LIVINGSTON, Texas (AP) — Robert Roberson was calm and hopeful as he pondered his mortality and whether he could again avoid becoming the first person in the U.S. executed for a murder conviction tied to the diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome.
With days to go before his scheduled Oct. 16 execution, Roberson maintained his innocence in the 2002 death of his 2-year-old daughter, Nikki Curtis, in the east Texas city of Palestine. He is set to die by lethal injection nearly a year to the day after a group of Texas lawmakers, who say he is innocent, secured an extraordinary last-minute court reprieve as Roberson waited outside the death chamber in Huntsville.
Roberson said he was placing his hopes for another execution stay in the hands of his lawyers, his supporters and God.
“I’m not going to stress out and stuff because I know God has it, you know. He’s in control. No matter what, God’s in control, you know, and he does have the last say, you know,” Roberson, 58, told The Associated Press last week as he sat behind a glass partition in the visiting area of the Polunsky Unit in Livingston, where Texas’ male death row inmates are housed.
During an hourlong interview, Roberson said he thinks about his daughter every day and what kind of life she would have today.
Prosecutors at Roberson’s 2003 trial argued he hit his daughter and violently shook her, causing severe head trauma and that she died from injuries related to shaken baby syndrome. Roberson’s lawyers and some medical experts say his daughter died not from abuse but from complications related to pneumonia. They say his conviction was based on flawed and now outdated scientific evidence.
The diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome refers to a serious brain injury caused when a child’s head is hurt through shaking or some other violent impact, like being slammed against a wall or thrown on the floor.
Roberson’s attorneys have argued his undiagnosed autism helped convict him as authorities and medical personnel felt he didn’t act like a concerned parent because his flat affect was seen as a sign of guilt.
A last-minute stay of execution
Last year, Roberson was on the verge of being put to death when a flurry of last-minute legal maneuvering on the night of his scheduled execution, including an unprecedented intervention by a bipartisan group of Texas lawmakers, stayed his lethal injection. In July, a judge set the new execution date, Roberson’s third.
During his interview with the AP, Roberson often would not keep eye contact and would repeat words or phrases — behaviors that experts say are associated with autism.
“They assumed (guilt) because of the way I was acting, you know. And I didn’t know I was autistic, you know, until years and years later, you know,” said Roberson, who wasn’t diagnosed with autism until 2018.
Roberson’s supporters and his legal team are again holding rallies and asking state and federal appeals courts and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to halt his execution. His supporters include both liberal and ultraconservative lawmakers, Texas GOP megadonor and conservative activist Doug Deason, bestselling author John Grisham and Brian Wharton, the former police detective who helped put together the case against him.
“The whole world is watching. Texas, do not kill this innocent man,” Wharton said during a rally Saturday outside the Texas Capitol building in Austin.
Attorney general and others insist Nikki died of child abuse
The office of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, as well as some medical experts and other family members of Nikki, maintain the girl died because of child abuse and that Roberson had a history of hitting his daughter.
“It’s been a long time coming. … In my opinion he did it, 100%,” Matthew Bowman, Nikki’s half brother, told reporters in July. Bowman declined to speak with the AP.
Abbott’s office did not immediately reply to emails seeking comment. Abbott has the power to grant a one-time 30-day reprieve.
Roberson said he never hurt his daughter and had been working to turn his life around and take care of Nikki after spending time in prison for burglary and theft by check.
“I never shook her or hit her,” Roberson said, adding he never disciplined his daughter “because she was so tiny.”
Shaken baby syndrome has come under scrutiny in recent years as some lawyers and medical experts have argued the diagnosis has wrongly sent people to prison. Prosecutors and medical societies say it remains valid.
“It’s no longer a mystery what happened to Nikki. It was not shaking. It was her chronic, serious health conditions,” Gretchen Sween, one of Roberson’s lawyers, said at Saturday’s rally. “A crime didn’t occur.”
But in a Sept. 26 op-ed in The Dallas Morning News, three pediatricians, including two with the Yale School of Medicine, said they reviewed the case and “are convinced that Nikki was a victim of child abuse.”
Roberson says he’s optimistic he will get a chance to prove innocence
Roberson was arrested after he took Nikki to a hospital when she became unresponsive following a fall off their bed. He said he had never heard of shaken baby syndrome.
“It was bad enough losing my little girl. And then when they accused me of it, I couldn’t believe it,” Roberson said.
In a press release issued after Roberson’s execution was delayed last year as well as in recent court filings, Paxton’s office has stressed that “this was no mere shaken baby case but involved a child who was beaten and received multiple blows to the head.” Paxton’s office said the jury “did not convict Roberson on the basis of ‘Shaken Baby Syndrome.’”
Yet one of the jurors who convicted Roberson, Terre Compton, told lawmakers last year that, “everything that was presented to us was all about shaken baby syndrome. That is what our decision was based on.”
Grisham, who is writing a book about the case, said Roberson’s trial “was grossly unfair” because his autism contributed to people believing he was guilty and his defense lawyers told jurors it was a case of shaken baby syndrome.
Roberson said he remains optimistic he will one day get a chance to prove his innocence with a new trial.
“I’m not scared to die, but I’m not ready to die, you know. I would like to believe God has more for me to do and stuff, you know,” Roberson said.
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