Texas Board Denies Clemency for Robert Roberson in ‘Shaken Baby’ Death Penalty Case
Despite pleas from state lawmakers, Texas will execute Roberson on Oct. 17 unless Governor Greg Abbott grants a reprieve in his case.
Today, Texas’s parole board recommended against clemency for Robert Roberson, an autistic father who is scheduled to be executed on Thursday for a crime that likely did not occur. Despite the board’s recommendation, Republican Governor Greg Abbott can still postpone the execution.
“We urge Governor Abbott to grant a reprieve of 30 days to allow litigation to continue and have a court hear the overwhelming new medical and scientific evidence that shows Robert Roberson’s chronically ill, two-year-old daughter, Nikki, died of natural and accidental causes, not abuse,” Gretchen Sween, one of Roberson’s lawyers, said in a statement.
Roberson’s clemency petition was supported by, among others, a bipartisan group of more than 80 state legislators. The governor’s office did not respond to a request for comment by publication.
Earlier today, the Court of Criminal Appeals also denied Roberson’s request for a stay of his execution, a plea supported by several Texas state legislators. On Tuesday, the lawmakers asked the court to postpone Roberson’s execution until the end of the 2025 legislative session so that they can consider legislation that may affect Roberson’s case.
If Roberson’s execution goes forward, he will be the first person executed on the basis of the Shaken Baby Syndrome hypothesis in the history of the United States.
Texas lawmakers say they passed a law to prevent miscarriages of justice like this from occurring. In 2013, they approved Article 11.073, known as the junk science writ law. The statute allows people to challenge their convictions based on developments in forensic science that “contradicts scientific evidence relied on by the state at trial.”
The legislators wrote to the Court of Criminal Appeals that the law was intended to provide relief in cases like Roberson’s. In the decades since his conviction, the Shaken Baby Syndrome hypothesis has crumbled. A New Jersey trial court called it “akin to junk science” in a 2022 ruling. Exonerations and research studies have shown that injuries attributed to shaking can be caused by short-distance falls, trauma from childbirth, or various illnesses, including strokes, pneumonia, or sickle cell anemia.
“As legislators, it is clear to us that we need to quickly and thoroughly address how our junk science writ law has been interpreted,” they wrote to the Court. “It is beyond dispute that medical evidence presented at Mr. Roberson’s trial in 2003 is inconsistent with modern scientific principles. Article 11.073 was meant exactly for cases like this one.”
On Wednesday, the Texas House of Representatives Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence held a hearing on the junk science law.
“I know the Board of Parole and the governor is tuning in right now,” Rep. Jeff Leach, a Republican from McKinney, said at the hearing. “I hope they are paying attention to this right now because the law that the legislature passed and our governor signed into law is being ignored by our courts.”
Several people testified at the hearing including Brian Wharton, the former lead detective on Roberson’s case. Wharton now says Roberson is innocent.
“We should apologize to Robert and send him home,” Wharton told Texas lawmakers. “Don’t make my mistake. Hear his voice.”
Roberson’s legal team says that his daughter died from a severe case of viral and bacterial pneumonia which developed into septic shock. Her condition was exacerbated by dangerous levels of promethazine in her system, which two doctors prescribed to her in the days before her death.
While the Court of Criminal Appeals has repeatedly denied Roberson’s petitions, the court granted relief in a nearly identical case earlier this month. On Oct. 9, the court ruled that Andrew Roark should receive a new trial because if “the newly evolved scientific evidence” were presented at trial today, “it is more likely than not he would not have been convicted.” Roark was accused of shaking his girlfriend’s child. He was convicted of injury to a child and sentenced to 35 years.
“Consistency demands that if Mr. Roark was given a new trial, Mr. Roberson must also be given a new trial,” Roberson’s lawyer Sween said in a statement. “But so far, no court has been willing to consider three new expert reports showing that Nikki died of pneumonia, proof that Mr. Roberson is innocent of any crime.”