Texas government votes against clemency for man executed in shaken baby syndrome case

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HOUSTON (AP) – The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles denied a request for clemency on Wednesday for a man who this week could be the first person in the US to be executed for a murder conviction linked to the diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome.

The parole board voted not to recommend that Robert Roberson’s death sentence be commuted to life in prison or have his execution postponed.

Governor Greg Abbott can only grant clemency after receiving a recommendation from the administration. Abbott has the authority to grant a one-time 30-day extension without a recommendation from the board.

In his nearly decade as governor, Abbott has halted only one impending execution, in 2018 when he spared the life of Thomas Whitaker.

Roberson, 57, will receive a lethal injection Thursday evening for the 2002 killing of his 2-year-old daughter, Nikki Curtis, in the East Texas city of Palestine. Roberson has long proclaimed his innocence.

The parole board’s decision came a day after an East Texas judge on Tuesday rejected requests from Roberson’s attorneys to stop his lethal injection by rescinding the execution order and renouncing the judge who issued the order. reprimand.

Roberson’s scheduled execution has reignited the debate over shaken baby syndrome, known in the medical community as head trauma abuse.

His lawyers and a bipartisan group of Texas lawmakers, medical experts and others have urged Abbott to halt Roberson’s execution, saying his conviction was based on flawed and now outdated scientific evidence related to shaken baby syndrome. The diagnosis refers to a serious brain injury caused when a child’s head is injured by shaking or other violent impact, such as being thrown against a wall or thrown to the ground.

Roberson’s supporters do not deny that head and other injuries from child abuse are real. But they say doctors misdiagnosed Curtis’ injuries as being related to shaken baby syndrome and new evidence has shown the girl died not from abuse but from complications related to severe pneumonia.

The American Academy of PediatricsOther medical organizations and plaintiffs say the diagnosis is valid and that doctors look at all possible issues, including possible illnesses, when determining whether injuries are due to shaken baby syndrome.

The Anderson County District Attorney’s Office, which prosecuted Roberson, has said in court documents that after a 2022 hearing to consider the new evidence in the case, a judge rejected theories that pneumonia and other illnesses caused Curtis’ death.

Prosecutors argue that Roberson’s new evidence does not disprove their claim that Curtis died of injuries inflicted by her father.

The parole board has recommended clemency in a death row case only six times since the state resumed executions in 1982. In three of those cases – in 1998, 2007 and 2018 – the sentences of death row inmates were commuted to life in prison within days of their death. planned executions. In two of the cases – from 2004 and 2009 – then-Texas Governor Rick Perry rejected the parole board’s recommendation to commute a death sentence to life in prison and the two inmates were executed.

In 2019, the parole board recommended a 120-day deferment for Rodney Reedjust days before his scheduled execution. But the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals stayed Reed’s execution before Abbott could take any action on the board’s recommendation.

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