Scientists, Physicians, Retired Federal Judges, and Innocence Groups File Amicus Briefs in Support of Robert Roberson, Texas Man Convicted and Sentenced to Death in ​“Shaken Baby Syndrome” Case

On June 15, 2023, five ami­cus briefs were filed with the United States Supreme Court in sup­port of Robert Roberson (pic­tured with his daugh­ter, Nikki), a Texas death-sen­tenced pris­on­er who has long claimed to be inno­cent of caus­ing the death of his daugh­ter. Mr. Roberson filed his peti­tion with the Supreme Court on May 11^th after the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) denied his request for a new tri­al despite the pre­sen­ta­tion of new sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence that sound­ly dis­cred­it­ed the ​“shak­en baby syn­drome” (SBS) the­o­ry the pros­e­cu­tion had relied upon at tri­al. A 2021 evi­den­tiary hear­ing had also pre­sent­ed com­pelling new med­ical evi­dence estab­lish­ing that the vic­tim, Mr. Roberson’s 2‑year-old daugh­ter, died of nat­ur­al and acci­den­tal caus­es. Mr. Roberson, who received an exe­cu­tion date in 2016, has asked the Supreme Court to over­turn the CCA’s decision. 

The ami­cus briefs filed today are authored by experts from a num­ber of dif­fer­ent dis­ci­plines. The brief of Concerned Physicians and Scientists states that ​“pre­vi­ous­ly pre­vail­ing sci­en­tif­ic belief regard­ing SBS has been dis­cred­it­ed, and ami­ci file this brief out of con­cern that some courts, includ­ing those below, con­tin­ue to rely uncrit­i­cal­ly on out­dat­ed the­o­ries and refuse to con­sid­er the cur­rent state of the science… .” 

The Center for Integrity in Forensic Sciences writes that Mr. Roberson ​“was sen­tenced to death based on sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence the foren­sic com­mu­ni­ty now under­stands to be out­dat­ed and deeply flawed. No con­vic­tion should be allowed to stand on this foun­da­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly a death sentence.” 

In the brief of Retired Federal Judges, five retired fed­er­al judges, includ­ing one from Texas, write that, ​“The Texas court sys­tem failed Roberson. It failed to ful­ly and fair­ly con­sid­er th[e] new evi­dence. It rub­ber-stamped a cap­i­tal con­vic­tion based on unre­li­able med­ical evi­dence. It denied Roberson the con­sti­tu­tion­al process he is due. And his life hangs in the bal­ance as a result. This Court’s review is need­ed to pre­vent that mis­car­riage of justice.” 

In addi­tion, an ami­cus brief filed by Witness to Innocence details the sto­ries of nine par­ents or care­givers in sev­en states who were false­ly con­vict­ed of harm­ing or killing a child under the dis­cred­it­ed SBS the­o­ry, only to be exon­er­at­ed after years or decades in prison. The brief also notes that wrong­ful con­vic­tions are often premised on ​“inap­pro­pri­ate reac­tions” to ill­ness, injury or death. Robert Roberson was a spe­cial edu­ca­tion stu­dent when he dropped out of 9^th grade, and he also has autism. Hospital staff did not know Mr. Roberson had autism and judged his response to his daughter’s grave con­di­tion as lack­ing emo­tion, which in turn raised the sus­pi­cions of inves­ti­ga­tors. The jury nev­er learned of Mr. Roberson’s autism. 

Finally, a brief filed by The Innocence Project of Texas raised addi­tion­al con­cerns, in addi­tion to the fact that ​“the CCA sum­mar­i­ly denied relief, despite over­whelm­ing record evi­dence that [Mr. Roberson’s] under­ly­ing con­vic­tion and death sen­tence rest on tabloid sci­ence.” The brief notes that “[a]s courts in oth­er juris­dic­tions have held, uphold­ing a con­vic­tion in these cir­cum­stances vio­lates fun­da­men­tal due process prin­ci­ples. But the deci­sion below rais­es a sec­ond and inde­pen­dent con­sti­tu­tion­al con­cern: the courts failed to engage mean­ing­ful­ly with the post­con­vic­tion record, and instead uncrit­i­cal­ly adopt­ed near­ly word-for-word the prosecution’s pro­posed findings below.”

Mr. Roberson has spent 20 years on death row in Texas.