A Texas judge has decided to uphold the execution of a father convicted of murdering his two-year-old daughter — despite a growing number of voices, including the detective who helped send him to death row, demanding the state intervene.
Robert Roberson, 57, is expected to be put to death by lethal injection on Thursday after his lawyers were told that Judge Alfonso Charles, the president of the Tenth Administrative Judicial Region, rejected the defense’s request for their client’s execution order on Tuesday to withdraw, the court said. Innocence Project.
Roberson’s possible execution would be the first ever carried out in the United States for a murder conviction linked to shaken baby syndrome.
“It is terrifying that Robert, an innocent, disabled man with the most merciful heart, will be executed in just two days on an invalid order issued by an apparently biased judge,” said Roberson’s attorney, Gretchen Sween.
Charles also denied the request to remove the previous judge, Deborah Oakes Evans, from the case. Sween claimed that Evans had shown bias in the case and that her statements should be retracted.
Sween claims the judge repeatedly dismissed routine hearings on Roberson’s previous requests, before and after the execution date was set in July.
Roberson and his defense team have long proclaimed his innocence after he was sentenced to death for the 2002 murder of his two-year-old daughter, Nikki Curtis.
His lawyers have said Roberson was wrongly arrested and later convicted when he found his daughter on the floor at the foot of the bed one evening in 2002.
They claim that Roberson comforted Curtis and put her back to bed, but found her unconscious with blue lips the next morning, and he rushed her to the emergency room, where she was pronounced dead.
Roberson was later found guilty based on the testimony of a pediatrician who told the court that there was swelling and bleeding in Curtis’ brain, despite there appearing to be limited evidence to support this as an accurate diagnosis.
Sween said the courts have not taken into account new reports showing that severe pneumonia caused Curtis’ death.
Bipartisan Texas lawmakers, medical experts and attorneys have also argued that his conviction was based on flawed and now outdated scientific evidence and that new evidence has indicated that Curtis died of complications related to severe pneumonia.
However, prosecutors believe the new evidence does not disprove their claim that Curtis died of injuries inflicted by her father.
Roberson was also diagnosed with autism in 2018, which affects the way he expresses emotions and, according to his legal team, may have led to the jury finding him unsympathetic at his trial.
Sween has now appealed to Governor Gregg Abbott to grant her client clemency.
“Governor Abbott can avoid an irreparable mistake by commuting Mr. Roberson’s death sentence or at least granting him a reprieve so that the overwhelming evidence that no crime occurred can be heard,” she said.
The lead detective responsible for the investigation into Curtis’ death and who ordered Roberson’s arrest based on a doctor’s Shaken Baby Syndrome hypothesis, Brian Wharton, has also become one of the most prominent voices proclaiming Roberson innocent explains.
“Let me say that Robert is an innocent man,” Wharton said, according to ABC News. “But above all he is a friendly man. He is a gentle man. He is a friendly man.”
Wharton, who testified for the prosecution during his murder trial, attended Tuesday’s hearing in support of Roberson.
Texas lawmakers will hold a hearing at the Capitol on Wednesday to highlight Roberson’s case and other issues related to convictions based on “junk science” — a term often used to refer to the diagnosis of ” shaken baby syndrome’.
“This was a pretty clear case where Robert Roberson did not get a fair trial,” Houston Republican state Rep. Lacey Hull said during an appearance. on CNN Tuesday.
“Texans deserve to know that our justice system is fair … and we can’t say that right now.”
His defense and attorneys also believe Roberson should at least receive a stay of execution after the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturned Andrew Wayne Roark’s conviction on Oct. 9. The court found that Roark’s conviction was based on scientific understanding that has evolved since then. .
He had been sentenced to 35 years in prison after doctors reported injuries to a 13-month-old baby in his care who prosecutors said suffered from shaken baby syndrome.
According to the Innocence Project, Roark was convicted based on testimony from the same child abuse expert, which was nearly identical to the testimony used to convict Roberson.
Roberson has asked the CCA to delay his execution. That request is being processed.
Shaken Baby Syndrome is the hypothesis proposed by medical professionals that a baby can be shaken with such force that it causes a brain hemorrhage without any external trauma or impact.
However, critics say doctors have not considered that things like deficits upon head impact and naturally occurring illnesses like pneumonia could mimic an inflicted head injury.
According to the Innocence Project, at least 32 parents and caregivers in 18 states have been exonerated in the US after being wrongfully convicted under the shaken baby hypothesis.
