Introduction to Shaken Baby Syndrome
Robert Roberson III was granted a stay Thursday by Texas’ highest criminal court — one week before his third execution date. The fight over the execution and conviction of Roberson has included references to shaken baby syndrome. Robert Roberson, 58, had been scheduled to receive a lethal injection Oct. 17, 2024, for the 2002 killing of his 2-year-old daughter, Nikki Curtis. A subpoena by a Texas House committee has halted that execution.
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Roberson has long proclaimed his innocence. His lawyers as well as a bipartisan group of Texas lawmakers, medical experts and others don’t deny that head and other injuries from child abuse are real. They argue his conviction was based on faulty and now outdated scientific evidence and say new evidence has shown Nikki died from complications related to severe pneumonia.
Prosecutors maintain Roberson’s new evidence does not disprove their case that Nikki died from injuries inflicted by her father.
Roberson’s scheduled execution renewed debate over shaken baby syndrome. On one side of the debate are lawyers and some in the medical and scientific communities who argue the shaken baby diagnosis is flawed and has led to wrongful convictions.
Judge Alfonso Charles Upholds Execution Order of Robert Roberson
Judge Alfonso Charles denied motions to vacate the execution warrant and recuse Judge Deborah Oakes Evans on Oct. 15, 2024. (Azul Sordo/Staff Photographer)
What is Shaken Baby Syndrome?
The diagnosis refers to a serious brain injury caused when a child’s head is injured through shaking or some other violent impact, like being slammed against a wall or thrown on the floor, usually by an adult caregiver, said Dr. Suzanne Haney, a child abuse pediatrician and member of the American Academy of Pediatrics Council on Child Abuse and Neglect.
The term was changed in 2009 to abusive head trauma, a more inclusive diagnosis, Haney said.
There are about 1,300 reported cases of shaken baby syndrome/abusive head trauma in the U.S. each year, according to the National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome.
The Debate Over Shaken Baby Syndrome
Critics allege doctors have been focused on concluding child abuse due to shaken baby syndrome whenever a triad of symptoms — bleeding around the brain, brain swelling and bleeding in the eyes — was found. Critics say doctors have not considered that things like short falls with head impact and naturally occurring illnesses like pneumonia, could mimic an inflicted head injury.
Roberson’s attorneys and other supporters are not saying that child abuse doesn’t exist or that shaking a baby is safe, said Kate Judson, executive director of the Center for Integrity in Forensic Sciences, a Wisconsin-based nonprofit that seeks to improve the reliability of forensic science evidence.
“This is a case about whether someone was misdiagnosed and justice wasn’t served,” Judson said.
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While Haney declined to comment on Roberson’s case, she said there is no disagreement within a vast majority of the medical community about the validity and science behind the diagnosis.
Haney said doctors are not just focused on a triad of symptoms to determine child abuse, but instead look at all possible things, including any illnesses, that could have caused the injuries.
“I worry the pushback against abusive head trauma as a diagnosis is going to interfere with the prevention efforts that are out there and therefore allow more children to get harmed,” Haney said.
Judson said she believes that doctors in Roberson’s case did not consider all possible causes, including illness, to explain what happened to his daughter and used the triad of symptoms to only focus on child abuse.
What Roberson’s Supporters Are Raising
Roberson’s attorneys say he was wrongly arrested and later convicted after taking his daughter to a hospital. She had fallen out of bed in their home in the East Texas city of Palestine after being seriously ill for a week.
New evidence gathered since his 2003 trial shows his daughter died from undiagnosed pneumonia that progressed to sepsis and was likely accelerated by medications that should not have been prescribed to her and made it harder for her to breathe, said Gretchen Sween, Roberson’s attorney.
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The Anderson County District Attorney’s Office, which prosecuted Roberson, has said in court documents that after a 2022 hearing to consider the new evidence, a judge rejected the theories that pneumonia and other diseases caused Curtis’ death.
What Courts Have Said About Shaken Baby Syndrome
In recent years, courts around the country have overturned convictions or dropped charges centered on shaken baby syndrome, including in California, Ohio, Massachusetts and Michigan.
In a ruling in fall 2024 in a different shaken baby syndrome case out of Dallas County, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ordered a new trial after finding scientific advancements related to the diagnosis would now likely result in an acquittal in that case.
But the appeals court has repeatedly denied Roberson’s request to stay his execution. That changed Thursday.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ordered a stay of execution in light of its October 2024 ruling made in the Dallas County shaken baby case.
