A Texas man who has maintained his innocence while on death row for more than twenty years is scheduled to be executed Thursday evening, despite the pleas from multiple supporters and the detective who said the justice system ‘got it wrong.’
Robert Roberson III was convicted and sentenced to death in 2003 for allegedly fatally shaking his 2-year-old daughter Nikki in 2002. Roberson said that his daughter had fallen out of bed during the night, and he soothed her and put her back to bed. Early the next morning, he found her unresponsive and not breathing and rushed her to the emergency room. The next day, she was pronounced dead.
At the time, doctors suspected the child’s death was a case of shaken baby syndrome, but many critics, including the detective who initially arrested Roberson, now say that was a misdiagnosis.
Lead Detective Brian Wharton arrested Roberson based on the doctor’s diagnosis before an autopsy on Nikki’s body could be completed, but now the detective believes that was a mistake.
Nikki, who had been chronically ill, had pre-existing conditions, including double pneumonia for which she had been prescribed opioids that are now banned for children. She also had undiagnosed sepsis, Wharton said. Court records show that the child had a medical history of chronic infections that did not respond to antibiotics and “alarming breathing apnea spells,” as The Dallas Morning News reported.
Dr. Roland Auer, a Canadian neurosurgeon, testified on Wednesday before the Texas Legislative Committee on Jurisprudence that Nikki was not the victim of abuse and that the medical diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome was wrong.
“Nikki died of consequences of pneumonia — cardiac arrest — and she was basically brain-dead in a living body,” Auer said.
“But what are you going to do when you see bleeding in the inside and nothing on the outside? You’ve got to make up some theory and that’s how shaken [baby] theory came about,” Auer said. “And then it becomes a ‘who-done-it?’ rather than a ‘what happened?’”
Scientific advancements in recent years have undermined the shaken baby syndrome theory.
Doctors now understand that brain bleeds are not necessarily proof of abuse. More than 30 people who were convicted based on the shaken baby syndrome theory have since been declared innocent, according to the National Registry of Exonerations.
Wharton admitted that he was initially suspicious of Roberson’s demeanor, which medical staff and investigators observed as lacking emotion, but he has now come to understand that this behavior is commonly associated with autism, which Roberson has.
“I was wrong. I didn’t see Robert. I didn’t hear Robert,” Wharton said at the committee hearing on Wednesday, according to the Austin American-Statesman. “I can tell you now, he is a good man. He is a kind man. He is a gracious man. And he did not do what the state of Texas and I have accused him of.”
Repeated appeals for the courts to examine new evidence have been rejected. Wharton said the appeals system was instituted with the understanding that sometimes there are wrongful convictions, but “It’s all pointless if no one will admit we got it wrong.”
As Roberson’s final hours tick away, his attorneys and supporters are using every means possible to try to stop his scheduled execution, which is set for 6 p.m. October 17 in Huntsville.
The Texas State Board of Pardons and Paroles rejected Roberson’s appeal for clemency on Wednesday. His attorneys have appealed his case to the United States Supreme Court, arguing that Roberson was denied due process and that Texas courts refused to hear the evidence of his innocence.
Supporters delivered a petition with more than 133,000 signatures to the governor on Wednesday, urging Gov. Greg Abbott to halt the execution.
In an unprecedented move, the Texas House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence wrote a letter requesting a stay of execution for Roberson until the end of the 2025 legislative session to allow the legislature to consider amendments to its “junk science” law passed in 2013.
Texas Rep. Jeff Leach (R-Plano) subpoenaed Roberson to testify before the committee on October 21 about how the law was applied in his case. Still, it is unclear if this subpoena will affect Roberson’s scheduled execution date.
“We rushed to judgment,” Wharton wrote in a letter to the state’s parole board. “We were wrong, the jury was misinformed, and Robert is not guilty of any crime. If we are truly a nation of laws, a people who love justice in the most meaningful sense of that word, then Robert Leslie Roberson III must be set free.”
An unusual 11th-hour move by the Texas House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence to subpoena a death-row inmate has led to a stay of execution.
In response to the committee’s request, Travis County Judge Jessica Mangrum has issued a temporary restraining order blocking the execution of Robert Roberson III, which was scheduled to take place at 6 p.m. on Thursday.The Texas Attorney General’s Office plans to appeal the order.
Assistant Attorney General Ed Marshall asked Judge Mangrum to provide a signed version of the order quickly so that the state office could begin the appeals process.
