Texas Court Prevents the Execution of Robert Roberson, But Did It Go Far Enough?

Tragic figures play a giant half in Greek literature and mythology. They usually have private flaws that journey them up or are caught up in merciless circumstances.

The loss of life penalty system in america is one other place full of tragic figures, folks caught up within the prejudices of their instances, within the hysteria of the second, or within the willingness of others to show a blind eye to proof of their innocence. Individuals in all walks of life know this, however executions proceed, nonetheless.

Consider the executions of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for espionage on the top of the Nineteen Fifties anti-Communist campaign. Or of Marcellus Williams, executed in Missouri final 12 months, regardless of proof of his innocence that was so convincing that even the sitting St. Louis County Prosecuting Legal professional believed it.

At present, a Texas court docket prevented one other identify from being added to that record when it stayed the October 16 execution of Robert Roberson. The Courtroom of Legal Appeals returned his case to the trial court docket in order that it might contemplate the reliability of so-called “shaken child syndrome” (SBS), a medical analysis that performed a key function in Roberson’s case.

It’s about time it did so. However it cherry-picked amongst and ignored his meritorious authorized claims, together with whether or not he had efficient help of counsel in his authentic trial.

 It didn’t acknowledge that Roberson shouldn’t be in jail in any respect, not to mention on loss of life row. He nonetheless has the specter of loss of life hanging over him.

Roberson was convicted of homicide in 2003 after the loss of life of his chronically unwell two-year-old daughter, Nikki. He acquired caught up in tragedy when he introduced her to a hospital in Palestine, Texas, after she fell unwell. She was later transferred to Dallas Youngsters’s Hospital, the place she died.

Relatively than taking an in depth medical historical past and investigating the vary of doable explanations for her situation, docs had been satisfied that Nikki was a sufferer of shaken child syndrome, which was then all the trend in a nation abruptly vigilant about youngster abuse. In truth, in 2001, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) revealed a paper that known as shaken child syndrome “a severe and clearly definable type of youngster abuse. It outcomes from excessive rotational cranial acceleration induced by violent shaking or shaking/influence, which might be simply recognizable by others as harmful.”

The APA paper urged docs to function with a “presumption of kid abuse when a toddler…has suffered an intracranial damage,” of the type that Nikki had.

The hyper-vigilance and suspicion that adopted had been very a lot a part of an ethical panic that led to an upsurge in accusations of kid abuse or youngster sexual abuse. This was solely intensified by reporting necessities, which incentivized these on whom they had been imposed to report the place there was even the slightest suspicion {that a} youngster had been victimized.

The analysis of shaken child syndrome is not as modern because it was when Roberson introduced his daughter to the emergency room.

In truth, in 2023 a New Jersey appellate court docket upheld a trial choose’s refusal to confess proof of shaken child syndrome in a felony case as a result of “professional testimony of shaking-only SBS… was not scientifically dependable.” A 12 months later, the Texas Courtroom of Legal Appeals, in one other case involving shaken child syndrome, additionally acknowledged that “new, credible scientific proof…” had “undermine[d] the… concept of a case involving SBS….”

In February of this 12 months, a nationally acknowledged professional in bleeding problems, Dr. Michael Laposta, said in an affidavit that Nikki suffered from Disseminated Intravascular Coagulation (DIC), a uncommon blood-clotting dysfunction. In his view, DIC provided the “most believable clarification” for the bleeding and bruising that the ER docs took to be a manifestation of shaken child syndrome

The tragedy of Robert Roberson’s case is that it unfolded twenty years earlier than the popularity that shaken child syndrome was “junk science” and that the docs who handled her didn’t suspect DIS. If the Courtroom of Legal Appeals had not stepped in, Roberson would have been the primary individual to be executed in a case involving shaken child syndrome.

And if Laposta is true, Roberson may very well be executed for against the law that didn’t occur.

One other facet of the tragedy that has befallen Roberson is that on the time of Nikki’s loss of life, he suffered from undiagnosed autism. Autism is usually related to uncommon moods or an inappropriate look of indifference in disturbing or extremely charged conditions.

On the hospital, Roberson didn’t appear as involved or upset because the docs and nurses who labored there thought he must be given the dire situation of his daughter. They had been, because the Innocence Mission notes, “suspicious of his flat have an effect on and interpreted his response to his daughter’s situation as missing emotion. They seen his lack of ability to elucidate Nikki’s situation as an indication that he should be mendacity.”

Authorized programs on this nation and in Europe wouldn’t have an excellent observe document in treating folks with autism nicely or pretty, even when they know that they’re coping with neurodivergent folks.

In its August 2025 report, the Washington State Supreme Courtroom Incapacity Justice Job Pressure detailed these failures and concluded that “People with Autism steadily encounter court docket programs that misread or overlook their wants, resulting in inequitable outcomes throughout civil, felony, household, and juvenile court docket settings.” Issues might be even worse once they take care of somebody like Roberson, whose autism is undiagnosed.

It was not till 2018 that he was identified with that situation.

For now, a minimum of, Roberson will likely be spared.

However the Courtroom of Legal Appeals has restricted additional inquiry, avoiding exploring the various issues in his case. It ordered the trial court docket to restrict itself solely to the query of whether or not proof of shaken child syndrome must be excluded from consideration. It mentioned that “the trial court docket shall not entertain nor deal with another claims,” together with how Roberson’s autism affected the equity of his authorized therapy, or if Nikki died of pure causes.

As Choose Bert Richardson, who concurred within the Courtroom of Legal Appeals, defined, “There’s a delicate stability and stress in our felony justice system between the finality of judgment and its accuracy based mostly on our ever-advancing scientific understanding. A loss of life sentence is clearly closing and, as soon as carried out, hindsight is ineffective.”

Up till this level, the state of Texas and its courts appeared to worth finality greater than accuracy or equity. Now, a minimum of, there’s a likelihood to proper that stability and to keep away from executing Robert Roberson for against the law that didn’t happen.