A judge this Thursday temporarily stopped the execution of a man sentenced to death in the state of Texas for having killed his 2-year-old daughter in 2002 by shaking her.
The decision was known just two hours before Robert Roberson57 years old, was executed.
His attorneys, as well as a group of Texas lawmakers and the lead police investigator into his daughter’s death, say the case was based on “flawed” evidence and that Roberson is innocent.
More than two decades ago, the man took his baby Nikki to the hospital, where tests showed she had a internal brain traumaa condition that at that time was related to shaken baby syndrome, which occurs when a child is shaken violently by another person.
In the days before the baby’s death, a doctor had diagnosed that she had a viral infection and fever.
Testimony before legislators
Texas House Legislators They questioned Roberson’s convictionand a committee of said body tried to buy time, asking that the condemned man testify before them next week.
The judge decided to stay the execution so that Roberson can offer his testimony before legislators.
Brian Wharton, the lead detective who helped secure Roberson’s conviction two decades ago, has said he believes Roberson is innocent.
This Wednesday, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles had rejected the request for clemency for the convict, whose lawyers also They asked the governor of Texas and the U.S. Supreme Court this week to stay the execution.
Roberson’s lawyers argued before the Supreme Court that the medical theory used to convict him in 2003 “has been completely discredited since then”.
“Not only was abuse alleged to have occurred in 2003,” his attorneys wrote, “but Roberson’s suppressed affect and distant manner, manifestations of his autism spectrum disorder that were mistaken for inattention, led medical personnel to law enforcement to presume their guilt,” they said.
The Supreme Court judges rejected the defendant’s request on Thursday morning.
The case
Roberson was sentenced to death for the death of his daughter Nikki, a 2-year-old girl who died on January 31, 2002. after arriving at the hospital in a coma, fainting in her father’s arms and with her face blue from suffocation.
Doctors attributed Nikki’s symptoms to shaken baby syndrome, a serious brain injury caused by shaking a child under 2 years old so forcefully that oxygen supply to the brain is compromised.
That diagnosis became the evidence that confirmed the jury members’ worst suspicion: Nikki had been a victim of child abuse.
The jury was finally convinced that Roberson was guilty when Brian Wharton, the lead detective in the investigation, assured at trial that the defendant had reacted with coldness and detachment to his daughter’s agony.
When Nikki passed away, Roberson was 35 years old. He was a single father and had gained custody of his daughter two months before taking her unconscious to the hospital in Palestine, the city where they lived in East Texas.
A year after Nikki’s death, on February 21, 2003, Roberson was sentenced to death and became prisoner number 999,442 on Texas death row. the state with the highest record of executions in the United States.
In 2018, when Roberson had spent 15 years in prison, he was diagnosed with autism.
Three mistakes
The goal of Roberson’s lawyers is not only to prevent his execution. They also ask that a new hearing be convened, in which they can refute what they consider to be procedural errors from 2002 and show the evidence that was not evaluated by the jury.
“Robert Roberson is an innocent man,” a petition from the lawyers maintains. “This is not a case where the State got the wrong person. Instead, “A crime was alleged but none actually occurred.”.
That petition was supported by 34 scientists and doctors, a bipartisan group of Texas legislators70 lawyers specialized in defending people wrongly accused of child abuse, as well as dozens of organizations that defend patients with autism and activists for parental rights, explains the Innocence Project, an organization that defends the rights of convicts wrongly sentenced in the United States. Joined.
The request for clemency includes the three errors that, according to the defense, would prove Roberson’s innocence.
The first mistake is that the doctors concluded that Nikki suffered from shaken baby syndrome, without considering symptoms typical of a “double pneumonia” that was not diagnosed, such as the 40-degree fever that he had shortly before becoming unconscious.
The doctors who treated Nikki did not consider at the time that the girl’s medical history included “chronic infections that multiple strains of antibiotics failed to resolve” and episodes of respiratory apnea, in which she “inexplicably stopped breathing, collapsed, and became sick.” blue due to lack of oxygen.”
The second failure alleged by the defense is that the authorities “They accepted the doctors’ assumptions that his condition was caused by abuse and they did not investigate further.”
Roberson was prohibited from visiting the girl as she lay dying in the hospital, until he was finally detained in what his lawyers define as “a suicide cell,” without access to legal defense from the beginning of the case until he was assigned a lawyer.
During Roberson’s years in prison, shaken baby syndrome has lost scientific credibility to be considered as solid evidence in criminal cases.
The third mistake is that both the medical staff and the police misinterpreted Roberson’s reaction to what was happening. “They saw her non-neurotypical behavior, a symptom of her autism, as a reflection of a lack of emotion in the face of their daughter’s plight, which is far from the truth.”
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- The prisoner who has been on death row in Texas for 21 years and is about to be executed “for a crime that did not happen”