Current:Home > FinanceBenjamin Ashford|Texas sets execution date for East Texas man accused in shaken baby case -Quantum Capital Pro
Benjamin Ashford|Texas sets execution date for East Texas man accused in shaken baby case
Surpassing Quant Think Tank Center View
Date:2025-04-11 02:45:24
A Texas court on Benjamin AshfordMonday set an execution date for Robert Roberson, who was sentenced to death in 2003 for killing his 2-year-old daughter but has consistently challenged the conviction on the claim that it was based on questionable science.
Roberson has maintained his innocence while being held on death row for more than 20 years. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals previously halted his execution in 2016. But in 2023, the state’s highest criminal court decided that doubt over the cause of his daughter’s death was not enough to overturn his death sentence.
His new execution date is set for Oct. 17.
Roberson’s attorneys objected to the scheduling of an execution after Anderson County prosecutors requested on June 17 that a date be set. His attorneys said they have new evidence to bolster their case and that they planned to file a new request to overturn his conviction.
As a result, his attorneys argued, setting an execution date would be “premature and unjust.”
Roberson was convicted of killing his sickly 2-year-old daughter, Nikki Curtis, after he rushed her blue, limp body to the hospital. He said that Nikki fell from the bed while they were sleeping in their home in the East Texas town of Palestine and that he awoke to find her unresponsive. But doctors and nurses, who were unable to revive her, did not believe such a low fall could have caused the fatal injuries and suspected child abuse.
At trial, doctors testified that Nikki’s death was consistent with shaken baby syndrome — in which an infant is severely injured from being shaken violently back and forth — and a jury convicted Roberson.
The Court of Criminal Appeals in 2016 stopped his execution and sent the case back to the trial court after the scientific consensus around shaken baby syndrome diagnoses came into question. Many doctors believe the condition is used as an explanation for an infant’s death too often in criminal cases, without considering other possibilities and the baby’s medical history.
The Court of Criminal Appeals’ decision was largely a product of a 2013 state law, dubbed the “junk science law,” which allows Texas courts to overturn a conviction when the scientific evidence used to reach a verdict has since changed or been discredited. Lawmakers, in passing the law, highlighted cases of infant trauma that used faulty science to convict defendants as examples of the cases the legislation was meant to target.
Roberson’s attorneys, in their opposition to setting an execution date, cited “overwhelming new evidence” that Nikki died of “natural and accidental causes” — not due to head trauma.
They wrote that Nikki had “severe, undiagnosed” pneumonia that caused her to stop breathing, collapse and turn blue before she was discovered. Then, instead of identifying her pneumonia, doctors prescribed her Phenergan and codeine, drugs that are no longer given to children her age, further suppressing her breathing, they argued.
“It is irrefutable that Nikki’s medical records show that she was severely ill during the last week of her life,” Roberson’s attorneys wrote, noting that in the week before her death, Roberson had taken Nikki to the emergency room because she had been coughing, wheezing and struggling with diarrhea for several days, and to her pediatrician’s office, where her temperature came in at 104.5 degrees.
“There was a tragic, untimely death of a sick child whose impaired, impoverished father did not know how to explain what has confounded the medical community for decades,” Roberson’s attorneys wrote.
They have also argued that new scientific evidence suggests that it is impossible to shake a toddler to death without causing serious neck injuries, which Nikki did not have.
And they cited developments in a similar case in Dallas County, in which a man was convicted of injuring a child. His conviction was based in part on now partially recanted testimony from a child abuse expert who provided similar testimony on shaken baby syndrome in Roberson’s case. Prosecutors in Dallas County have said the defendant should get a new trial.
In 2023, when the Court of Criminal Appeals denied Roberson a new trial, prosecutors argued that the evidence supporting Roberson’s conviction was still “clear and convincing” and that the science around shaken baby syndrome had not changed as much as his defense attorneys claimed. Witnesses also testified at trial that Roberson had a bad temper and would shake and spank Nikki when she would not stop crying.
The scheduling of Roberson’s execution triggers a series of deadlines for any last filings in state and federal court to seek relief and begin a request for clemency.
___
This story was originally published by The Texas Tribune and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.
veryGood! (743)
Related
- Dick Vitale announces he is cancer free: 'Santa Claus came early'
- Eva Mendes Proves Why Ryan Gosling Is Far From Being Just Ken
- From Ayo Edebiri to Suki Waterhouse: The 12 best dressed stars at 2024 Emmys
- Tired of the Mess? The Best Easy-Organizing Products That'll Make a Huge Difference in Your Daily Routine
- The Louvre will be renovated and the 'Mona Lisa' will have her own room
- Eight dead and an estimated 100 people missing after the latest Nigeria boat accident
- North Korea scraps agencies managing relations with South as Kim Jong Un cites hostility with rival
- New Mexico’s financial surplus and crime set the stage for the governor’s speech to lawmakers
- EU countries double down on a halt to Syrian asylum claims but will not yet send people back
- Jeremy Allen White's Sweet Emmys Shoutout to Daughters Ezer and Dolores Will Melt Your Heart
Ranking
- North Carolina trustees approve Bill Belichick’s deal ahead of introductory news conference
- Alix Earle Recommended This $8 Dermaplaning Tool and I Had To Try It—Here’s What Happened
- What Pedro Pascal Had to Say About Kieran Culkin at Emmys
- China's millennial and Gen Z workers are having to lower their economic expectations
- Meet first time Grammy nominee Charley Crockett
- Buccaneers vs. Eagles NFC wild card playoff highlights: Bucs rout Eagles, will face Lions
- Norway halts adoptions from 4 Asian countries pending an investigation, newspaper reports
- Iran strikes targets in northern Iraq and Syria as regional tensions escalate
Recommendation
Brianna LaPaglia Reveals The Meaning Behind Her "Chickenfry" Nickname
EIF Business School, Practitioners Benefiting Society
Suspected Long Island Serial Killer Rex Heuermann Charged With Murder of 4th Woman
An emotional Christina Applegate receives a standing ovation at the Emmys
Meet first time Grammy nominee Charley Crockett
Elton John joins list of EGOT winners after nabbing Emmy
How Trump won the 2024 Iowa caucuses
Emmy Awards 2023: The Complete Winners List