The Texas Supreme Court has suspended the controversial execution of Robert Roberson, a 57-year-old autistic man convicted of causing his daughter’s death by violently shaking her and causing fatal head trauma, moments after the lethal injection.
The execution would be the first linked to “shaken baby syndrome,” a diagnosis first described in the mid-1970s and since then, according to the condemned man’s lawyers, discredited in medical circles.
The judges, who initially rejected the request for suspension like the Texas Board of Parole and the Washington Supreme Court, ultimately accepted the appeal of the members of a state parliamentary commission who want to hear Roberson on October 21st for a review of the case.
A bipartisan coalition had lined up in recent days for a review of the trial – including the famous writer John Grisham – determined to support the defenders’ thesis that little two-year-old Nikki died of natural causes. In February 2002, Roberson showed up at the hospital with Nikki in a comatose state.
According to his lawyers, the man had been convicted “on the basis of pseudoscience”: the doctors – in their opinion – would not have considered other possibilities for the little girl’s death. including a fever of 40 before he lost consciousness, possible double pneumonia and a combination of drugs now deemed unsuitable for pediatric use.
As for the police, they may have mistaken Roberson’s impassive attitude as that of a heartless killer, without realizing that it could be the result of his autistic condition.