Texas man faces execution in shaken baby syndrome case

The death chamber at the Huntsville Unit in Huntsville, Texas. A Texas man is scheduled to be executed Thursday in connection with shaken baby syndrome. File photo by Paul Buck/EPA

Oct. 16 (UPI) — A Texas man could become the first person to be executed over a shaken baby syndrome conviction, although a detective who helped get those wheels rolling now says he is innocent.

The Anderson County District Court on Tuesday denied Robert Roberson’s request to vacate his execution warrant for the 2002 death of his 2-year-old daughter, allowing his scheduled execution to move forward Thursday in Huntsville, Texas.

A special meeting of the Texas House Criminal Justice Committee in Austin on Wednesday may be Roberson’s last chance to avoid execution.

Meanwhile, police officer Brian Wharton, who played a role in putting Roberson on death row, joined protesters pleading for his life.

“Let me just say, Robert is an innocent man,” Wharton said, according to CBS News. “But more than that, he’s a friendly man. He is a gentle man. He’s a lovely man.”

Roberson’s supporters and his attorney contend that he was wrongfully arrested and convicted 20 years ago after taking his daughter to a hospital emergency room in Palestine, Texas, when she fell out of bed.

She was seriously ill and died a week later. Roberson was arrested because a doctor hypothesized before the autopsy that the girl died of shaken baby syndrome.

“I’m angry, it breaks my heart and we are not giving up this fight,” said Gretchen Sween, one of Roberson’s attorneys, adding that she has also filed a new motion in the case, according to KETK-TV.

“God, please be with us this time because just last week, Texas’ highest criminal court declared that the science used to convict Robertis is unreliable, and yet he cannot even consider the evidence.”

Prosecutors stuck to the shaken baby syndrome claim, but advocates for Roberson said evidence of his daughter’s undiagnosed pneumonia, medications that suppressed her breathing, as well as the accidental fall and other factors “fully explained” her death. .

Roberson has maintained his innocence for the past two decades.