the support of the local press and has assembled an international who's who of vaccine damage experts willing to testify on his behalf.

UPDATES:

* The National Health Federation has followed the Association of American of Physicians and Surgeons with public support of the Yurko Project by donating $2,000 to the defense fund.

* As expected, the state of Florida has requested pre-hearing discovery. This move effectively stalls the date of the court-granted evidentiary hearing and the period of delay is unknown at this time. It will also add astronomical expense to the defense budget. Of course, they know this.

* A case management hearing has been scheduled for March 26, 2004, at 1:30 PM, before Judge Alan Lawson in Orlando. Witness lists will be exchanged and each side will say how long the deposition of witnesses will take. Also to be determined is how long the evidentiary hearing itself will take, so that it can be scheduled properly. All this will allow the establishment of a date for the long-awaited evidentiary hearing.

* Other matters to be discussed are the permission granted by Judge Lawson for media to bring in cameras; and a Motion for Co-Counsel to allow Alan Yurko to question and cross examine witnesses himself, along with his attorney Loren Rhoton, Esq. of Rhoton and Hayman, PA.

* Francine Yurko continues her tireless activism with a request from Orlando TV News WFTV-Channel 9 to appear in a special documenting the notorious and nefarious activities of governor-appointed Medical Examiner Dr. Shashi Gore. She also continues her radio interviews and cameos, and has been invited to speak at a social justice reform conference in downtown Orlando February 21, 2004. The event is coordinated by Acting Director of the Orange County Bar Association, Professor Joseph DuRocher, JD (a staunch Yurko Project supporter) of Barry University School of Law. Representatives from many national organizations will be present.

Yurko can be emailed at alanyurko@aol.com. Be sure to include postal address on all correspondence.

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Note: Since publication, the Florida State Medical Examiner has invalidated the autopsy performed by Dr. Shashi Gore, has barred him from performing further autopsies and has stated that Gore would be fired if he weren't retiring in June, 2004. The state has effectively discredited its own witness in this case, clearing the way for Yurko's post conviction release.