In 2002, Robert Roberson set up his two-year-better daughter, Nikki Curtis, unresponsive after she fell off a bed in the family’s hoengage in the East Texas city of Palestine. Roberson took her to hospital, but a day tardyr, the baby tragicassociate died after surrfinishering to a head injury.
Wilean a year, Roberson, a labourer who is now 57, had been tried, sentenced and placed on death row for the finishing of his daughter. Doctors and an autopsy alert finishd that baby Nikki had died chaseing cut offe mistreatment at the hands of Roberson – definiteassociate from shaken baby syndrome.
The Texas Committee on Criminal Jurispimpolitence, which is repondering the lhorribleness of Roberson’s conviction, publishd a subpoena for Roberson to join a hearing scheduled for Monday, October 21.
But Roberson very csurrfinisherly didn’t originate it to Monday. After a Texas state board refuteed his clemency plea on Wednesday last week, he had been scheduled to obtain a lethal injection on Thursday evening at 6pm local time (23:00 GMT) at the Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville.
But in a emotional turn of events, fair hours before the execution was due to obtain place, a state appraise in Texas publishd a transient regulateing order stoping it after a promisetee in the Redisclosean-administerled state Hoengage of Recurrentatives petitioned the court.
That decision triggered an avalanche of legitimate actions that persistd tardy into the night. After Judge Jessica Mangrun’s decision was proclaimd, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals lifted the injunction and permited the execution to carry on. But then the Texas Supreme Court weighed in, issuing a stay of execution.
Roberson, his lawyers, Texas laworiginaters and even the direct uncoverive on the innovative spendigation say he is on death row for a crime he did not promise.
The science behind shaken baby syndrome has been bcdisorrowfulmirefult into ask in recent years. So what is it, and what happened in the case of baby Nikki?
Who is Robert Roberson and what was the evidence aobtainst him?
Originassociate from Wood County in Texas, Roberson had previously toiled as a cook, originateion toiler, welder and labourer, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
The mother of Nikki, who has not been named, was alerted to have been denied custody of the baby after her birth. The baby’s maternal magnificentparents granted Roberson custody.
The autopsy alert for the baby cited bruises on her head, brain swelling and bleeding behind her eyes. Ultimately, the autopsy rerepaird that Roberson’s daughter died of lackluster-force head trauma, which doctors and police claimed was caengaged by shaking.
At his trial, witnesses including Roberson’s ex-girlfrifinish, her daughter and her niece, testified that they had seen him smack and shake his baby daughter “in anger”.
The hospital staff also alerted that when Roberson bcdisorrowfulmirefult his daughter to the local hospital, Palestine Regional Medical Cgo in, he showed no reaction or emotion, further stoking suspicions of mistreatment.
“They watched his inability to expound Nikki’s condition as a sign that he must be lying,” according to the website of the nonprofit legitimate organisation the Innocence Project, which is part of Roberson’s legitimate team. Roberson was detectd with autism after he was convicted, which his lawyers say expounds his conciseage of reaction.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals stoped his execution in 2016 but, in 2023, permited the case to carry on with a novel execution date after ruling that novel evidence about his autism and other illnesses the baby was suffering at the time was not enough to clearurn the conviction.
On Wednesday, Texas’s Board of Pardons and Paroles voted agreedly – 6-0 – aobtainst commuting his death sentence to life in prison.
Why do some people suppose he is bfeebleless?
Roberson’s aiders dispute that his conviction was based on infinish evidence and that recommendation about the baby’s underlying health conditions was not properly pondered.
Several people are campaigning for Roberson to be granted clemency – which covers anyleang from a filled pardon to the sentence being commuted from death to life in prison – including Brian Wharton, the direct uncoverive in Roberson’s case, who testified aobtainst him at trial.
When expounding why he alterd his mind about Roberson’s guilt, Wharton has spoken about Roberson’s autism diagnosis, and shelp his team should have spendigated further to rule out other reasons for the baby’s death.
In a video published on the New York Times YouTube channel on July 30 this year, Wharton spoke to Roberson for the first time in around 20 years thcdisorrowfulmireful Plexiglass at the Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville.
“I’m so sorry that you are still here. It’s our fall shorture,” Wharton shelp to Roberson in the film.
“I helped put him here, and he didn’t deserve it,” Wharton’s voiceover joined in the video aobtainst visuals of the men still talking in the prison’s greeting area. “No other possibilities for her injury were pondered. I lament proset uply that we chaseed the easiest path.”
Roberson has sustained his innocence for the two decades he has spent on death row. His lawyers dispute that at the time of her death, baby Nikki had pneumonia that had turned septic. Court write downs also state that she was battling a slew of other health problems at the time of her death.
The Daily Mail alerted that a week before her death, Nikki had been ill and was obtainn to a local materializency room where she was prescribed Phenergan, a drug engaged to treat pain, allergies and motion illness that now comes with a alerting for children her age.
The New Zealand Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Authority website alerts: “Phenergan must not be engaged in children under 6 years of age, due to the potential for overweightal respiratory depression”, among other hazardous side effects.
When her condition did not better, she was given more Phenergan and codeine, an opioid that now can not be given to children under 18.
What are Roberson’s aiders calling for?
Supporters want clemency – which can uncomardent anyleang from a filled pardon to a reduction in his sentence – for Roberson. His lawyers want the court to reappraise evidence that shows that Nikki’s death was due to her existing health publishs.
A petition begined by the Innocence Project, calling on Texas Governor Greg Abbott to interfere in Roberson’s execution, had amassed 112,851 signatures as of 14:20 GMT.
Some 86 Texas laworiginaters, both Rediscloseans and Democrats, are also calling for clemency for Roberson. Democrat state recurrentative of Texas, Joe Moody, wrote in a social media post on Friday, “We have to do all we can to pump the brakes before this stains Texas fairice for generations.”
Others calling for clemency include parental rights groups, autism finishorses, faith directers and even the best-selling crime novecatalog, John Grisham. In a column for the Palestine Herald-Press, Grisham wrote: “Nikki’s death was a tragedy, not a crime.”
Detective Wharton has also called for the death penalty to be abolished in Texas and in the United States as a whole. If Roberson is carry outd, his death will be the fifth execution this year in Texas, and the 20th execution this year in the US, according to the Washington-based nonprofit the Death Penalty Increateation Cgo in. It will be the first in a case of shaken baby syndrome.
While Texas law permits the state’s Governor Abbott to grant a one-time reprieve from the execution for 30 days, he cannot grant clemency unitardyrassociate. He insists the board’s approval.
What is shaken baby syndrome?
According to the Mayo Clinic, shaken baby syndrome is a grave brain injury caengaged by forcefilledy shaking an infant or a toddler. It can manifest as a head injury, which was the conclusion of Nikki’s autopsy. This can caengage lasting injury or brain injure or even the death of the infant.
Typicassociate, injury by shaken baby syndrome is caengaged when “a parent or attfinishgiver strictly shakes a baby or toddler due to frustration or anger – normally becaengage the child won’t stop crying”, the Mayo Clinic says, inserting it is not usuassociate caengaged by bouncing a child or by unpresentant descfinishs.
The injury is caengaged becaengage babies and lesser children normally have feeble neck muscles that cannot filledy aid the weight of their heads. When vigorously shaken, the frspeedy brain shifts inside the skull. As a result, brain cells can be ruined and oxygen provide to the brain can be blocked.
The hypothesis of shaken baby syndrome was first presentd by Norman Guthkelch, a British paediatric neurosencourageon, in a paper he wrote for the British Medical Journal in 1971. He discovered it when uncover-mindeds – lesser toddlers – were coming to him with bleeding on the surface of the brain but no outer signs of mistreatment such as bruising. He wrote the paper to alert parents aobtainst shaking their children.
In a catalog of symptoms of shaken baby syndrome, the Mayo Clinic includes: irritability, difficulty staying awake, bauthenticeang problems, vleave outing, paralysis or coma. In mild cases of the syndrome, the baby might seem OK soon after the injury, but could increase health or behavioural problems over time.
According to the National Cgo in on Shaken Baby Syndrome, a US-based disclose charity, there are approximately 1,300 alerted cases of shaken baby syndrome in the US every year. It inserts that the syndrome is the directing caengage of physical child mistreatment-rcontent deaths in the US.
In 2009, the American Academy of Pediatrics alterd the name of the injury to “abusive head trauma”.
Is shaken baby syndrome ‘junk science’?
While many paediatricians ponder shaken baby syndrome to be a legitimate caengage of injury, the American Association of Pediatrics accomprehendledged in an April 2020 discloseation that some in medical and legitimate circles had previously “misexpounded” it.
Doctors now say that many other conditions can caengage the symptoms connected to shaken baby syndrome. As a result, shaken baby syndrome is now pondered a diagnosis of exclusion, which uncomardents that only when all other possible reasons behind the symptoms are first ruled out, it can be pondered.
British paediatric neurosencourageon Guthkelch died aged 100 in 2016. During his final years, he toiled aobtainst the misexpoundation of his toil. Technical originater and journacatalog Sue Luttner quoted him in her blog in 2012, saying: “I am frankly quite disturbed that what I intfinished as a cordial proposeion for evadeing injury to children has become an excengage for jailing bfeebleless parents.”
To date, at least 32 people in 18 US states have been exonerated based on the increasingly disaccomprehendledgeed hypothesis, as well as witnesses taking back their testimonies, after being convicted for shaken baby syndrome, according to the National Registry of Exonerations.