Robert Roberson with daughter Nikki. Courtesy of the Roberson family.
On September 17, 2024, attorneys for Texas death row prisoner Robert Roberson filed a clemency petition accompanied by letters from hundreds of supporters, including eminent scientists and medical professionals, a bipartisan group of Texas legislators, and former lead Detective Brian Wharton, urging the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and Governor Greg Abbott to reduce Mr. Roberson’s sentence. Mr. Roberson is currently scheduled to be executed on October 17, 2024. He was convicted and sentenced to death in 2003 for the death of his two-year-old daughter, Nikki, who medical experts have determined died from severe viral and bacterial pneumonia that doctors failed to diagnose, not from abuse or Shaken Baby Syndrome. Despite three new expert reports showing Nikki died of pneumonia, no court has been willing to consider the evidence that clears Mr. Roberson of any crime.
Mr. Roberson’s petition states that “Nikki’s death…was not a crime—unless it is a crime for a parent to be unable to explain complex medical problems that even trained medical professionals failed to understand at the time.” Because of advances in science since 2003, it is now understood that Nikki was suffering from a severe lung infection. With the reexamination of lung tissue collected during her autopsy, experts determined “that both a chronic interstitial viral pneumonia and a secondary acute bacterial pneumonia were ravishing [Nikki’s] lungs, causing sepsis and then septic shock.” In the days leading to Nikki’s death, Mr. Roberson repeatedly brought her to the local Emergency Room and her pediatrician, both of whom sent them home with medications that would only make Nikki’s condition worse. Doctors prescribed Nikki with Phenergan and codeine—both of which are no longer prescribed to children because they are known to suppress one’s ability to breathe.
More than 30 medical and scientific experts have written to the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles in support of Mr. Roberson. These professionals write that “if Nikki died today, instead of presuming Nikki’s death was caused by abuse, no doctor would consider Shaken Baby Syndrome as the cause of Nikki’s death because SBS is now considered a diagnosis of exclusion; Nikki’s pneumonia, the extreme levels of dangerous medications found in her system during her autopsy, and her fall from the bed explain why Nikki died.”
When Mr. Roberson rushed Nikki to the hospital, staff interpreted his seemingly blank reaction to Nikki’s condition as callousness, when in fact, Mr. Roberson’s autism explains his non-neurotypical response to the crisis at hand. Christopher Banks, President and CEO of the Autism Society of America, in a letter supporting Mr. Roberson, writes that “Robert Roberson’s Autism, which affects social and emotional processing, led to a lack of visible emotional response—a characteristic misinterpreted during his trial as a sign of guilt.” Jacquie Benestante, Executive Director of the Autism Society of Texas, writes that “the prosecution’s reliance on misjudgment and bias against Mr. Roberson’s Autistic behavior suggests a rush to judgement substantially influenced by criminalizing disability.” She adds that “we are calling for justice and clemency, urging Governor Abbot and the Board of Pardons and Paroles to consider the compelling evidence and prevent a wrongful execution.”
A bipartisan group of 84 Texas legislators also wrote to the Board, urging them to recommend clemency for Mr. Roberson “out of grave concern that Texas may put him to death for a crime that did not occur.” In their letter to the Board, the lawmakers emphasize that despite a law passed more than 10 years ago that allows challenges to convictions based on disproven or false science, little relief has been granted. The lawmakers are “dismayed to learn that this law has not been applied as intended and has not been a pathway to relief—or even a new trial— for people like Mr. Roberson.” They add that “in his case, significant scientific and medical evidence now shows that his daughter Nikki, who was chronically ill, died of a combination of natural and accidental causes, not the debunked shaken baby syndrome hypothesis that State used convict Mr. Roberson.”
Brian Wharton, the lead detective investigating Nikki’s death, who arrested Mr. Roberson based on the hospital doctor’s Shaken Baby hypothesis before an autopsy could be performed, has come to believe that Mr. Roberson is innocent, and that no crime actually occurred. In a letter urging the governor to grant clemency for Mr. Roberson, Mr. Wharton writes that he “will forever be haunted by the role [he] played in helping the State put this innocent man on death row.” Mr. Wharton added that “Robert’s case will forever be a burden on my heart and soul. But it is not too late for Texas to change course and stop his execution.”
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