WTI Clemency Support Letter for Robert Roberson

Witness to Innocence submitted the following letter to be included by Robert Roberson's legal team in his clemency filing. Texas has set an October 17th execution date and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has denied Robert relief from execution, despite new evidence of his innocence. His life now hangs on the clemency decision of the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles.

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Dear Members of the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles,

I believe that each of you serves on this board out of a sincere desire to uphold justice and protect our communities from violence, and I believe that you are soberly aware of the gravity of the irreversible decisions you make. Because execution is the most severe and irreversible punishment, it must be held to the highest standards of accountability. The execution of an innocent person would not be justice, and it would not keep anyone safe.

While the guilt or innocence of the individuals who come to you for clemency may sometimes be hard to ascertain, what we can be certain of is that our judicial system can and does make mistakes. There are gaps and constraints in our process, as well as human error, that have led to thousands of exonerations. At least 200 people who were sentenced to death for crimes they did not commit have been exonerated. These numbers represent real people. I was the 135th person to be exonerated from death row when the Florida Supreme Court held unanimously that I should have never been convicted, let alone sentenced to death.

Witness to Innocence is an organization of death row exonerees. We are seriously alarmed about the October 17th execution date set for Robert Roberson, because there are troubling similarities between Robert’s case and the cases of many of the 200 people who have been exonerated from a death sentence.

In the trial that led to Robert’s conviction, the judge and jury did not know that Robert’s daughter Nikki had been suffering from ongoing and acute illnesses. There is overwhelming new medical and scientific evidence that shows that Nikki’s medical issues are a crucial element in understanding what caused her death. Top neuropathologists and forensic pathologists have concluded that Nikki died of natural and accidental causes and that the facts simply do not support a finding that a homicide even occurred.

False or misleading forensic evidence is present in over 30% of wrongful death sentences. Sabrina Butler Smith is a member of Witness to Innocence. She was convicted and sent to death row in Mississippi for the death of her infant son, Walter. It was later discovered that Walter had a genetic medical condition which had caused his death. Sabrina’s case shows that the science at the time of trial can be wrong.

In Robert’s case, not only was his daughter’s poor health unknown to those deciding his case, but the medical testimony used to convict him was based on the now discredited “shaken baby syndrome” hypothesis (SBS). In the years since Nikki’s death, the forensic field has learned that medical conditions, like Nikki’s, can cause the same symptoms once thought to be ”proof” of SBS. The field has also learned that short falls, like the one Nikki sustained, can cause the same triad of symptoms associated with SBS.

Other than a misplaced belief in the now debunked SBS hypothesis, the only other thing to make investigators and the court believe a crime had occurred were highly subjective reactions by the individuals on the scene to Robert’s atypical mannerisms and seemingly emotionless response to his daughter’s dire condition. Hospital staff did not know Robert, and they did not know that he had undiagnosed autism.  Nor did they know that the behavior they were falsely interpreting as a sign of indifference were common symptoms of his disability and the “non-neurotypical” way many on the autism spectrum respond to stress.

At that time, the medical and law enforcement communities were much less familiar with the ways autism can present in stressful situations. The symptoms of Robert’s autism were misunderstood and triggered a suspicion and distrust that led investigators to think a crime had occurred. Their misjudgments of Robert’s flat affect made them unable to see that he was simply an autistic father to a gravely ill daughter who tragically died after a short fall exacerbated her underlying medical conditions, including a severe pneumonia that medical professionals had missed in the week before her collapse.

Brian Wharton, the lead detective who played a crucial role in the prosecution, now believes that he made a mistake, that a crime never happened, and that Robert is an innocent man.

People like me, and Sabrina, and our fellow death row exonerees are living proof that innocent people have been convicted and sentenced to death. The same fallible system that can send innocent people to death row is also capable of error in the appeals process. In such cases, it falls to you to be the safeguard against unjust outcomes. The responsibility rests with you to ensure that an innocent person is not executed. There is no way to reverse a wrongful execution, but it can be prevented. On behalf the members of Witness to Innocence, I urge you to recommend clemency for Robert Roberson and prevent an innocent man from being executed for a crime that never occurred.

Respectfully,

Herman Lindsey Executive Director

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