Texas’ high prison courtroom on Thursday once more paused the execution of Robert Roberson, simply days earlier than he was set to turn into the primary particular person within the U.S. put to demise for a homicide conviction tied to a analysis of shaken child syndrome.
This was the third execution date that Roberson’s legal professionals have been capable of keep since 2016, together with one scheduled almost a 12 months in the past, as a result of an unprecedented intervention from a bipartisan group of Texas lawmakers who imagine he’s harmless.
The newest execution keep was granted by the Texas Court docket of Prison Appeals. Roberson had been scheduled to obtain a deadly injection on Oct. 16 for the demise of his 2-year-old daughter, Nikki Curtis.
The courtroom granted the keep based mostly on Texas’ 2013 junk science legislation, which permits an individual convicted of a criminal offense to hunt reduction if the proof used in opposition to them is not credible.
It cited its October 2024 ruling that overturned the conviction of one other man, Andrew Roark, in one other shaken child case in Dallas. Roberson’s legal professionals argue that the 2 instances are indistinguishable.
The appeals courtroom despatched Roberson’s case again to his trial courtroom in East Texas for evaluate.
“We’re relieved and grateful that members of the (appeals courtroom) recognize the parallels between Andrew Roark’s case and Robert Roberson’s,” Gretchen Sween, one among Roberson’s legal professionals, stated in a press release. “Robert adored Nikki, whose demise was a tragedy, a horror compounded by Robert’s wrongful conviction that devastated his entire household. We’re assured that an goal evaluate of the science and medical proof will present there was no crime.”
The Texas Lawyer Common’s Workplace, which is in search of Roberson’s execution, didn’t instantly reply to an e-mail requesting remark.
Roberson’s legal professionals say the post-mortem was ‘not dependable’
Since his first execution date greater than 9 years in the past, Roberson’s legal professionals have filed a number of petitions with state and federal appeals courts, in addition to with the U.S. Supreme Court docket, to cease his execution. They’ve additionally requested the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and Gov. Greg Abbott to intervene, as a part of their efforts to safe Roberson a brand new trial.
Prosecutors at Roberson’s 2003 trial argued that he hit Nikki and violently shook her, inflicting extreme head trauma. They stated she died from accidents associated to shaken child syndrome.
Roberson has lengthy proclaimed his innocence, telling The Related Press in an interview final week from demise row in Livingston, Texas, that he by no means abused his daughter.
“I by no means shook her or hit her,” he stated.
The analysis of shaken child syndrome refers to a severe mind damage brought on when a toddler’s head is damage via shaking or another violent impression, like being slammed in opposition to a wall or thrown on the ground.
Roberson’s legal professionals and a few medical consultants say his daughter died not from abuse however from issues associated to pneumonia. They are saying his conviction was based mostly on flawed and now outdated scientific proof.
Of their newest enchantment, Roberson’s legal professionals included what they are saying are new authorized and scientific developments and skilled analyses that present Nikki’s demise was attributable to sickness and accident, not by abuse.
Roberson’s legal professionals additionally included a joint assertion from 10 unbiased pathologists who stated the health worker’s post-mortem report, which concluded Nikki died from blunt drive head accidents, was “not dependable.”
Some authorities imagine Nikki was a sufferer of kid abuse
His attorneys additionally argue that new proof exhibits judicial misconduct in Roberson’s case.
They allege the decide who presided over Roberson’s trial didn’t disclose that he additionally licensed the circumvention of Roberson’s parental rights and allowed Nikki’s grandparents to take away her from life assist.
The workplace of Texas Lawyer Common Ken Paxton, in addition to some medical consultants and different members of the family of Nikki, keep that the kid died due to abuse and that Roberson had a historical past of hitting her.
In a Sept. 26 op-ed in The Dallas Morning Information, three pediatricians, together with two with the Yale Faculty of Medication, stated they reviewed the case and “are satisfied that Nikki was a sufferer of kid abuse.”
Shaken child syndrome has come below scrutiny lately; some legal professionals and medical consultants say the analysis has wrongly despatched individuals to jail. Prosecutors and medical societies say it stays legitimate.
Roberson’s supporters embrace liberal and ultraconservative lawmakers, Texas GOP megadonor and conservative activist Doug Deason, bestselling writer John Grisham, and Brian Wharton, the previous police detective who helped put collectively the case in opposition to him.
GOP state Rep. Brian Harrison, one of many extra conservative lawmakers within the Texas Legislature, praised the execution keep.
“These courageous judges took their responsibility to hunt justice critically, even within the face of large — and dishonest — political strain to execute a doubtlessly harmless particular person, who has by no means been given a good trial,” Harrison stated in a press release.
