Texas Prisoner Seeks Supreme Court Review of Conviction Based on Debunked Scientific Evidence

On May 11, attor­neys for Robert Roberson, a death-sen­tenced pris­on­er in Texas, filed a peti­tion for cer­tio­rari to the Supreme Court ask­ing it to reverse the deci­sion of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA). Mr. Roberson’s con­vic­tion for the mur­der of his daugh­ter Nikki was based on the so-called ​“Shaken Baby Syndrome” which has now been debunked by new sci­en­tif­ic and med­ical evi­dence. The TCCA dis­re­gard­ed this and oth­er evi­dence that showed his daughter’s death was attrib­ut­able to nat­ur­al and accidental causes. 

In the peti­tion, Mr. Roberson asserts that:

(1) the State relied on an uncon­test­ed SBS cau­sa­tion the­o­ry to obtain his conviction;

(2) each of the SBS premis­es con­sid­ered med­ical ortho­doxy in 2003 have since been under­mined by evidence-based science;

(3) the jury heard mis­lead­ing, high­ly prej­u­di­cial tes­ti­mo­ny from one nurse sug­gest­ing that Nikki was sex­u­al­ly abused, when no one else saw any signs of such abuse; and

(4) the com­bi­na­tion of Nikki’s undi­ag­nosed pneu­mo­nia, med­ica­tions pre­scribed to her, and an acci­den­tal fall entire­ly explain Nikki’s con­di­tion. But the lit­tle the jury heard about Nikki’s med­ical his­to­ry was dis­missed as irrel­e­vant; and the jury did not hear about her severe pneu­mo­nia, only iden­ti­fied dur­ing recent re-inves­ti­ga­tion of the autop­sy. Nor did jurors hear about the lethal quan­ti­ties of res­pi­ra­to­ry-sup­press­ing pre­scrip­tion drugs in her sys­tem at the time of her collapse.

In 2022, the Center for Integrity in Forensic Sciences (CIFS) filed an ami­cus curi­ae brief in sup­port of Mr. Roberson’s inno­cence claim urg­ing the TCCA to over­turn the con­vic­tion because of its posi­tion that Shaken Baby Syndrome is med­ical­ly and scientifically invalid. 

The case of Sabrina Butler also involves Shaken Baby Syndrome. Ms. Butler was sen­tenced to death for the mur­der of her son in Mississippi. She was acquit­ted at tri­al and sub­se­quent­ly exon­er­at­ed after the med­ical evi­dence showed that no crime had occurred.