Later this month, a Texas District Court judge will determine whether Robert Roberson, sentenced to death in 2003 for the death of his two-year-old daughter, Nikki, will receive a new evidentiary hearing. Roberson’s conviction was based on the prosecution’s claim that Nikki died from Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS)—a theory now widely discredited.
The upcoming ruling will hinge on whether recent legal developments, including a November 2024 decision by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, establish a precedent for Roberson’s case. In that decision, the court exonerated Andrew Wayne Roark, who had been convicted of killing his girlfriend’s 13-month-old daughter based on SBS, finding that new scientific evidence no longer supports the theory. If Judge Austin Reeve Jackson agrees that this precedent applies, Roberson will be granted a new evidentiary hearing.
Momentum against the SBS hypothesis has mounted nationwide. Last November, the New Jersey Supreme Court was the first in the country to bar prosecutors from introducing the SBS hypothesis in criminal trials, affirming (6-1) an appellate court ruling that prosecutors cannot admit the Shaken Baby Syndrome hypothesis in a criminal trial.
Roberson’s case has garnered broad support from scientists, doctors, faith leaders, innocence organizations, former federal judges, bestselling author John Grisham, and even the lead detective from his original case—who now believes Roberson is innocent.
According to the Innocence Project, if the courts refuse to intervene, Roberson could become the first person in the U.S. executed on the basis of the discredited SBS hypothesis. The National Registry of Exonerations reports that since 1989, at least 40 people in the United States have been exonerated after being wrongfully convicted on the basis of the SBS hypothesis.