Amicus Brief in Support of Robert Roberson
Witness to Innocence has joined scientists, physicians, forensic experts, retired federal judges, and innocence groups in filing briefs supporting Robert Roberson, an innocent father who has spent 20 years on death row in Texas for a crime that never occurred. Mr. Roberson was a special education student when he dropped out of 9th grade and has autism. In 2002, Mr. Roberson’s two-year old, chronically ill daughter, Nikki, was sick with a high fever and suffered a short fall from bed. Hospital staff did not know Mr. Roberson had autism and judged his response to his daughter’s grave condition as lacking emotion. Mr. Roberson was prosecuted, convicted, and sentenced to death under the now-discredited Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS)
The Brief of Amicus Curiae from Witness to Innocence details the stories of nine parents or caregivers in seven states who were falsely convicted of harming or killing a child under the discredited SBS theory, only to be exonerated after years or decades in prison and states “Their struggles, like those of people wrongly convicted based on other unreliable forensic theories, illustrate the human toll of uncritical acceptance of plausible-sounding scientific theories."