Robert Roberson denied clemency in ‘shaken baby’ case 1 day out from execution

One day out from his execution date, the Texas Board of Paroles and Pardons has denied clemency to Robert Roberson III, an East Texas man who could become the first in the country to be put to death for the disputed “shaken baby syndrome” theory.

Roberson, 57, was convicted of capital murder in 2003 for reportedly shaking his 2-year-old daughter, Nikki, to death. He is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection Thursday evening in Huntsville.

The clemency petition filed Sept. 17 asked for Roberson’s death sentence to be commuted, or the execution delayed 180 days to allow the board and Gov. Greg Abbott to give the filing “appropriate consideration.” The board voted unanimously not to recommend either reprieve. Abbott last agreed to spare the life of a death row inmate in 2018.

What’s next for Robert Roberson?

“It is not shocking that the criminal justice system failed Mr. Roberson so badly,” Gretchen Sween, one of Roberson’s attorneys, said in a statement sent to The Dallas Morning News. “What’s shocking is that, so far, the system has been unable to correct itself — when Texas lawmakers recognized the problem with wrongful convictions based on discredited ‘science’ over ten years ago.”

Sween said she will request a 30-day reprieve from Abbott to pursue additional litigation.

“We pray that Governor Abbott does everything in his power to prevent the tragic, irreversible mistake of executing an innocent man,” she said.

Roberson, who is autistic, previously faced execution in 2016, but the date was stayed after his attorneys argued the conviction was based on “junk science” and “false, misleading and scientifically invalid testimony.”

When Roberson found Nikki unresponsive in 2002, court documents state he rushed her blue, limp body to a Palestine hospital and said she fell from a bed. Medical staff suspected child abuse and called police. Her cause of death was ruled to be blunt-force head injuries.

What raised the questions about Roberson’s innocence?

Roberson’s prosecution largely centered on doctors’ testimony that Nikki’s death was consistent with shaken baby syndrome, or when an infant is severely injured from being violently shaken. Roberson’s lawyers have since said new evidence shows Nikki, who was chronically ill, died of natural and accidental causes, including “severe, undiagnosed” pneumonia. Experts have also argued research conducted in the two decades Roberson has been on death row shows the symptoms that shaken baby syndrome diagnoses were often based on are not “presumptive proof of abuse.”

“Here is yet another case of ‘too much doubt’ not only about a man’s guilt, but whether there was any crime committed at all,” Abraham Bonowitz, executive director of Death Penalty Action, said Wednesday in a statement. “Whether Mr. Roberson is innocent or guilty is irrelevant to the fact the legal system is so broken that finality is more important than facts. None of us really know the truth, and Texans should be asking themselves, ‘What if we got it wrong?’”

Roberson’s case has received support from bipartisan state lawmakers; John Grisham, bestselling author and Innocence Project board member; and Brian Wharton, the former Palestine detective who led the investigation and whose testimony helped convict him.

On Tuesday, an Anderson County judge rejected arguments from Roberson’s attorneys that his death warrant is illegitimate because the judge who oversaw post-conviction proceedings erred. The state’s highest criminal appeals court has also repeatedly denied a stay of Roberson’s death sentence.

Last week, the Court of Criminal Appeals vacated the conviction of a Dallas County man accused of injuring a child because scientific advancements undermined shaken baby syndrome. More than 30 people who served time in prison after convictions involving the theory have been declared innocent, according to the National Registry of Exonerations.