Barring a successful last-minute appeal, the US state of Texas is set to execute an autistic man this week, whose murder conviction was based on what his lawyers claim was a misdiagnosis of 'shaken baby syndrome.' Robert Roberson, 57, is scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville on Thursday for the February 2002 death of his two-year-old daughter, Nikki.
Roberson's case has garnered attention from the Innocence Project, which works to overturn wrongful convictions, best-selling American novelist John Grisham, Texas lawmakers, and medical experts. Among those seeking to halt Roberson's execution is Brian Wharton, the former chief detective in the town of Palestine, who originally put him behind bars.
'Knowing everything that I know now, I am firmly convinced that Robert is an innocent man,' Wharton said at a recent press conference organized by Roberson's supporters. 'The system failed Robert.'
Grisham, author of legal thrillers 'The Firm' and 'A Time to Kill,' also appeared at the event and expressed deep concern over cases like Roberson's. 'When you get into wrongful convictions, you realize how many innocent people are in prison,' said Grisham, a former attorney. 'What's amazing about Robert's case is that there was no crime,' added Grisham, a board member of the Innocence Project, which has helped free over 250 innocent people from US prisons since its founding in 1992.
Roberson's lawyers argue that the diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome, made at the hospital where his chronically ill daughter died, was incorrect, and the actual cause of death was pneumonia, exacerbated by the wrong medication. Wharton, now a Methodist minister, stated that the hospital doctor's conclusion that the toddler had died after being violently shaken 'led the investigation from that point forward, to the exclusion of all other possibilities.'
According to his lawyers, Roberson would be the first person executed in the United States based on a conviction of shaken baby syndrome, now classified as abusive head trauma by the American Academy of Pediatrics. 'In the two decades that have passed since Mr. Roberson's trial, evidence-based science has roundly debunked the version of the shaken baby syndrome hypothesis that was put before his jury,' said Kate Judson of the Center for Integrity in Forensic Sciences.
More than 30 parents and caregivers in 18 US states have been exonerated after being wrongfully convicted using 'unscientific' shaken baby testimony, Judson added. Roberson's attorney, Gretchen Sween, noted that his autism spectrum disorder, diagnosed in 2018, was not considered and contributed to his arrest and conviction. During the medical crisis involving his daughter, Roberson 'shut down, and his external lack of affect was judged as a lack of caring,' Sween said.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied an emergency motion to stay Roberson's execution and order a new trial on Friday. Another appeal is scheduled to be heard by a different state court on Tuesday, and lawyers for Roberson have also requested clemency from Texas Governor Greg Abbott and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles.
Citing the 'voluminous new scientific evidence' that casts doubt on Roberson's guilt, a bipartisan group of 86 Texas state lawmakers has urged the parole board and the governor to grant clemency. There have been 19 executions in the United States this year, including the September 24 execution in Missouri of Marcellus Williams, whose case was also championed by the Innocence Project amid doubts about his guilt.
The death penalty has been abolished in 23 of the 50 US states, while six others—Arizona, California, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee—have moratoriums in place.
