A Texas judge has ruled in favor of the death penalty for a father convicted of killing his 2-year-old daughter. This is despite growing calls for state intervention, including from detectives who helped send him to death row.
Robert Roberson, 57, was sentenced Thursday after his lawyers were told on Tuesday that 10th Administrative Judicial District Chief Judge Alphonso Charles denied a defense motion to revoke his client's death warrant. It was reported that the death penalty will be carried out by lethal injection. innocence project.
If Roberson is executed, he would be the first person in the United States to be executed for a murder conviction related to shaken baby syndrome.
“Robert, an innocent disabled man with the most compassionate heart, will be executed in just two days based on an invalid warrant issued by a seemingly biased judge,” Roberson's attorney, Gretchen Sween, said in a statement. It's a scary thing to be.”
Charles also denied a motion to remove former judge Deborah Oakes Evans from the case. Sween argued that Evans showed bias in the case and that her sentence should be vacated.
Mr. Sween alleges that the judge repeatedly denied Mr. Roberson a regular hearing on his earlier motions before and after his execution date was set in July.
Roberson and his defense team have long maintained his innocence since he was sentenced to death in 2002 for the murder of his 2-year-old daughter, Nikki Curtis.
Mr. Roberson's lawyers said he was wrongfully arrested and later convicted when he found his daughter lying on the floor at the foot of his bed one night in 2002.
Roberson comforted Curtis and put him back in bed, but the next morning she found him unconscious with blue lips and rushed him to the emergency room, where he was pronounced dead.
Roberson was later convicted based on testimony from a pediatrician who told the court that Curtis had swelling and bleeding on his brain, but there appeared to be limited evidence to support this as an accurate diagnosis.
Sween said the court did not take into account new reports showing that severe pneumonia contributed to Curtis' death.
Texas bipartisan lawmakers, medical experts and advocates also said that Curtis' conviction was based on incomplete and now outdated scientific evidence, and that new evidence showed Curtis was suffering from complications related to severe pneumonia. It was claimed that this indicated that he had died.
But prosecutors say the new evidence does not disprove the claim that Curtis died from injuries inflicted by her father.
Roberson was also diagnosed with autism in 2018, which affected his emotional expression and may have led jurors to perceive him as less sympathetic during the trial, defense attorneys said. .
Sween is now asking Governor Greg Abbott to pardon his client.
“Governor Abbott can prevent an irreversible mistake by commuting Mr. Roberson's death sentence, or at least granting a stay of execution so that the overwhelming evidence that a crime did not occur can be heard.” Ta.
Brian Wharton, the lead detective who investigated Curtis' death and ordered Roberson's arrest based on the doctor's theory of shaken baby syndrome, also became one of the most prominent voices proclaiming Roberson's innocence. .
“Let me tell you, Robert is innocent,” Wharton said, according to ABC News. “But more than that, he's a kind man. He's a kind man. He's a merciful man.”
Mr. Wharton testified for the prosecution in the murder trial and appeared at Tuesday's hearing in support of Mr. Roberson.
The Texas Legislature will hold a hearing Wednesday at the Capitol to investigate Roberson's case and others related to convictions based on “junk science” (a term often used to refer to the diagnosis of “shaken baby syndrome”). I plan to take up the issue.
“This is a case where it's clear that Robert Roberson did not receive due process,” Republican state Rep. Lacey Hull of Houston said during the appearance. on CNN Tuesday.
“Texans have a right to know that our justice system is fair…but that is not the case at this time.”
Roberson's lawyers and advocates believe he should be granted probation, at least after the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturned Andrew Wayne Rourke's conviction on October 9. are. The court ruled that Rourke's conviction was based on scientific understanding that has since evolved. .
He was sentenced to 35 years in prison after doctors said he injured a 13-month-old baby who suffered from shaken baby syndrome, prosecutors said.
According to the Innocence Project, Rourke was convicted based on testimony from virtually the same child abuse expert who convicted Roberson.
Mr. Roberson asked the CCA to halt the execution. That request is pending.
Shaken baby syndrome is a hypothesis proposed by medical experts that an infant can be shaken with enough force to cause a brain hemorrhage without any external trauma or impact.
But critics say doctors haven't taken into account that naturally occurring illnesses, such as deficiencies from head impacts or pneumonia, can mimic head trauma.
In the United States, at least 32 parents and caregivers in 18 states who were wrongly convicted based on the shaken baby hypothesis have been acquitted, according to the Innocence Project.
