Texas man sent to death row over junk science denied US supreme court appeal

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

Texas man sent to death row over junk science denied US supreme court appeal

Robert Roberson was sentenced in 2003 for killing toddler on basis of shaken baby syndrome, now ruled as ‘scientifically unreliable’

Ed Pilkington
@edpilkington
Mon 2 Oct 2023 20.26 BST
Last modified on Mon 2 Oct 2023 20.59 BST

A Texas prisoner who is facing execution having been sent to death row on the basis of “shaken baby syndrome”, a child abuse theory that has been widely debunked as junk science, has had his petition to the US supreme court denied.

The country’s highest court issued its denial on Monday morning giving no explanation. Robert Roberson, 56, who was sent to death row in 2003 for shaking his two-year-old daughter Nikki to death, had appealed to the justices to take another look at his case focusing on the largely discredited forensic science on which his conviction was secured.

The court’s decision leaves Roberson’s life in jeopardy. Having come within four days of execution in 2016, he has already exhausted appeals through Texas state courts and must now rely on the mercy of the Republican governor Greg Abbott who rarely grants clemency.

The country’s highest court issued its denial on Monday morning giving no explanation. Robert Roberson, 56, who was sent to death row in 2003 for shaking his two-year-old daughter Nikki to death, had appealed to the justices to take another look at his case focusing on the largely discredited forensic science on which his conviction was secured.

The court’s decision leaves Roberson’s life in jeopardy. Having come within four days of execution in 2016, he has already exhausted appeals through Texas state courts and must now rely on the mercy of the Republican governor Greg Abbott who rarely grants clemency.

“Robert Roberson is an innocent father who has languished on Texas’s death row for 20 years for a crime that never occurred and a conviction based on outdated and now refuted science,” the prisoner’s lawyer, Gretchen Sween, said.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/oct/02/texas-robert-roberson-death-penalty-supreme-court-appeal-denied

Alternate non-walled link: https://news.yahoo.com/texas-man-sent-death-row-192633990.html

[Chainfire]

1. Texas need to execute him quickly before someone finds him innocent...

[Hassler]

2. Crooked Clarence only cuts slack for himself.

[Elessar Zappa]

3. There's a lot of junk science that's allowed as evidence in our courts.

Shaken baby syndrome is one example of many. This man should at least be granted a new trial.

[Farmer-Rick]

4. Well, since the majority of these 9 Supremes

Make decisions based on imaginary super daddies in the sky, junk science and real science is all the same to them. Who cares if the guy really did it? God needs sacrifices and appeasement.

What does your imaginary god tell you to do? That's all that matters in our highest American court.