Entries tagged with “Sabrina Butler-Smith”
Women
,Mar 20, 2025
Sabrina Butler-Smith on Wrongful Convictions and Motherhood
In this month’s podcast episode of 12:01 The Death Penalty in Context, DPI’s Managing Director Anne Holsinger speaks with Sabrina Butler-Smith (pictured), who was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death at age 17 for causing the death of her nine-month-old son. After two years and nine months on death row, Ms. Butler-Smith’s conviction was overturned. At a second trial, it was determined that her son died from a serious medical condition, polycystic kidney disease, and she was acquitted.
Women
,Mar 20, 2025
DPI’s Podcast 12:01 The Death Penalty in Context: Sabrina Butler-Smith on Wrongful Convictions and Motherhood
In this month’s podcast episode of 12:01 The Death Penalty in Context, DPI’s Managing Director Anne Holsinger speaks with Sabrina Butler-Smith (pictured), who was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death at age 17 for causing the death of her nine-month-old son. After two years and nine months on death row, Ms. Butler-Smith’s conviction was overturned. At a second trial, it was determined that her son died from a serious medical condition, polycystic kidney disease, and she was acquitted.
Issues
May 18, 2023
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…
Issues
Apr 18, 2022
Forensics Experts and Shaken-Baby Exonerees File Briefs Supporting Texas Death-Row Prisoner Robert Roberson’s Innocence Claim
Forensics experts and three exonerees wrongfully convicted of murder based upon junk-science diagnoses of Shaken Baby Syndrome are urging the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) to overturn the conviction of death-row prisoner Robert Roberson (pictured with his daughter, Nikki). In separate friend-of-the-court briefs filed on April 8, 2022, the two groups argue that Shaken Baby Syndrome is an invalid medical diagnosis that should never be used as the basis of a murder conviction and that…
Issues
Jan 06, 2021
Witness to Innocence Releases #ImLivingProof Video Series
Witness to Innocence, the national organization of U.S. death-row exonerees, has released a series of short videos under the tag “#ImLivingProof,” featuring the stories of men and women who had been wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death. The series, produced by filmmaker Martin Schoeller with funding from the Art for Justice Fund, attempts to personalize the dangers of the death penalty by showing the public living proof that innocent people are sentenced to death. Eight of the videos…
Issues
Women
,Jul 31, 2019
Federal Appeals Court Overturns Mother’s Conviction in Texas Child Murder Case That May Have Been an Accidental Death
Citing trial court interference in her right to present a defense, a federal appeals court has overturned the conviction of a Texas mother who was sentenced to death on charges that she had murdered her two-year-old daughter. In an unpublished, unsigned opinion issued on July 29, 2019, a unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit said that trial court rulings that blocked Melissa Elizabeth Lucio (pictured) from calling an expert witness to challenge the…
Issues
Jun 03, 2014
Sabrina Butler, Death Row Exoneree, Tells Her Story
Sabrina Butler (pictured), the only woman among the 144 people exonerated from death row since 1973, recently told her story in TIME Magainze. Butler was just 17 years old when she went to check on her infant son and found he had stopped breathing. She attempted to resuscitate him and rushed him to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead. The next day, a detective accused Butler of murdering her son. “I was alone with no lawyer or parent with me. I told him I tried to save my baby. He…