A bipartisan coalition of 86 Texas House representatives is asking the state for clemency in the case of Robert Roberson. Roberson was sentenced to death in 2003 for killing his two-year-old daughter, but has always maintained his innocence.
The conviction relied on a diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome. Advocates say the scientific understanding of that syndrome has changed a lot since 2003.
But some are saying there’s another aspect of this case that isn’t getting enough attention: Robertson’s diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder.
Maurice Chammah wrote about this for The Marshall Project and he joined Texas Standard to discuss. Listen to the interview above or read the transcript below.
This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:
Texas Standard: Give us some context on what happened with Roberson and his daughter back in 2003.
Maurice Chammah: The year before, in 2002, Roberson brought his daughter, Nikki Curtis, to an emergency room in Palestine, Texas. She was unconscious and turning blue.
Of course, doctors raced to save her but failed and she died that day. The doctors who were looking at her suspected that it could be the result of shaken baby syndrome, which was an increasingly popular diagnosis at the time. So they call the police.
The police come in and are bothered by Roberson’s behavior. He’s showing them around his house and he pauses to make himself a sandwich. It comes out that he had gotten Nikki, his daughter, dressed before taking her to the hospital. Just things that kind of hit people funny.
And many years later, he would be diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder which would help explain some of this behavior. But at the time, it added to this picture of him as callous and remorseless. And ultimately, his lawyers say, this contributed to a jury deciding to sentence him to death and to be executed.
I’m sort of still stuck on this idea of the shaken baby. Did he admit to having shaken the baby or what? Where did that come into play?
He did not. And at the time, as I said, doctors were looking for that kind of thing when a little child was brought into the hospital.
She had these bruises and different kinds of marks that, at the time, they interpreted that way. But there were complicated medical findings that years later, a new set of doctors looked into.
She was also prescribed codeine, which is known for causing certain kinds of medical complications in children. She had a form of apnea that would cause her to collapse sometimes. So there was actually a long history of her being taken to the doctor and the emergency room for various problems.
You write that during Roberson’s trial, prosecutors portrayed him as remorseless, as you were discussing earlier. But some are saying that police and others may have misread Roberson’s reaction because of his autism. Could you tell us a little bit more about that?
Roberson wasn’t diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder until 2018. He sometimes comes off as having a very flat affect.
I exchanged letters with him and he had a tendency to repeat himself. And doctors who later examined him and talked to him said these are classic signs of autism – relying on socially scripted behavior to make sense of a chaotic situation. But the argument is that that was all misinterpreted as a lack of emotion entirely, paving the way for the death sentence.
I understand Texas has this so-called junk science law that has come into force, and I gather that plays a role in this case. Is that right?
It does. So back in 2013 there was increasing awareness that innocent people can be wrongly convicted. And it came out that a big reason for that is often that forensic science changes.
You may remember the famous case of Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed about 20 years ago. And there were questions about the arson science surrounding the fire in that case.
So this all leads up to this bill being passed in 2013. And since then, a number of people have been freed from prison and able to contest their sentences due to changes in forensic sciences. But notably, nobody on death row has been freed from death row on this argument about junk science.
Roberson is scheduled for execution on Oct. 17, just under a month from now. What might happen between now and then?
He may appeal to further courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court. But really his last chance for having this execution stopped lies with Gov. Greg Abbott and the Board of Pardons and Paroles, who could issue a stay or ultimately grant him clemency. Which is something Abbott has only done one time from death row.
