Execution of man accused in Texas “shaken baby” case suspended at last minute

() – Robert Roberson, sentenced to death in Texas, sat praying in a cell Thursday night, just meters from the execution chamber where he was scheduled to die by lethal injection for the death of his young daughter due to a case of “shaken baby.”

While he prayed, the State and its defenders disputed his fate in a remarkable exchange of last-minute legal maneuvers.
In the end, the Texas Supreme Court spared Roberson’s life, for now, by issuing a temporary stay of his execution shortly before the order to execute him expired at midnight.

A new execution date must now be set for Roberson, providing invaluable time for his lawyers and a bipartisan group of Texas House members who believe he was wrongfully convicted of murder in the death of his 2-year-old daughter. years old, Nikki, which was attributed to shaken baby syndrome.

Shock gripped Roberson when a group of Texas officials informed him of the suspension Thursday night, and he began praising God and “claiming his innocence,” as he has done for the past two decades, according to Amanda Hernandez. , spokesperson for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

The twist began Wednesday when, in an unusual last-ditch effort to delay Roberson’s death, the bipartisan Texas House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee issued a subpoena for him to testify before the panel next week as it reconsiders the legality. of your case.

The commission’s action provided new hope to Roberson’s lawyers, as all other avenues to stop the execution failed. Within days, his legal team lost multiple appeals in state courts, the Texas pardon board rejected his plea for clemency, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene.

“The vast team fighting for Robert Roberson – people from all over Texas, the country and the world – is elated tonight because a contingent of brave bipartisan Texas legislators decided to delve into facts in Robert’s case that no court had yet considered and “They recognized that his life was worth fighting for,” Roberson’s attorney, Gretchen Sween, said Thursday night.

Just over 90 minutes before Roberson’s execution was to begin, the House committee managed to obtain a temporary restraining order against the state, stopping the execution. The victory was short-lived, however, as a divided Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturned the order.

Following the appeals court’s decision, the House committee asked the Texas Supreme Court to issue an injunction against the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and the Correctional Institutions Division of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Although the high court quickly issued a temporary stay halting the execution, the petition for the injunction remains pending.

“For more than 20 years, Roberson has spent 23.5 hours of each day in solitary confinement in a cell no larger than most Texans’ closets, yearning and fighting to be heard,” the commission members said. , Rep. Joe Moody and Rep. Jeff Leach, in a joint statement following the suspension. “And while some courts have ruled, the Texas House has not.”

As the barrage of legal challenges unfolded, Roberson sat in a cell in the Huntsville unit where his execution was scheduled. He spent time praying and also spoke several times with his wife and other family members, according to his sister-in-law, Jennifer Roberson.

“When we talked to Robert before, I was thinking to myself, ‘You have to be strong, you have to comfort him.’ And that is exactly the opposite of what happened,” he said. “I was a nervous wreck and he was comforting me, telling me to be obedient to God, to stay strong, to keep faith, to keep hope.”

Roberson’s family feels “amazing” after receiving the news, Jennifer Roberson said. “It has taken almost 22 years for Texas to step up and do the right thing.”

Among those desperately waiting for news about the case was Brian Wharton, the former Palestine, Texas, detective who led the investigation into Nikki’s death. Wharton has since said the investigation was too narrowly focused and has joined the fight to save Roberson.

“Finally, this afternoon, they came and told us they had suspended him, and his wife started crying, and the rest of us took a deep breath. Because we all know he’s innocent,” Wharton told on Thursday. “We have been fighting this battle for a long time and trying to get a fair hearing.”

Roberson is scheduled to testify before the House committee on Monday, or possibly sooner if ordered by the court.

“We look forward to welcoming Robert to the Texas Capitol and, along with 31 million Texans, finally giving him – and the truth – the opportunity to be heard,” the Reps. said. Moody and Leach said in their statement.

reached out to the offices of Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for comment on the court’s decision.

Roberson’s defenders insist that the diagnosis that her daughter died from shaken baby syndrome is inaccurate and has been debunked.

The Texas House committee voted to subpoena Roberson as it considers the application of a law commonly known as “junk science car”which opened an avenue for people to challenge their convictions if new scientific evidence has emerged since their trial.

Lawmakers said the medical evidence presented at Roberson’s 2003 trial “is inconsistent with modern scientific principles.”

Although pediatricians specialized in child abuse remain firm in the validity Following the shaken baby syndrome diagnosis, Roberson’s attorneys say there is ample evidence that her daughter, Nikki Curtis, did not die from child abuse.

At the time of his death, he had double pneumonia that had progressed to sepsis, and he had been prescribed two medications that are now considered inappropriate for children and that would have further hindered his ability to breathe, they argue, citing medical experts.

Additionally, he had fallen off a bed and was especially vulnerable in his sickly state, Roberson’s attorneys say.
Other factors, too, contributed to his conviction, they argue. Doctors who treated Nikki “assumed” mistreatment based on her symptoms and common thinking at the time of her death, without exploring her recent medical history, the inmate’s attorneys say. His behavior in the emergency room – considered indifferent by doctors, nurses and police, who believed it a sign of his guilt – was actually a manifestation of an autism spectrum disorder, which was not diagnosed until 2018, according to his lawyers. .

Roberson’s attorneys do not dispute that babies can and do die from being shaken. But they maintain that more benign explanations, including illness, can mimic the symptoms of shaking, and that such alternative explanations must be ruled out before a medical expert can confidently declare that the cause of death was abuse.

Shaken baby syndrome is accepted as a diagnosis valid by the American Academy of Pediatrics and endorsed by child abuse pediatricians who spoke to . The condition, first described in the mid-1970s, has been considered a type of “abusive head trauma” for about 15 years, a broader term used to reflect actions other than shaking, such as an impact on the child’s head.

Criminal defense attorneys have also oversimplified the way doctors diagnose abusive head trauma, child abuse pediatricians say, noting that many factors go into determining this.

“The bottom line is simply that (Nikki) was the victim of abusive head trauma. Unequivocally,” Dr. Sandeep Narang, a child abuse pediatrician and attorney, told after a supporter of Roberson’s defense asked him to review trial testimony in the case.

Still, the diagnosis has been debated in courts across the country. Since 1992, courts in at least 17 states and the U.S. Army have exonerated 32 people convicted in shaken baby syndrome cases, according to the National Registry of Exonerations.

Pediatricians specializing in child abuse, such as Dr. Antoinette Laskey, president of the Council on Child Abuse and Neglect of the American Academy of Pediatrics, dispute these statistics. She pointed to a article of 2021 that found that only 3% of all convictions in shaken baby syndrome cases between 2008 and 2018 were overturned, and only 1% of them were overturned due to medical evidence.