Article of Interest: Author John Grisham Says Texas Plans to Execute Robert Roberson, An Innocent Man

Best-sell­ing author of The Innocent Man and for­mer crim­i­nal defense lawyer John Grisham ​“nev­er, not once” believed that any of the hun­dreds of clients he rep­re­sent­ed were wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed. In a September 5, 2024, op-ed, Mr. Grisham writes that he just assumed the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem always got it right. Now, writ­ing for the sec­ond time about Robert Roberson’s case, Mr. Grisham acknowl­edges that was ​“a wrong assump­tion.” He argues that ​“Robert Roberson is inno­cent because the evi­dence devel­oped in recent pro­ceed­ings, but so far dis­re­gard­ed by the Texas courts, sug­gests that no crime occurred.”

Mr. Grisham details the flawed sci­ence and inves­ti­ga­tion that led to the wrong­ful con­vic­tion of Robert Roberson and the fail­ure of the court sys­tem to cor­rect its errors. Mr. Roberson was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death for caus­ing the 2002 death of his 2‑year-old daugh­ter Nikki after state attor­neys told jurors that the only way Nikki could have died was from vio­lent shak­ing in con­cert with a blunt impact. Mr. Grisham notes that while shak­en baby syn­drome has been used to con­vict par­ents and care­givers across the United States, Mr. Roberson would be the first per­son exe­cut­ed because of this now-discredited theory.

Mr. Grisham writes that ​“for a par­ent, noth­ing could be worse than los­ing a child — except for being false­ly accused of caus­ing the child’s death because your dis­abil­i­ty makes you show your emo­tions in non-neu­rotyp­i­cal ways.” Mr. Grisham believes that ​“an impaired man has been con­demned because he could not explain his daughter’s com­plex med­ical sit­u­a­tion when he brought her to a hos­pi­tal.” Like for­mer detec­tive Brain Wharton, who helped put Mr. Roberson behind bars, Mr. Grisham ​“feel[s] com­pelled to speak out before Texas again com­mits the heinous crime of exe­cut­ing an innocent man.”

Mr. Roberson is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on October 17, 2024.