Tragic figures play a big part in Greek literature and mythology. They usually have private flaws that journey them up or are caught up in merciless circumstances.
The dying penalty system in the USA is one other place crammed with tragic figures, individuals caught up within the prejudices of their instances, within the hysteria of the second, or within the willingness of others to show a blind eye to proof of their innocence. Individuals in all walks of life know this, but executions continue, nonetheless.
Consider the executions of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for espionage on the top of the Fifties anti-Communist campaign. Or of Marcellus Williams, executed in Missouri last year, regardless of proof of his innocence that was so convincing that even the sitting St. Louis County Prosecuting Legal professional believed it.
Right this moment, a Texas court docket prevented one other title from being added to that listing when it stayed the October 16 execution of Robert Roberson. The Courtroom of Felony Appeals returned his case to the trial court docket in order that it might take into account the reliability of so-called “shaken child syndrome” (SBS), a medical prognosis that performed a key function in Roberson’s case.
It’s about time it did so. Nevertheless it cherry-picked amongst and ignored his meritorious authorized claims, together with whether or not he had efficient help of counsel in his authentic trial.
It didn’t acknowledge that Roberson shouldn’t be in jail in any respect, not to mention on dying row. He nonetheless has the specter of dying hanging over him.
Roberson was convicted of homicide in 2003 after the dying of his chronically in poor health two-year-old daughter, Nikki. He obtained caught up in tragedy when he introduced her to a hospital in Palestine, Texas, after she fell in poor health. She was later transferred to Dallas Kids’s Hospital, the place she died.
Slightly than taking an in depth medical historical past and investigating the vary of attainable explanations for her situation, docs have been satisfied that Nikki was a sufferer of shaken baby syndrome, which was then all the craze in a nation immediately vigilant about little one abuse. Actually, in 2001, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) printed a paper that called shaken child syndrome “a critical and clearly definable type of little one abuse. It outcomes from excessive rotational cranial acceleration induced by violent shaking or shaking/affect, which might be simply recognizable by others as harmful.”
The APA paper urged docs to function with a “presumption of kid abuse when a toddler…has suffered an intracranial harm,” of the type that Nikki had.
The hyper-vigilance and suspicion that adopted were very much part of a moral panic that led to an upsurge in accusations of child abuse or child sexual abuse. This was solely intensified by reporting necessities, which incentivized those on whom they were imposed to report the place there was even the slightest suspicion {that a} little one had been victimized.
The prognosis of shaken child syndrome is now not as modern because it was when Roberson introduced his daughter to the emergency room.
Actually, in 2023 a New Jersey appellate court docket upheld a trial judge’s refusal to admit proof of shaken child syndrome in a prison case as a result of “skilled testimony of shaking-only SBS… was not scientifically dependable.” A 12 months later, the Texas Courtroom of Felony Appeals, in one other case involving shaken child syndrome, additionally recognized that “new, credible scientific proof…” had “undermine[d] the… idea of a case involving SBS….”
In February of this 12 months, a nationally acknowledged skilled in bleeding issues, Dr. Michael Laposta, stated in an affidavit that Nikki suffered from Disseminated Intravascular Coagulation (DIC), a uncommon blood-clotting dysfunction. In his view, DIC provided the “most believable clarification” for the bleeding and bruising that the ER docs took to be a manifestation of shaken child syndrome
The tragedy of Robert Roberson’s case is that it unfolded 20 years earlier than the popularity that shaken child syndrome was “junk science” and that the docs who handled her didn’t suspect DIS. If the Courtroom of Felony Appeals had not stepped in, Roberson would have been the primary individual to be executed in a case involving shaken child syndrome.
And if Laposta is correct, Roberson may very well be executed for against the law that didn’t occur.
One other side of the tragedy that has befallen Roberson is that on the time of Nikki’s dying, he suffered from undiagnosed autism. Autism is generally related to uncommon moods or an inappropriate look of indifference in traumatic or extremely charged conditions.
On the hospital, Roberson didn’t appear as involved or upset because the docs and nurses who labored there thought he needs to be given the dire situation of his daughter. They have been, because the Innocence Undertaking notes, “suspicious of his flat have an effect on and interpreted his response to his daughter’s situation as missing emotion. They seen his lack of ability to elucidate Nikki’s situation as an indication that he have to be mendacity.”
Authorized methods on this nation and in Europe do not have a great track record in treating individuals with autism nicely or pretty, even when they know that they’re coping with neurodivergent individuals.
In its August 2025 report, the Washington State Supreme Courtroom Incapacity Justice Process Power detailed these failures and concluded that “People with Autism continuously encounter court docket methods that misread or overlook their wants, resulting in inequitable outcomes throughout civil, prison, household, and juvenile court docket settings.” Issues might be even worse once they take care of somebody like Roberson, whose autism is undiagnosed.
It was not until 2018 that he was diagnosed with that condition.
For now, no less than, Roberson will probably be spared.
However the Courtroom of Felony Appeals has restricted additional inquiry, avoiding exploring the various issues in his case. It ordered the trial court docket to restrict itself solely to the query of whether or not proof of shaken child syndrome needs to be excluded from consideration. It mentioned that “the trial court docket shall not entertain nor handle some other claims,” together with how Roberson’s autism affected the equity of his authorized remedy, or if Nikki died of pure causes.
As Choose Bert Richardson, who concurred within the Courtroom of Felony Appeals, explained, “There’s a delicate steadiness and stress in our prison justice system between the finality of judgment and its accuracy based mostly on our ever-advancing scientific understanding. A dying sentence is clearly ultimate and, as soon as carried out, hindsight is ineffective.”
Up till this level, the state of Texas and its courts appeared to worth finality greater than accuracy or equity. Now, no less than, there’s a likelihood to proper that steadiness and to keep away from executing Robert Roberson for against the law that didn’t happen.
