The Texas Committee of Criminal Jurisprudence is holding a hearing for Robert Roberson

AUSTIN, Texas (KTRE) – Hearing the voice and saving the life of Robert Roberson was the reason the Texas House of Representatives Criminal Justice Committee met and heard testimony from doctors, lawyers and the lead Palestinian investigator who attended helped kill Roberson Series: Brian Wharton.

“I’m ashamed that I was so focused on finding and convicting a perpetrator that I didn’t see Robert. I didn’t hear his voice,” Wharton said.

They all believe in Roberson’s innocence.

The committee says Roberson’s case also shines a light on a law that didn’t do what it was designed to do.

“When the Legislature passes a law and finds that it is not working the way it was intended, it is our job to step in and fix the law,” said Rep. Joe Moody.

Article 11,073, also known as the Junk Science Law, allows prisoners to fight wrongful convictions if it is found that faulty or incorrect forensic science led to their conviction.

“We gave the criminal appeals courts these tools to put a new face on these cases, and the courts are ignoring these laws and not using these tools,” said state Rep. Jeff Leach.

Roberson’s daughter, Nikki Curtis, died in 2002 from what prosecutors at the time believed was shaken baby syndrome. But several doctors have since refuted that theory, saying the science that supported it then is no longer valid today.

“Biomechanical studies have repeatedly failed to show that shaking a baby can be done vigorously enough to produce the radiological findings that are used as the so-called diagnostic triad for shaken baby syndrome,” says Dr. Jeff Singer virtual.

If not shaken baby syndrome, then what killed Nikki?

“I can’t tell you what happened to her because I don’t know,” Robert Roberson said in a 2022 interview with KTRE.

Roberson’s lawyers say his late autism diagnosis, along with junk science, led to his conviction. They argue that science proves that Nikki did not die of SBS, but of an accidental and natural cause: pneumonia that caused septic shock.

“We are grateful that this hearing is taking place, and while it is a different process than what we originally requested, it will at least allow some of this evidence to be disclosed,” said an attorney for Roberson at the Innocence Project , Jane Pucher.

On Tuesday, Judge Alfonso Charles rejected requests to vacate the execution order and reject the judge who issued it.

Because all six members of the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles voted not to delay Roberson’s execution for 180 days or commute it to a more lenient sentence, he could become the first person in the country to be executed for shaken baby syndrome.

“We hope we don’t do it in his memory. “We hope the law can be changed to help Mr. Roberson and likely hundreds of other people affected by junk science and false scientific evidence presented in her trial,” Pucher said.

Roberson’s attorney, Gretchen Swen, issued a statement calling on Gov. Greg Abbott to grant a 30-day delay to allow new evidence to be viewed.

Roberson’s defense also asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the decision, finding that his federal procedural rights had been violated.

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