Execution is looming for an autistic father from Texas who is at the centre of a controversial ‘shaken baby syndrome’ case.
Robert Roberson is scheduled to receive a lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville after spending 20 years in prison for the murder of his two-year-old daughter.
Lawmakers argue his innocence amid allegations that his conviction was secured based on outdated medical evidence.
If his sentence is carried out, the 57-year-old would become the first person in the country to be executed based on the largely discredited ‘shaken baby syndrome’ hypothesis.
Roberson brought his daughter Nikki Curtis to hospital in the city of Palestine on January 31, 2002. He told doctors that she was ill with fever and had fallen from a bed.
Court documents cited by Time state that at the hospital, she was ‘not breathing and had a blue color to her skin.’
The toddler was then brought to a hospital in Dallas via helicopter, where she was pronounced dead.
Staff raised suspicions of abuse, based on Nikki’s wounds, which were consistent with shaken baby syndrome – a form of child abuse in which a baby is shaken repeatedly, causing their brain to bounce against their skull.
Though the syndrome has been credited as legitimate by many pediatricians, the American Association of Pediatrics acknowledged in 2020 that it has been ‘misinterpreted’ by some in the legal and medical circles.
The Innocence Project said about Roberson: ‘He is an innocent father with autism who has spent over 20 years on death row in Texas for a crime that never occurred.
‘Roberson was committed to being a present father to his chronically ill two-year-old daughter Nikki when he was granted custody in November 2001.
‘Tragically, Nikki passed away from prior medical conditions after a short fall from bed, and he was wrongfully convicted of her death.’
His lawyers and some medical experts say his daughter died not from abuse but from complications related to pneumonia.
‘He is an innocent man and we’re very close to killing him for something he did not do,’ said Brian Wharton, the lead detective with Palestine police who investigated Nikki’s death.
The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles denied Roberson’s bid for clemency on Wednesday. He has asked the US Supreme Court to issue a stay of execution.
In a response to Roberson’s Supreme Court petition, the Texas attorney general’s office said that he had failed to prove his ‘actual innocence,’ and that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals had ruled that Nikki’s injuries were ‘inconsistent with a short fall from a bed or complications from a virus.’
Roberson’s lawyers told the Supreme Court that the medical theory used to convict him in 2003 ‘has since been entirely discredited.’
‘Not only was abuse presumed in 2003,’ his lawyers wrote, ‘but Roberson’s blunted affect and aloof mannerisms, manifestations of his Autism Spectrum Disorder mistaken for a lack of care, led medical staff and law enforcement alike to presume culpability.’
Roberson is scheduled to be executed later today.
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