LIVINGSTON, Texas (KETK) – A Palestine, Texas man who is the subject of a nationwide outpouring of support is scheduled to be put to death Thursday evening in Huntsville as lawmakers make a last ditch effort to buy him time.
The Texas House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence issued a subpoena for Robert Roberson, stating he must appear before the committee on Oct. 21. The committee, who heard hours of testimony Wednesday casting doubt on Roberson’s conviction, are likely hoping that they can delay his execution while the subpoena is litigated in court. This is uncharted waters for a death penalty case, and it is unclear what effect, if any, this will have on his scheduled execution.
If his execution goes through Thursday afternoon, Roberson will be taken from the Polunsky Unit in Livingston where male death row inmates are housed to the Huntsville Unit, also known as the Walls Unit. From there, he will wait until 6 p.m. for an execution that has been hanging over his head for the past 20 years.
In 2003, an East Texas jury found Roberson guilty of killing his daughter, 2-year-old Nikki Curtis. They decided that Roberson, beyond a reasonable doubt, caused the death of his daughter by violently shaking her, resulting in shaken baby syndrome.
Medical staff and the lead detective on the case were suspicious of Roberson’s seemingly cold demeanor at the time of his daughter’s death, viewing it as an indication of guilt. Roberson was diagnosed with autism in 2018, which can severely impact a person’s ability to communicate and show emotion, and could explain why he didn’t appear to be rattled when he rushed his daughter in for emergency care after she suffered a short fall in her sleep, his attorneys say.
“Her condition did not suggest abuse, but medical staff immediately looked with suspicion upon the awkward-looking father, who seemed to show no emotion,” according to a court filing. “Law enforcement was immediately called in.”
The science on shaken baby syndrome — now known as abusive head trauma — has been called into question in recent years. Where the diagnosis used to be made based on only a few pieces of physical criteria, The American Association of Pediatrics now states that “a final medical diagnosis of AHT is made only after consideration of all the available clinical data.”
Roberson’s defense team is claiming doctors didn’t take into account his daughter’s “severe, undiagnosed pneumonia” which was “exacerbated by inappropriate respiratory-suppressing medications prescribed during her final days” by hospital staff when her father took her in for help days before her death. She was prescribed a cough syrup with promethazine and codeine — two drugs no longer recommended for children that would have further compounded her breathing problems.
The lead detective on the case, Brian Wharton, arrested Roberson before Nikki’s autopsy was performed based on a doctor’s opinion she died from shaken baby syndrome. Now, Wharton is perhaps the biggest advocate for Roberson’s innocence.
His defense team is arguing that his daughter’s death can be explained by other factors, which present a reasonable doubt that her death was caused by Roberson. Still, Texas courts have been unwilling to review the new evidence.
In recent weeks, Roberson has received bipartisan support calling for a commutation, or in some cases a full pardon, of his death sentence. His defense team is citing questionable science used to justify his arrest in the first place, even petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court in one last-ditch effort to spare his life.
“Ultimately, none of Roberson’s new evidence of innocence was considered by any court,” according to his petition, which asks for the court to hear his case to decide whether the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals infringed on his right to due process. “Instead, on September 11, 2024, the TCCA issued an unsigned opinion dismissing the application without consideration of the merits.”
If he is put to death on Thursday, it will be the first execution in the U.S. based on a shaken baby syndrome diagnoses.
