DPI Podcast 12:01 The Death Penalty in Context: Katherine Judson of the Center for Integrity in Forensic Sciences Speaks on Flawed Forensics and Robert Roberson

In the September 2025 episode of 12:01: The Death Penalty in Context, DPI’s man­ag­ing direc­tor Anne Holsinger inter­views Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS) expert Katherine Judson. Ms. Judson is Executive Director of the Center for Integrity in Forensic Sciences and for­mer Shaken Baby Syndrome/​Abusive Head Trauma Litigation Coordinator for the Wisconsin Innocence Project. In the episode, Ms. Judson pro­vides the his­to­ry behind Shaken Baby Syndrome, and why it is now known by experts as ​“junk sci­ence.” She also explains how SBS was trag­i­cal­ly used as foren­sic evi­dence to secure the cap­i­tal con­vic­tion of Robert Roberson in Texas. 

Shaken Baby Syndrome, a diag­no­sis that is now wide­ly dis­cred­it­ed, has been used as a pros­e­cu­tion the­o­ry to con­vict indi­vid­u­als of child abuse and relat­ed crimes, includ­ing homi­cides, despite a lack of sci­en­tif­ic proof behind the the­o­ry. Since SBS was first described in the 1970s, experts have dis­cov­ered many alter­na­tive expla­na­tions for symp­toms that used to be con­sid­ered unde­ni­able proof of abuse. ​“Once folks start­ed pred­i­cat­ing crim­i­nal con­vic­tions on [SBS], it became very dif­fi­cult to make any changes to it,” accord­ing to Ms. Judson. ​“People were very invest­ed in it and resist­ed any…challenge to this hypoth­e­sis that’s real­ly nev­er been proven in any kind of meaningful way.” 

Mr. Roberson was con­vict­ed of killing his young daugh­ter after pedi­a­tri­cians and a med­ical exam­in­er iden­ti­fied SBS as the rea­son for her death, but none of these experts con­sid­ered her con­sid­er­able med­ical his­to­ry and oth­er expla­na­tions for her symp­toms. Investigators also cit­ed the ​“flat and emo­tion­less” demeanor of Mr. Roberson, who was lat­er diag­nosed with autism spec­trum dis­or­der, as fur­ther evi­dence of his guilt. 

At least 41 indi­vid­u­als have now been exon­er­at­ed from con­vic­tions pred­i­cat­ed on Shaken Baby Syndrome; many mem­bers of the pub­lic and promi­nent cit­i­zens are now urgent­ly call­ing for Mr. Roberson’s release. His exe­cu­tion is sched­uled for October 16, 2025, despite Mr. Roberson’s pend­ing appeals. ​“I think it’s impor­tant for peo­ple to know that despite what we some­times see in tele­vi­sion and movies, foren­sic sci­ence is not infal­li­ble,” Ms. Judson said. ​“In fact, in many sit­u­a­tions, it’s a whole lot of foren­sic and not very much science…there are oth­er Roberts out there.”