Texas Defies Science in Pending ‘Shaken Baby’ Execution That Is Scheduled for This Week

As Texas prepares to execute a man convicted of murder based on a controversial shaken baby syndrome diagnosis, the state’s reputation for an unyielding stance on death penalty cases is facing much scrutiny.The case of Robert Roberson, set for execution on October 17, has reignited a debate over the state’s reluctance to overturn death sentences in light of evolving scientific understanding of shaken baby syndrome and multiple pieces of evidence that could exonerate the convicted father.Advocates for Mr. Roberson say that his 2-year-old daughter, Nikki Curtis, had been sick and died of double pneumonia that turned into sepsis, which was also exacerbated by medicines that are now seen as not suitable for children.The state denied a recent motion to have Mr. Roberson’s conviction overturned despite the introduction of opinions from three medical experts, who all found that Nikki had likely died as a result of undiagnosed illness. Mr. Roberson’s legal team cited this new evidence, saying it proves that Nikki had not died of head trauma. In the week before her death, her father had taken him to the emergency room and the doctor’s office because she had been coughing, wheezing, had severe stomach issues and a temperature of more than 104 degrees.“It is irrefutable that Nikki’s medical records show that she was severely ill during the last week of her life,” Roberson’s attorneys wrote in their opposition to the sentencing for an execution date. “There was a tragic, untimely death of a sick child whose impaired, impoverished father did not know how to explain what has confounded the medical community for decades.”Prosecutors said that the evidence did not disprove their case against the father and maintained that the child had died from injuries inflicted. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals dismissed the defendant’s motion to challenge the sentence without reviewing the mounting evidence that suggests young Nikki had died of natural causes.“Robert’s fate is now at the mercy of the Governor. He and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles are the only ones standing in the way of a horrific and irreversible mistake: the execution of an innocent man,” Mr. Roberson’s attorney, Gretchen Sims Sween, said in a press release. “Robert Roberson lived every parent’s nightmare when his beloved daughter experienced a medical crisis and collapsed in her sleep. Then the State compounded the horror by sending him to death row for more than 20 years for a crime that never occurred.”Mr. Roberson would be the first person in America to be put to death for Shaken Baby Syndrome if the sentence of death by lethal injection is carried out.Texas is known for having some of the most stringent enforcement of the death penalty and, with it, the highest execution rate in America.In 2023 alone, the Lone Star State was responsible for a third of the 24 executions carried out nationwide, according to the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. Of the eight men executed in Texas last year, six were found to have significant intellectual or mental health issues.“What is even more appalling is that most of their jurors never heard about these impairments, or the traumatic life stories of the men they sentenced to death,” TCADP Executive Director Kristin Houlé Cuellar said in a September press release.Mr. Roberson’s case has underscored the call for state legislators to consider the process by which someone is sentenced to death. Texas’ high execution rate is due to several factors, including a broad statute that allows a more comprehensive range of offenses to be classified under capital punishment and an appeals process that moves swiftly when compared to other states.A bipartisan group of Texas lawmakers has come out to support Mr. Roberson and demand that he be granted clemency.“We’re barreling towards an execution when a strong bipartisan majority of #txlege reps aren’t even sure a crime occurred — and are very sure due process didn’t. We have to do all we can to pump the brakes before this stains Texas justice for generations,” State Representative Joe Moody of El Paso said on X.The group is urging the parole board to reconsider citing “voluminous new scientific evidence.”On January 31, 2002, Mr. Roberson had brought his daughter to the hospital claiming that she had fallen from her bed. She was pronounced dead, and he was arrested after hospital staff had suspected child abuse without taking into account the infant’s medical issues. Scans done at the hospital showed that Nikki had internal conditions that are usually associated with shaken baby syndrome.According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, those signs are generally used to infer abuse in criminal cases but are no longer accepted as tall-tell signs.“Some of these presenting signs can and should lead to a diagnosis of something other than abusive head trauma,” a pediatrician specializing in child abuse and speaking on behalf of the academy, Dr. Andrea Asnes, said to the New York Times. The same high court in Texas that is presiding over Mr. Roberson’s case is also ordering a new trial for Andrew Roark, a Dallas-area man who was convicted in 2000 of injuring a child by shaking, citing how medical understanding had changed regarding the diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome.

Texas Defies Science in Pending ‘Shaken Baby’ Execution That Is Scheduled for This Week

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