Exactly one month before the impending execution of a Texas man at the center of a “shaken baby syndrome” case, attorneys, lawmakers and advocates convened Tuesday to proclaim his innocence.
Robert Roberson III, 57, was convicted of capital murder in 2003 for reportedly shaking his 2-year-old daughter, Nikki, to death. He is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Oct. 17 in Huntsville.
The clemency petition filed Tuesday asks Roberson’s death sentence to be commuted, or the execution delayed 180 days to allow the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and Gov. Greg Abbott to give the filing “appropriate consideration.” Roberson requested an interview and hearing on the matter.
“Robert Roberson is an innocent man,” his attorneys wrote in the petition. “This is not a case where the State got the wrong person. Instead, a crime was alleged — but none actually occurred.”
Roberson previously was scheduled to be executed in 2016, but the date was stayed after his lawyers argued that the conviction was based on “junk science” and “false, misleading and scientifically invalid testimony.”
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals last week dismissed a motion to halt the execution and a new application for relief — without reviewing the merits of his claims.
When Nikki died on Feb. 1, 2002, a medical examiner ruled the cause to be blunt-force head injuries.
According to court documents, Roberson said Nikki accidentally fell from a bed, but medical staff at a Palestine hospital called police because they considered the injuries — including bruises to her chin, cheek and jaw and bleeding outside her brain — suspicious and “likely intentional.”
“Based on the then-prevailing Shaken Baby Syndrome hypothesis, as well as the since-falsified belief that her father’s description of a short fall and Nikki’s illness could not explain her condition, it was assumed that Mr. Roberson must have shaken his daughter to death,” according to the filing.
“Significant scientific and medical evidence now shows that his daughter Nikki, who was chronically ill, died of a combination of natural and accidental causes, not the debunked shaken baby syndrome hypothesis that State used to convict [him].”
Tuesday’s petition argues Roberson’s conviction was based on three “grave mistakes.”
Those include: medical personnel at the hospital rushing to judgment based on “incorrect presumptions and ignorance of [Nikki’s] actual medical condition;” law enforcement accepting doctor’s assumptions that the injuries were caused by abuse; and hospital staff and police viewing Roberson’s “non-neurotypical demeanor” as a lack of feeling when it was a symptom of his autism, according to the petition.
At a news conference Tuesday morning, former Palestine detective Brian Wharton, whose testimony helped convict Roberson, said dozens of people have been exonerated of crimes based on shaken baby syndrome.
According to the National Registry of Exonerations, more than 30 people who served time in prison after convictions involving shaken baby syndrome have been declared innocent. The same should be done for Roberson, Wharton said, since he, too, believes no crime was committed.
Patrick Barnes, professor emeritus at Stanford University, has said that when Roberson was tried in 2003, shaken baby syndrome diagnoses were often based on a triad of symptoms seen in Nikki, including bleeding over the brain, brain swelling and bleeding in the eyes.
Since Roberson’s trial, however, Barnes said research has established the “triad is not presumptive proof of abuse.”
“The system failed to provide Robert true justice,” Wharton said.
Wharton said he visits Roberson in prison and will be “forever haunted” by participating in his arrest and prosecution.
“Despite all the wrongs that have been done to him, despite his ongoing struggles,” Wharton said, “Robert continues to be a gentle man, a graceful man, a thoughtful man.”
John Grisham, best-selling novelist and an Innocence Project board member, said Wharton speaking up and admitting mistakes as a police officer is a rarity.
One of Roberson’s attorneys, Gretchen Sween, agreed, adding while it shouldn’t be a “Herculean effort” to overturn a wrongful conviction, that’s what it’s come to in Texas.
Writing in support of the clemency petition, 84 state lawmakers from both political parties submitted a letter raising “grave concern” that Texas was preparing to execute Roberson “for a crime that did not occur.”
Without intervention, they warned, Roberson “will become the first person in the United States executed based on the ‘shaken baby syndrome’ hypothesis,” which the lawmakers said is now considered junk science.
The letter also highlighted a law passed more than a decade ago allowing convictions to be challenged if trial evidence was based on disproven or incomplete science.
“We have been dismayed to learn that this law has not been applied as intended and has not been a pathway to relief — or even a new trial — for people like Mr. Roberson,” they wrote. “As legislators, it is clear that we need to quickly and thoroughly address the way this law has been interpreted. In the meantime, we ask you to recommend clemency for Mr. Roberson so that his case can be reconsidered by the courts.”
At a Capitol news conference Tuesday in Austin, nine lawmakers — including Reps. Jeff Leach, R-Plano, Charlie Geren, R-Fort Worth, and Rhetta Andrews Bowers, D-Rowlett – urged the state to take a step back and pause the execution.
“We shouldn’t be executing someone when there’s this much doubt about whether a crime was even committed,” said Rep. Joe Moody, D-El Paso.
Child abuse is real, said Rep. Lacey Hull, R-Houston, “but tearing innocent families apart based on mistaken accusations is terrible, and we need to exhaust every means to ensure that we are getting the accusations right, especially when an irreversible decision — such as an execution — is on the line.”
Nan Tolson, director of Texas Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty, said the bipartisan support is a signal of how many issues there are in the case against Roberson.
“His case should deeply trouble every single Texan no matter their stance on the death penalty,” Tolson said.
Staff writer Nolan D. McCaskill contributed to this report.
