What is shaken baby syndrome? And why could a Texas man be executed for that? | Health news

In 2002, Robert Roberson found his two-year-old daughter, Nikki Curtis, unconscious after falling from a bed in the family’s home in the East Texas town of Palestine. Roberson took her to the hospital, but a day later the baby tragically died after succumbing to head injuries.

Within a year, Roberson, a laborer who is now 57, was tried, convicted and placed on death row for his daughter’s murder. Doctors and an autopsy report concluded that baby Nikki had died after severe abuse by Roberson – specifically from shaken baby syndrome.

The Texas Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence, which is reviewing the legality of Roberson’s conviction, has subpoenaed Roberson to attend a hearing scheduled for Monday, October 21.

But Roberson almost didn’t make it on Monday. After a Texas state board rejected his clemency request last Wednesday, he was scheduled to receive a lethal injection at the Texas State Penitentiary in Huntsville on Thursday evening at 6 p.m. local time (11 p.m. GMT).

But in a dramatic turn of events, just hours before the execution was to take place, a state judge in Texas issued a temporary restraining order after a committee in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives petitioned the court.

That decision set off an avalanche of legal actions that continued late into the night. After Judge Jessica Mangrun’s decision was announced, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals lifted the order and allowed the execution to proceed. But then the Texas Supreme Court stepped in and issued a stay of execution.

Roberson, his attorneys, Texas lawmakers and even the lead detective on the original investigation say he is on death row for a crime he did not commit.

The science behind shaken baby syndrome has been questioned in recent years. So what is it, and what happened in baby Nikki’s case?

Who is Robert Roberson and what was the evidence against him?

Originally from Wood County, Texas, Roberson had previously worked as a cook, construction worker, welder and laborer, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

Nikki’s mother, who has not been named, is said to have been denied custody of the baby after her birth. The baby’s maternal grandparents granted Roberson custody.

The autopsy report for the baby noted bruises on her head, swelling of the brain and bleeding behind her eyes. Ultimately, the autopsy determined that Roberson’s daughter died of blunt force head trauma, which doctors and police said was caused by shaking.

During his trial, witnesses, including Roberson’s ex-girlfriend, her daughter and her niece, testified that they saw him hit and shake his daughter “in anger.”

Hospital staff also reported that when Roberson took his daughter to the local hospital, Palestine Regional Medical Center, he showed no reaction or emotion, further fueling suspicions of abuse.

“They took his inability to explain Nikki’s condition as a sign that he had to lie,” according to the website of the legal nonprofit The Innocence Project, which is part of Roberson’s legal team. Roberson was diagnosed with autism after he was convicted, which his lawyers say explains his lack of response.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals halted his execution in 2016, but allowed the case to proceed with a new execution date in 2023 after ruling that new evidence about his autism and other illnesses the baby was suffering from at the time were not sufficient to prove the to undo the matter. conviction.

On Wednesday, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles voted unanimously (6-0) against commuting his death sentence to life in prison.

Why do some people believe he is innocent?

Roberson’s supporters argue that his conviction was based on incomplete evidence and that information about the baby’s underlying health conditions was not properly taken into account.

Several people are campaigning for Roberson to be granted clemency – which ranges from a full pardon to having the sentence commuted from death to life imprisonment – ​​including Brian Wharton, the lead detective on Roberson’s case, who testified against him at the trial .

When explaining why he changed his mind about Roberson’s guilt, Wharton discussed Roberson’s autism diagnosis and said his team should have done further research to rule out other reasons for the baby’s death.

In a video published on the New York Times YouTube channel on July 30 of this year, Wharton spoke to Roberson for the first time in about two decades through plexiglass at the Texas State Penitentiary in Huntsville.

“I’m so sorry you’re still here. It is our failure,” Wharton told Roberson in the film.

“I helped bring him here, and he didn’t deserve it,” Wharton’s voiceover in the video sounded against the images of the men still talking in the prison conference room. “No other options for her injury were considered. I deeply regret that we took the easiest path.”

Roberson has maintained his innocence during the two decades he spent on death row. His lawyers claim that baby Nikki had pneumonia that had turned septic at the time of her death. Court records also show that she was dealing with a host of other health problems at the time of her death.

The Daily Mail reported that Nikki had been ill a week before her death and was taken to the local emergency room, where she was prescribed Phenergan, a drug used to treat pain, allergies and motion sickness that now comes with a warning for children her age. .

The New Zealand Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Authority website warns: “Phenergan should not be used in children under 6 years of age due to the potential for fatal respiratory depression,” among other dangerous side effects.

When her condition did not improve, she was given more Phenergan and codeine, an opioid that is now banned from being given to children under 18.

What are Roberson’s supporters calling for?

Supporters want clemency — which could mean anything from a full pardon to a reduced sentence — for Roberson. His lawyers want the court to re-evaluate evidence showing that Nikki’s death was due to her existing health problems.

A petition launched by the Innocence Project, calling on Texas Governor Greg Abbott to intervene in Roberson’s execution, had collected 112,851 signatures by 2:20 PM GMT.

About 86 Texas lawmakers, both Republicans and Democrats, are also calling for clemency for Roberson. Texas Democratic state Rep. Joe Moody wrote in a social media post Friday: “We must do everything we can to pump the brakes before this stains justice in Texas for generations.”

Others calling for leniency include parental rights groups, autism advocates, faith leaders and even best-selling crime novelist John Grisham. In a column for the Palestine Herald-Press, Grisham wrote: “Nikki’s death was a tragedy, not a crime.”

Detective Wharton has also called for the abolition of the death penalty in Texas and the United States as a whole. If Roberson is executed, his death will be the fifth execution this year in Texas, and the 20th execution this year in the U.S., according to the Washington-based nonprofit the Death Penalty Information Center. This will be the first time that shaken baby syndrome has occurred.

Although Texas law allows Governor Abbott to grant a one-time stay of execution for 30 days, he cannot unilaterally grant clemency. He needs the board’s approval.

What is shaken baby syndrome?

According to the Mayo Clinic, shaken baby syndrome is a serious brain injury caused by vigorously shaking an infant or toddler. It can manifest as a head injury, which was the conclusion of Nikki’s autopsy. This can cause permanent injury or brain damage or even death to the child.

Most commonly, shaken baby syndrome injuries are caused when “a parent or caregiver violently shakes an infant or toddler out of frustration or anger — often because the child won’t stop crying,” says the Mayo Clinic, adding that it usually doesn’t is caused by a child bouncing or minor falls.

The injury is caused because babies and young children often have weak neck muscles that cannot fully support the weight of their heads. When shaken vigorously, the fragile brain moves inside the skull. As a result, brain cells can be destroyed and oxygen supply to the brain can be blocked.

The shaken baby syndrome hypothesis was first introduced by Norman Guthkelch, a British pediatric neurosurgeon, in an article he wrote for the British Medical Journal in 1971. He discovered it when patients – young toddlers – came to him with bleeding on the surface of their skin. the brain, but no external signs of abuse such as bruising. He wrote the newspaper to warn parents not to shake their children.

In a list of symptoms of shaken baby syndrome, the Mayo Clinic includes: irritability, difficulty staying awake, breathing problems, vomiting, paralysis, or coma. In mild cases of the syndrome, the baby may seem fine soon after the injury, but may develop health or behavioral problems over time.

According to the National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome, a US-based public charity, approximately 1,300 cases of shaken baby syndrome are reported in the US each year. It adds that the syndrome is the leading cause of deaths from child physical abuse in the US.

In 2009, the American Academy of Pediatrics changed the name of the injury to “abuse head trauma.”

Is shaken baby syndrome ‘junk science’?

Although many pediatricians consider shaken baby syndrome a legitimate cause of injury, the American Association of Pediatrics acknowledged in an April 2020 publication that some in medical and legal circles had previously “misinterpreted” it.

Doctors now say that many other conditions can cause the symptoms associated with shaken baby syndrome. As a result, sHaken baby syndrome is now considered a diagnosis of exclusion, meaning it can only be taken into account if all other possible reasons behind the symptoms have been ruled out first.

British pediatric neurosurgeon Guthkelch died in 2016 at the age of 100. During his last years he worked against the misinterpretation of his work. Technical writer and journalist Sue Luttner quoted him in her 2012 blog, saying: “I am quite frankly quite disturbed that what I intended as a friendly suggestion to prevent harm to children has become an excuse for jailing innocent parents.”

To date, at least 32 people in 18 U.S. states have been acquitted on the increasingly discredited hypothesis, according to the National Registry of Exonerations, as well as witnesses who have retracted their testimonies after being convicted of shaken baby syndrome.