Timeline: 14+ Years

2/6/2023 - Second Trial Begins

October 2022 - Clayton turned down a new plea bargain offer from the State of Alaska to walk away with time served in exchange for pleading guilty to criminally negligent homicide. 

He had also turned down a plea bargain in 2009, and a two-year prison term plea bargain offered to him before the first trial. He has already served 4.5 years in prison since turning those down. 

9/4/2019 - Clayton Returns Home, recognized as no threat to the community, and released from wrongful imprisonment on no cash bail. 

7/26/2019 - Conviction overturned by Appeals Court. The court ruled that Jocelynn’s mother’s diagnosis shouldn’t have been suppressed by the trial judge. He was returned to pre-trial status and finally released at a bail hearing 6 weeks later.

“There were no eyewitnesses to any physical abuse by Allison. Nor was there any evidence that Allison had previously abused J.A. or been suspected of abusing J.A. To the contrary, the evidence presented at trial was almost exclusively that Allison was a loving father who was very involved in his special needs child’s care. … The testimony related to J.A.’s maternal health history of Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome simultaneously supported Allison’s defense theory – that J.A.’s death was the result of compounding injuries – and undermined the State’s case that J.A.’s death must have been caused by physical abuse. In the context of such a lengthy trial filled with complex and conflicting medical testimony, evidence that tended to cast doubt on Allison’s guilt was critical to Allison’s ability to present his defense. The court’s exclusion of this evidence cannot be said to be harmless. Reversal of Allison’s conviction is therefore required.” – Alaska Court of Appeals Opinion No. 2651 - July 26, 2019. 

2/13/2019 - Oral Arguments for the Appeal.

1/26/2017 - Appeal paperwork process started.

2/13/2015 to 9/4/2019 - Clayton in Prison for 1,668 days primarily at Goose Creek Correctional Facility. 

7/15/2015 - Sentencing Hearing. 

In a pre-sentence evaluation, Clinical Psychologist, Dr. Turner, concluded that “[e]xceedingly unusual in my experience of forensic evaluations, [Clayton’s] evaluation identifies no psychological risk factors by objective testing, a systematic, individualized appraisal of known risk factors for violence, and a methodical review of factors related to child protection." 

Thirty-eight letters of support from the community were filed with the court asking for reduced sentencing. 

There's not a lot we can add to Judge White’s statement during Clayton's sentencing. After 5 1/2 weeks of testimony, her statement about the day Jocelynn died was, "...Dr. Turner has no idea what occurred, and neither does the court." She then sentenced him to: 40 years in prison with 10 suspended.

2/13/2015 - Clayton wrongfully convicted and taken to prison after a trial full of extensive misconduct by state officials. 

Jan-Feb, 2015 - First Trial. 

1/10/2015 - Trial judge suppresses mother’s diagnosis for a genetic disease that is genetically dominant and inherited by 50% of children of those diagnosed, Ehlers Danlos Syndrome Type III, Hypermobile type. [This condition is known today as Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (hEDS).] People with all forms of EDS have fragile tissues and are easily injured. 

12/1/2014 - Trial judge rules autopsy is  “inadmissible hearsay.” Yet, she allows Dr. Whitmore (the Medical Examiner who performed the autopsy) to testify in the trial. 

In his report of Jocelynn’s autopsy, Dr. Whitmore:

• Made no mention of Jocelynn’s head hitting the wooden chair on the landing when she fell, and gave no opinion as to how that would have contributed to her injuries;
• Did not include pictures of significant findings, or provide a list of samples taken to allow other scientists to verify his findings;
• Classified her as a ‘normal child’ despite obvious physical differences and an extensive medical history;
• Produced the report declaring her death a homicide one day after receiving a call from the investigating officer, in spite of having not yet received results of lab tests.

During Clayton’s trial later, Dr. Whitmore testified that he:

• Had not read any of Jocelynn’s extensive medical history retrieved by his staff;
• Had not read the interviews his office conducted with her parents;
• Did not take the normal and essential step of soaking Jocelynn’s brain in fixative before dissecting it, which destroyed critical evidence;
• Did not send off samples for testing to confirm what he identified as significant injuries;
• Could do a good enough examination of brain tissue using only his “naked eye” without microscopic tissue analysis to identify injuries and time them more precisely;
• Did not save most of the tissues he examined, but claimed there might be additional samples (pieces of our beloved baby girl) unlabeled and “around somewhere.” 

11/27/2009 - The day before Thanksgiving, Clayton was released on bail for the first time. 

11/18/2009 - Clayton was asked to turn himself in to police and reported directly to the police station.

9/24/2008 - Jocelynn passed away in surgery after a fall down the stairs where her head impacted the leg of a wooden chair.

1/15/2008 - Doctors began to suspect Jocelynn’s development wasn't normal. She started losing weight in spite of a strong appetite; although intelligent, her gross motor skills were developing slowly; and her head circumference began to expand dramatically. Over the rest of her life, Jocelynn was seen regularly by a team of specialists including a neurologist, a nutritionist, a physical therapist, and her pediatrician.  

6/22/2007 - Jocelynn was born after a dramatic lightning storm that made headlines.