Due process? Apparently not in Texas. [View all]

Texas could soon execute a man before his appeal is heard — and set a dangerous national precedent
Advocates say Robert Roberson was wrongfully convicted. Texas AG demands the death penalty anyway

By Austin Sarat
Published June 29, 2025 9:00AM (EDT)


(Salon) In death penalty cases, the legal system is put to its sternest test. It needs to treat people fairly, even those people accused of doing horrible things. All too often, it fails.

Robert Roberson knows this that all too well. More than two decades ago, he was convicted of murdering his chronically ill two-year-old daughter Nikki. Crucial to that conviction was expert testimony on so-called “shaken baby syndrome.”

Since then, Roberson has been on death row. But scientific discoveries, along with new evidence, have cast significant doubt on his conviction. Nonetheless, if it’s left to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who recently made an unprecedented intervention in the case, Roberson could be dead by the time his appeal is heard. And what Paxton wants to do could affect how death penalty cases are handled in other states that practice capital punishment.

Since Roberson’s conviction in 2003, shaken baby syndrome has been discredited, and “med­ical experts have…deter­mined [Nikki] died from severe viral and bac­te­r­i­al pneu­mo­nia that doc­tors failed to diag­nose, not from abuse…” ...............(more)

https://www.salon.com/2025/06/29/texas-could-soon-execute-a-man-before-his-appeal-is-heard-and-set-a-dangerous-national-precedent/