John Grisham on Robert Roberson: ​“Texas may execute an innocent man”

In an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, nov­el­ist John Grisham recounts the flawed sci­ence that led to the con­vic­tion of Robert Roberson (pic­tured, with his daugh­ter Nikki) and the inad­e­quate legal process that has main­tained that con­vic­tion. Mr. Roberson was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death for the 2002 death of his 2‑year-old daugh­ter Nikki. His con­vic­tion relied on a the­o­ry of ​“shak­en baby syn­drome” that has since been dis­cred­it­ed. After a hear­ing ordered by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, a Texas judge rub­ber­stamped a brief sub­mit­ted by Anderson County pros­e­cu­tors, ignor­ing exhaus­tive and unre­butted sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence and uphold­ing Mr. Roberson’s conviction. 

Mr. Grisham explains that, although the shak­en baby hypoth­e­sis has been used to con­vict ​“count­less care­givers,” ​“Mr. Roberson could be the first to be exe­cut­ed.” He recounts the cir­cum­stances lead­ing up to Nikki’s death – ​“chron­ic and severe mid­dle-ear infec­tions,” ​“a high fever and undi­ag­nosed pneu­mo­nia,” and a fall out of bed the night before her father found her unre­spon­sive and took her to the emer­gency room. Staff there ​“didn’t know [Mr. Roberson] was autis­tic and decid­ed he didn’t show the prop­er emo­tions giv­en the dire sit­u­a­tion.” When Nikki died a few days lat­er, a doc­tor iden­ti­fied the tri­ad of symp­toms that were assumed to be indica­tive of shak­en baby syn­drome – ​“brain bleed­ing, brain swelling and bleed­ing in the eyes.” 

What Mr. Grisham calls that doctor’s ​“rush to judg­ment,” paired with a nurse’s unproven spec­u­la­tion that Nikki had been sex­u­al­ly abused, led a jury to con­vict Mr. Roberson and sen­tence him to death. But in the 20 years since Mr. Roberson’s tri­al, med­ical sci­ence has evolved, and even Dr. Norman Guthkelch, the doc­tor who ini­tial­ly pro­posed the shak­en baby syn­drome hypoth­e­sis, has dis­avowed it. In 2012, Dr. Guthkelch argued for a review of shak­en baby con­vic­tions, say­ing, ​“I am frankly quite dis­turbed that what I intend­ed as a friend­ly sug­ges­tion for avoid­ing injury to chil­dren has become an excuse for impris­on­ing inno­cent peo­ple. We went bad­ly off the rails.” 

In 2016, just five days before Mr. Roberson was sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ordered a hear­ing in his case. The tri­al court heard ten days of evi­dence, includ­ing tes­ti­mo­ny from six experts ​“who showed that the out­dat­ed ver­sion of shak­en-baby syn­drome used at his tri­al has been dis­cred­it­ed and that Nikki died as a result of her undi­ag­nosed pneu­mo­nia, med­ica­tions and acci­den­tal fall.” According to Mr. Grisham, at that hear­ing, Mr. Roberson’s legal team ​“pro­duced unre­butted evi­dence that no homi­cide had in fact occurred.” The state replied by sub­mit­ting ​“a 17-page brief that hard­ly touched on the new sci­ence — instead rehash­ing out­dat­ed evi­dence and the­o­ries from the orig­i­nal tri­al in 2003.” Judge Deborah Evans ​“rub­ber-stamped it, fol­low­ing the prosecution’s lead in ignor­ing most of the new expert tes­ti­mo­ny and all of the sci­en­tif­ic stud­ies show­ing a change in under­stand­ing of shaken-baby syndrome.” 

Mr. Grisham con­cludes with a call to review cas­es like Mr. Roberson’s, and to ​“demand more from judges than a copy-and-paste job that entire­ly ignores changes in the sci­en­tif­ic under­stand­ing of a case, espe­cial­ly when a life is on the line.” 

Mr. Roberson has a peti­tion for a writ of cer­tio­rari pend­ing before the U.S. Supreme Court. On June 15, 2023, five ami­cus briefs were filed on his behalf by sci­en­tists, judges, and innocence organizations.