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PASSAGE TWO OF THE DAY: "Mr. Roberson was a special education student when he dropped out of ninth grade and has autism, undiagnosed at the time of his daughter’s collapse. He was unable to explain his chronically ill two-year-old daughter’s complex medical condition when he took her to the emergency room, after she fell out of bed when sick with a high fever, undiagnosed pneumonia, and on drugs that doctors prescribed that we now know are unsafe for children her age and in her condition. The hospital staff did not know Mr. Roberson had autism and misinterpreted his demeanor as a lack of concern for his gravely ill daughter. In 2003, when Mr. Roberson’s trial occurred, the consensus in the medical community was that a child who presented with Nikki’s set of internal symptoms must have been violently shaken or possibly struck against a blunt surface by the last person with the child at the time. Grieving parents, like Mr. Roberson, who said they did not harm their children were branded as liars. In the 20 years that have passed, the version of the shaken baby hypothesis put before his jury as “fact” has been entirely debunked by evidence-based science. Courts in at least 17 states have exonerated parents and caregivers who were wrongly convicted under the controversial shaken baby hypothesis."
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GIST: Attorneys for Robert Roberson, an innocent father convicted and sentenced to death over 20 years ago under the now discredited shaken baby hypothesis, today filed at the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) a Suggestion to Reconsider its denial of relief. Another case, Ex parte Roark, is pending before the CCA where the State conceded the falsity of virtually identical expert testimony on the shaken baby hypothesis. Both Mr. Roberson and Mr. Roark were convicted over two decades ago under this debunked theory using the testimony of the same child abuse expert.
Mr. Roberson’s innocence case is attracting growing and widespread support from eminent scientists, medical doctors, faith leaders, innocence groups, former federal judges, best selling novelist John Grisham, and Brian Wharton, the lead detective who testified for the prosecution and has come to believe that Mr. Roberson’s daughter Nikki died of accidental and natural causes.
Mr. Roberson’s Suggestion to Reconsider on Court’s Own Initiative and Motion to Hold for Adjudication of Ex Parte Roake can be viewed here: https://tinyurl.com/2h8bsrrf and states:
Before the State executes a man for a crime that did not occur, good cause exists for the Court to take this initiative—especially considering Texas’s commitment to elevating scientific accuracy over finality in the most serious criminal cases. See TEX. CODE. CRIM. PROC. art. 11.073. Currently pending before this Court is another Article 11.073 proceeding in which the State conceded the
falsity of identical expert testimony upon which the State relied to convict Mr. Roberson. See Ex parte Roark, WR-56,380-03 (submitted Dec. 6, 2023).
At the very least, this Court should hold reconsideration of Mr. Roberson’s new-science claim, raised in the -03 proceeding, until after Ex parte Roark is decided because (1) both convictions hinge on the hypothesis that a child was the victim of intentionally inflicted violent shaking and head trauma known as “Shaken Baby Syndrome” aka “Shaken Impact Syndrome” aka “SBS”; (2) both cases were tried in the same era (2000 and 2003, respectively) when a version of SBS, now universally rejected, was viewed as medical orthodoxy; and (3) both trials featured the very same child abuse expert, Dr. Janet Squires, who opined that three medical findings, often referred to as the “triad”—(i) subdural bleeding, (ii) cerebral edema aka brain swelling, and (iii) retinal hemorrhage—can support the inference that abusive shaking/blunt impact was inflicted on a child. (Suggestion to Reconsider at pp. 1-2.)(emphasis added)
The Suggestion to Reconsider also cites a new Texas law, passed in 2021, that allows parents accused of child abuse based on an in-house “child abuse specialist” (like Dr. Squires) to obtain a second opinion and present a conflicting opinion to the court. (Suggestion to Reconsider at pp. 40-43.) Texas passed this law to respond to the problem of caregivers being unfairly accused of child abuse when they brought sick or medically fragile children in for medical care. Had this law been in place when Mr. Roberson brought Nikki to the hospital, he might never have been convicted of her murder.
Mr. Roberson was a special education student when he dropped out of ninth grade and has autism, undiagnosed at the time of his daughter’s collapse. He was unable to explain his chronically ill two-year-old daughter’s complex medical condition when he took her to the emergency room, after she fell out of bed when sick with a high fever, undiagnosed pneumonia, and on drugs that doctors prescribed that we now know are unsafe for children her age and in her condition. The hospital staff did not know Mr. Roberson had autism and misinterpreted his demeanor as a lack of concern for his gravely ill daughter.
In 2003, when Mr. Roberson’s trial occurred, the consensus in the medical community was that a child who presented with Nikki’s set of internal symptoms must have been violently shaken or possibly struck against a blunt surface by the last person with the child at the time. Grieving parents, like Mr. Roberson, who said they did not harm their children were branded as liars. In the 20 years that have passed, the version of the shaken baby hypothesis put before his jury as “fact” has been entirely debunked by evidence-based science. Courts in at least 17 states have exonerated parents and caregivers who were wrongly convicted under the controversial shaken baby hypothesis.
In 2016, a week before Mr. Roberson’s scheduled execution date, the CCA stayed Mr. Roberson’s execution and sent his case back to the trial court, which conducted a ten-day evidentiary hearing in 2021. Mr. Roberson submitted to the court a proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law that comprehensively summarized new evidence from six expert witnesses showing that the shaken baby hypothesis has been discredited and providing compelling evidence that Nikki died of natural and accidental causes. The prosecution’s proposal, by contrast, largely repeated the debunked “science” put before the jury in 2003.
The Suggestion to Reconsider states that the prosecution’s proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law that were adopted nearly wholesale by reviewing courts are “plagued with problems.” (Suggestion to Reconsider at p. 43.) One fundamental problem with the prosecution’s proposal, which the CCA accepted, was that it cited the trial testimony of the lead detective, Brian Wharton, but failed to acknowledge that Mr. Wharton, in his most recent testimony before the habeas court, testified that he had come to believe that Nikki died of natural and accidental causes and does not believe that justice was served in Mr. Roberson’s case.
The entire filing can be read at:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bcCimb3YlDyptuWpAClmXnypR2Ny_JBd6awNnNtw6SI/edit
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog.
SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL:
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985
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FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."
Lawyer Radha Natarajan:
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
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FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;
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YET ANOTHER FINAL WORD:
David Hammond, one of Broadwater's attorneys who sought his exoneration, told the Syracuse Post-Standard, "Sprinkle some junk science onto a faulty identification, and it's the perfect recipe for a wrongful conviction.
https://deadline.com/2021/11/alice-sebold-lucky-rape-conviction-overturned-anthony-broadwater-12348801
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SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL:
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985
---------------------------------------------------------------
FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."
Lawyer Radha Natarajan:
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
—————————————————————————————————
FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;
————————————————————————————
YET ANOTHER FINAL WORD:
David Hammond, one of Broadwater's attorneys who sought his exoneration, told the Syracuse Post-Standard, "Sprinkle some junk science onto a faulty identification, and it's the perfect recipe for a wrongful conviction.
https://deadline.com/2021/11/alice-sebold-lucky-rape-conviction-overturned-anthony-broadwater-12348801
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