A Dallas County man who spent nearly 14 years behind bars was officially exonerated after new medical and scientific developments led to the overturning of his shaken baby syndrome conviction.
Andrew Roark, convicted in 2000 for causing permanent brain damage to his girlfriend’s 1-year-old daughter, was released from prison in 2012 after a long legal battle.
According to a recent statement from the Dallas County District Attorney’s office, Roark’s exoneration was officially finalized this month.
Roark’s case stemmed from an incident in 1997 when the young girl was found unconscious at his home.
At that time, medical experts diagnosed the child with brain swelling, which they attributed to violent shaking, a condition previously known as shaken baby syndrome (SBS). The diagnosis led to Roark’s arrest and conviction for injury to a child, and he was sentenced to 35 years in prison.
However, recent advancements in medical science and a reevaluation of the SBS theory prompted the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office to reexamine the case.
After Roark’s conviction, experts in child medicine began to question the validity of SBS as a definitive cause of brain injury. The science that once supported SBS as evidence of Roark’s intentional harm is no longer widely accepted in most legal and medical communities.
The turning point came after a 2013 Texas law, designed to allow people convicted based on now-discredited scientific evidence to seek relief, was applied to Roark’s case, according to Fox 4 KDFW.
After several years of hearings and reviews, the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals officially concluded that there was no remaining evidence to support the conviction.
“There exists no evidence in which we could support a conviction and believe Mr. Roark is actually innocent. We firmly believe would the same facts and circumstances occur today, Mr. Roark would be acquitted of any charges brought against him; therefore he should enjoy the presumption of innocence,” Dallas County Criminal District Attorney John Creuzot said.
Roark was released on bond in 2012 after the District Attorney’s Office agreed to retry his case. Following subsequent hearings in 2014, 2019, and 2023, the district attorney’s office recommended that Roark’s conviction be vacated.
Last month, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals officially overturned Roark’s conviction, and the exoneration process was completed this November. According to the District Attorney’s Office, Roark’s exoneration marks the 47th wrongful conviction overturned in Dallas County since 2001.
In a recent development related to another Texas case involving shaken baby syndrome, the planned execution of Robert Roberson III, set for October 17, was temporarily stayed by a Texas court after a Texas House Committee subpoenaed him to testify at a hearing occurring after that date. Roberson was convicted in 2003 of killing his 2-year-old daughter, who suffered severe health issues before she died in 2002.
The move by the Texas legislators sparked a constitutional dispute, with Gov. Greg Abbott claiming that it violated the Separation of Powers Clause. Last week, the Texas Supreme Court agreed that the timing of the subpoena overrode the scheduled execution date and was, therefore, a violation of the law, clearing the way for the execution to be rescheduled.
As Roberson now awaits a new execution date, some legal experts still contend that he will walk free someday due to the lack of sufficient support in SBS-based convictions.
For perspective, at least eight people in the U.S. have received death sentences related to shaken baby syndrome.