Texas man who became the first person to be executed in the US for shaken baby syndrome makes his final appeal

HOUSTON (AP) — A Texas man who could be the first person in the U.S. to be executed on a murder conviction linked to a diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome faces a lethal injection Thursday night amid claims from his lawyers and a diverse coalition of supporters who say he is innocent and was convicted based on flawed scientific evidence.

Robert Roberson was waiting to hear whether his execution could be stopped by Gov. Greg Abbott or the U.S. Supreme Court — his last two options for a stay. He is expected to receive a lethal injection at the state prison in Huntsville.

Roberson, 57, was convicted of the 2002 murder of his 2-year-old daughter, Nikki Curtis, in the East Texas town of Palestine. Roberson has long proclaimed his innocence, backed by several notable Republican lawmakers and the lead detective on the case.

“He’s an innocent man and we’re about to kill him for something he didn’t do,” said Brian Wharton, the lead Palestinian police detective who investigated Curtis’ death.

Roberson’s attorneys waited to see whether Abbott would grant Roberson a one-time 30-day reprieve. It is the only action Abbott can take in the case, as the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles rejected Roberson’s pardon request on Wednesday.

The board voted unanimously 6-0 not to recommend that Roberson’s death sentence be commuted to life in prison or that his execution be stayed. All members of the board are appointed by the governor. The parole board has recommended clemency in a death row case only six times since the state resumed executions in 1982.

In his nearly decade as governor, Abbott has stopped just one pending execution, in 2018 when he spared the life of Thomas Whitaker, whose father had asked that his son not be put to death. The father had survived a shooting that Whitaker engineered.

“We pray that Governor Abbott does everything in his power to prevent the tragic, irreversible mistake of executing an innocent man,” Gretchen Sween, one of Roberson’s attorneys, said in a statement.

An Abbott spokesperson did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

Roberson’s attorneys also have a request for a stay pending in the Supreme Court. The nation’s highest court has rarely granted an eleventh-hour reprieve to people on death row.

Late Wednesday, a Texas House committee that had been meeting all day on Roberson’s case issued a subpoena summoning him to testify at a hearing next week. It was not immediately known whether the commission’s request could delay Thursday’s execution. A spokesperson for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice did not immediately respond to an email.

One of those who has pushed to stop Roberson’s execution is Texas GOP megadonor and conservative activist Doug Deason, who has spoken to Abbott’s staff.

“I believe he is innocent,” Deason wrote in a post on X on Tuesday.

During its meeting in Austin, the Texas House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee heard testimony on Roberson’s case and whether a 2013 law designed to allow people in prison to challenge their convictions based on new scientific evidence, in the Roberson’s case was ignored.

Anderson County District Attorney Allyson Mitchell, whose office prosecuted Roberson, told the committee that a hearing was held in 2022 in which Roberson’s attorneys presented their new evidence to a judge, who dismissed their claims. Mitchell said the prosecution’s case showed Curtis had been abused by her father.

“Based on all the evidence, a murder took place here. Mr. Roberson took the life of his almost three-year-old daughter,” Mitchell said.

Most of the committee members are part of a bipartisan group of more than 80 state lawmakers, including at least 30 Republicans, who had asked the parole board and Abbott to halt the execution.

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

His lawyers, Texas lawmakers, medical experts and others, including best-selling author John Grisham, say his conviction was based on flawed and now outdated scientific evidence. 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 from complications related to severe pneumonia.

Roberson’s attorneys say he was wrongfully arrested and later convicted after taking his daughter to a hospital. They say she fell out of bed at Roberson’s home after being seriously ill for a week.

Roberson’s lawyers have also suggested that his autism, which had not yet been diagnosed at the time of his daughter’s death, was used against him because authorities distrusted him due to his lack of emotion about what happened to her. Autism affects the way people communicate and interact with others.

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

Roberson’s scheduled execution was scheduled to take place less than a month after Missouri put Marcellus Williams to death, amid lingering questions about his guilt and whether his death sentence should have been commuted to life in prison instead. Williams was convicted of the 1998 murder of Lisha Gayle, a social worker and former reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Roberson’s execution will take place on the same day that Alabama will execute Derrick Dearman, convicted of killing five people with an ax and a gun during a drug-fueled rampage in 2016.

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