Before it’s too late, say a prayer for Robert Roberson. Barring a miracle, he will be killed on Thursday in the death chamber at Texas’s Huntsville Prison. Roberson has spent the past 22 years on death row for a crime that perhaps never occurred, and now Texas is hellbent on executing him.

The death penalty should have no place in a criminal justice system plagued by wrongful convictions. Roberson’s case illustrates the problem. A bipartisan majority of the Texas House — 86 lawmakers — urged the state to grant him clemency. The detective who investigated the death of Roberson’s daughter, Nikki, now lobbies for his release. And Roberson’s legal team has assembled a group of experts — scientists and doctors with impeccable credentials — who contend that his conviction was based on the since-refuted application of “shaken baby syndrome” theory. All agree that his daughter probably died of viral pneumonia, not physical abuse.

(snip)

Here are the facts of the case: Nikki was 27 months old when she died in 2002. Throughout her short life, she was a sickly child. Roberson, her biological father and custodial parent, took her to see a doctor many times in the month before she died. In the final week, she vomited, coughed, ran high fevers and had constant diarrhea. Doctors at the Palestine, Tex., hospital prescribed Phenergan and codeine, two dangerous drugs no longer given to children because they inhibit breathing.

When Roberson rushed his daughter in for the last time, she was turning blue and not breathing. While the doctors worked frantically to save her, nurses and police labeled Robertson’s lack of emotive behavior bizarre. He did not seem to be as agitated as most parents would be under such dire circumstances, they said. On death row years later, Roberson would be diagnosed as autistic.

(snip)

In the past 15 years, however, experts have disputed the science behind the SBS hypothesis, and at least 32 parents and caregivers have been exonerated in cases involving SBS. Several appeals courts have reconsidered convictions based on SBS, including in Texas itself. Medical and scientific research has shown that the three symptoms can also be caused by disease.

More..

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/10/15/john-grisham-texas-death-penalty-robert-roberson/

I hope they set that man free.

Imagine how that must mess with a man's head. Fuck Texas. They'll go to the end of the world to protect the 2nd Amendment. But, they apparently don't give a shit about the 8th Amendment. Call it what it is - selective Constitutional perception.