Robert Roberson Once Again Asks Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to Consider New Evidence Supporting His Actual Innocence and Grant Him Relief

On February 19, 2025, in new fil­ings, Robert Roberson returned to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) with a request for relief, pre­sent­ing sub­stan­tial new evi­dence that sup­ports his claim of actu­al inno­cence. Mr. Roberson’s lat­est habeas appli­ca­tion incor­po­rates new expert opin­ions and ref­er­ences sci­en­tif­ic advance­ments that have emerged since October 2024, when the CCA acknowl­edged in a sim­i­lar case that the sci­en­tif­ic foun­da­tion for ​“Shaken Baby” Syndrome (SBS) con­vic­tions lack reli­a­bil­i­ty. According to his new appli­ca­tion, these find­ings demon­strate two crit­i­cal points: ratio­nal jurors would not find Mr. Roberson guilty of cap­i­tal mur­der today, and his con­vic­tion was mate­ri­al­ly influ­enced by sci­en­tif­ic and med­ical evi­dence now con­sid­ered out­dat­ed and unreliable. 

In 2002, Mr. Roberson’s 2‑year-old daugh­ter Nikki was sick with high fever and undi­ag­nosed pneu­mo­nia and had been pre­scribed med­ica­tions inap­pro­pri­ate for her age (Phenergan and Codeine) before suf­fer­ing a short fall from bed. When he brought Nikki to the emer­gency room, hos­pi­tal staff mis­in­ter­pret­ed Mr. Roberson’s flat man­ner­isms, caused by autism, as emo­tion­al detach­ment, lead­ing police and pros­e­cu­tors to sus­pect him of play­ing a role in Nikki’s even­tu­al death. Mr. Roberson was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death based on the now-dis­cred­it­ed SBS hypoth­e­sis. Counsel for Mr. Roberson points to the CCA’s deci­sion in Ex Parte Roark, where the Court over­turned a mur­der con­vic­tion based on the SBS tes­ti­mo­ny of the same expert who tes­ti­fied against Mr. Roberson. In Roark, the Court ruled: ​“We find that sci­en­tif­ic knowl­edge has evolved regard­ing SBS and its appli­ca­tion in Applicant’s case. In addi­tion, we find that giv­en fur­ther study, the experts would have giv­en a dif­fer­ent opin­ion on sev­er­al issues at a tri­al today — some already have. The admis­si­ble sci­en­tif­ic tes­ti­mo­ny at tri­al today would like­ly jus­ti­fy an acquittal.” 

At the time of both Mr. Roark and Mr. Roberson’s con­vic­tions, there was con­sen­sus among the med­ical com­mu­ni­ty that when­ev­er a tri­ad of symp­toms appeared in a child, that child must have been vio­lent­ly shak­en or struck against a blunt sur­face. The med­ical com­mu­ni­ty gen­er­al­ly believed that short falls or nat­ur­al ill­ness could not result in this tri­ad of symp­toms, but as the CCA acknowl­edged in Roark, that belief no longer holds true. The com­mon med­ical under­stand­ing at the time of Nikki’s death also held that brain dam­age from vio­lent shak­ing would result in imme­di­ate death, wrong­ly assum­ing the last per­son with the child must be respon­si­ble for their death. Evidence-based sci­ence has dis­man­tled each of the SBS premis­es that were pre­sent­ed as med­ical facts at Mr. Roberson’s tri­al, a devel­op­ment offi­cial­ly rec­og­nized by the CCA in the Roark case. Counsel for Mr. Roberson holds that these ​“cas­es are indis­tin­guish­able in all mate­r­i­al aspects,” and like Mr. Roark, Mr. Roberson’s con­vic­tion should be overturned. 

Mr. Roberson’s lat­est fil­ing also includes a new affi­davit for Dr. Michael Laposata, a pathol­o­gist with more than four decades of exper­tise in coag­u­la­tion and bleed­ing dis­or­ders. Dr. Laposata, who reviewed Nikki’s med­ical records, autop­sy, and oth­er avail­able infor­ma­tion deter­mined that based on avail­able records, Nikki suf­fered from Disseminated Intravascular Coagulation (DIC), a blood clot­ting dis­or­der than is known to be com­mon­ly caused by seri­ous ill­ness­es, such as pneu­mo­nia. According to Dr. Laposata, ​“all of the find­ings in Nikki’s case asso­ci­at­ed with bleed­ing are clear­ly reflec­tive of the pres­ence of DIC.” He also explained that the bleed­ing in Nikki’s brain that the med­ical exam­in­er attrib­uted to ​“mul­ti­ple impact” sites, were, in actu­al­i­ty, because of DIC: ​“The most plau­si­ble expla­na­tion for Nikki Curtis’ bleed­ing and bruis­ing is the devel­op­ment of DIC start­ing months before the events which took her life.” Dr. Laposata reviewed the reports of three oth­er med­ical experts and found their con­clu­sions to be whol­ly con­sis­tent with his con­clu­sions. The February 19^th fil­ings also include a joint state­ment of 10 pathol­o­gists who con­clude that ​“the 2002 autop­sy per­formed on Nikki Curtis is not reliable.” 

Mr. Roberson was sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed in October 2024; how­ev­er, the Texas Supreme Court ulti­mate­ly stayed the exe­cu­tion after state law­mak­ers sub­poe­naed Mr. Roberson to tes­ti­fy on a date after his sched­uled exe­cu­tion about the state’s changed-sci­ence law and his case. Mr. Roberson was not able to tes­ti­fy, as the Office of the Attorney General inter­vened to pre­vent the Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s com­pli­ance with the sub­poe­na. Without hear­ing from Mr. Roberson, the House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence released in an inter­im report, which is includ­ed in Mr. Roberson’s new fil­ing. The Committee found that Mr. Roberson’s case ​“high­light­ed not just an indi­vid­ual injus­tice, but the unful­filled promise of what was intend­ed to be a pio­neer­ing Texas law.” 

According to the National Registry of Exonerations, at least 40 par­ents and care­givers across 20 states and the mil­i­tary have been exon­er­at­ed since 1992 after being wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed based on the dis­cred­it­ed ​“Shaken Baby” hypothesis.