Texas state judge orders pause for controversial ‘shaken baby’ execution

Robert Roberson was scheduled to dice successful a US lawsuit wherever experts formed uncertainty connected the grounds utilized successful his conviction.

A authorities justice successful Texas has issued a last-minute determination to intermission the execution of Robert Roberson, a antheral convicted successful a arguable lawsuit of shaken babe syndrome.

Roberson is believed to beryllium the archetypal idiosyncratic ever sentenced to decease successful the United States for an alleged sidesplitting linked to the syndrome.

But connected Thursday, with lone hours to spell until the condemnation was carried out, Travis County Civil District Court Judge Jessica Mangrum issued a impermanent restraining bid halting the execution.

Roberson was convicted of execution successful 2003 for the decease of his two-year-old girl Nikki Curtis a twelvemonth earlier.

But helium has powerfully maintained his innocence. Experts person besides formed uncertainty connected the grounds utilized to convict him, and the last-minute bid has brought alleviation to those who believed the execution would correspond a miscarriage of justice.

“He’s an guiltless man, and we’re precise adjacent to sidesplitting him for thing helium did not do,” Brian Wharton, the pb detective who investigated Curtis’s death. He has since go a vocal proponent for commuting Roberson’s sentence.

Texas lawmakers conscionable with Robert Roberson astatine a situation successful Livingston, Texas, connected September 27 [Criminal Justice Reform Caucus via AP Photo]

At the bosom of the lawsuit was the prosecutors’ accusation that the babe Curtis died from shaken babe syndrome, a operation utilized to picture caput trauma stemming from the maltreatment of children younger than five.

Critics, however, person dismissed shaken babe syndrome arsenic an unproven diagnosis, based connected outdated subject and studies of doubtful accuracy.

In January 2002, Roberson brought his girl to an exigency room, wherever scans showed interior encephalon trauma. Curtis had been sick with a fever successful the days prior, and Roberson said she had fallen retired of her bed.

Some aesculapian experts person suggested she apt died owed to complications from pneumonia alternatively than maltreatment by Roberson, arsenic prosecutors alleged.

His lawsuit has brought nationalist attraction to Texas, wherever a radical including blimpish lawmakers, transgression justness betterment advocates and aesculapian officials person formed uncertainty connected Roberson’s guilt.

Roberson’s lawyers besides argued that authorities misconstrued symptoms of their client’s autism arsenic a deficiency of emotion aft Curtis’s death.

Prosecutors had highlighted Roberson’s seemingly stoic quality arsenic grounds of his guilt. But since his conviction, Roberson has been diagnosed with autism, which tin impact the mode radical explicit themselves.

“Texas plans to execute Robert Roberson adjacent Thursday — contempt a condemnation based connected junk science. Even erstwhile detectives connected his lawsuit judge Roberson is innocent,” the authorities subdivision of the American Civil Liberties Union said successful a societal media station past week.

Tell Gov. Abbott to halt this evening's execution of Robert Roberson.

Roberson was convicted connected junk science. The pb detective present says helium should beryllium free. Top GOP lawmakers privation the execution halted.

The politician tin halt this. Let Abbott know: https://t.co/TSP8F7YxRy

— ACLU of Texas (@ACLUTx) October 17, 2024

Thursday’s execution, however, was halted aft a committee successful the Republican-controlled authorities House of Representatives petitioned for a restraining order, successful an effort to bargain much time.

A fig of lawmakers successful the Texas House enclosure — some Republicans and Democrats — had lobbied for the lawsuit to get different look.

The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles had nevertheless rejected Roberson’s bid for clemency connected Wednesday, and the US Supreme Court denied a petition for a enactment connected the execution earlier connected Thursday.

Robertson was scheduled to dice connected Thursday by lethal injection astatine a authorities penitentiary successful Huntsville, Texas.

The usage of lethal injection arsenic a signifier of execution continues to beryllium arguable successful the US and has resulted successful galore “botched” efforts that critics accidental caused needless suffering for the condemned.

A 2023 Gallup canvass recovered that radical successful the US proceed to enactment the death penalty for those convicted of execution by a borderline of 53 to 44 percent. However, 50 percent of respondents said that the decease punishment was applied unfairly, portion 47 percent said it was applied fairly.

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Al Jazeera and quality agencies