A state judge in Texas has issued a last-minute decision to pause the execution of Robert Roberson, a man convicted in a controversial case of shaken baby syndrome.Roberson is believed to be the first person ever sentenced to death in the United States for an alleged killing linked to the syndrome.
But on Thursday, with only hours to go until the sentence was carried out, Travis County Civil District Court Judge Jessica Mangrum issued a temporary restraining order halting the execution.
Roberson was convicted of murder in 2003 for the death of his two-year-old daughter Nikki Curtis a year earlier.
But he has strongly maintained his innocence. Experts have also cast doubt on the evidence used to convict him, and the last-minute order has brought relief to those who believed the execution would represent a miscarriage of justice.
“He’s an innocent man, and we’re very close to killing him for something he did not do,” Brian Wharton, the lead detective who investigated Curtis’s death. He has since become a vocal proponent for commuting Roberson’s sentence.
Texas lawmakers meet with Robert Roberson at a prison in Livingston, Texas, on September 27 [Criminal Justice Reform Caucus via AP Photo]
At the heart of the case was the prosecutors’ accusation that the infant Curtis died from shaken baby syndrome, a phrase used to describe head trauma stemming from the abuse of children younger than five.
Critics, however, have dismissed shaken baby syndrome as an unproven diagnosis, based on outdated science and studies of doubtful …
