The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturned a Dallas man’s conviction for hurting his girlfriend’s child due to scientific research that casts doubt on the existence of shaken baby syndrome.
Now lawyers for Robert Roberson — another man on death row — hope the court’s reasoning will apply to their client as well.
Andrew Wayne Roark was sentenced to 35 years in prison in March 2000 for the injuries his girlfriend’s 13-month-old baby sustained while in his care. Roark was convicted after prosecutors argued the infant suffered shaken baby syndrome and shaken impact syndrome, indicating Roark violently shook her and possibly struck her against something, leading to bleeding in her brain.
In an opinion issued Wednesday, judges on the state’s highest criminal court ruled that modern scientific knowledge has possibly invalidated the existence of shaken baby syndrome. The court also found the state’s expert medical witnesses gave contradictory testimony on how the infant got her injuries.
Thus, the court wrote, Roark would likely not be found guilty if a jury heard scientific testimony in a new trial today — and judges doubt the state’s witnesses would be as confident in their conclusions.
“If the expert were to experience the ostrich effect and wish to bury his or her head in the sand, then that expert would have to bear the brunt of a grueling cross-examination,” the judges wrote. “One in which they would be confronted with twenty years of reputable scientific evidence that contradicts their trial testimony.”
Roark was babysitting his girlfriend’s child referred to as “B.D.” in 1997 and took her to the doctor for her 1-year-old appointment. The doctor found nothing wrong with the girl upon examination, but Roark called 911 later that afternoon when he found B.D. unconscious, barely breathing and near death.
The girl was taken to multiple hospitals and discharged after the swelling in her brain subsided, but she had permanent brain damage. Defense attorneys argued it was an old brain injury that started bleeding again either spontaneously or because of accidental trauma.
Prosecutors also used the shaken baby hypothesis to help convict Roberson, who is scheduled to be executed Oct. 17 for the death of his 2-year-old daughter in 2003.
In a statement, his attorney Gretchen Sween asked for the Court of Criminal Appeals to similarly apply the state’s junk science law to grant Roberson a new trial.
“We hope the CCA will see the strong parallels between these two SBS cases that we have highlighted in an emergency motion to stay Mr. Roberson’s October 17 execution date, which was filed before the decision in Mr. Roark’s case was announced,” Sween said.
Source:
Texas Public Radio, Staff, October 9, 2024
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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."
— Oscar Wilde
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