As courts in other states reconsider convictions based on shaken baby syndrome, Robert Roberson’s lawyers have kept close watch—filing new notices in Texas each time a ruling calls the theory into question.
In Georgia and California, judges have overturned convictions after finding that advances in medical science could have changed the outcomes. In New Jersey, the state’s highest court went a step further, declaring shaken baby testimony inadmissible in criminal trials.
Roberson, seeking another chance to try his case, is asking Texas to consider the same.
Roberson, 59, was sentenced to death by an Anderson County jury in 2003 for the murder of his 2-year-old daughter, Nikki. His prosecution relied, in part, on proving Nikki showed signs of shaken baby syndrome, a medical determination that has since come under wide scrutiny by experts.
The uncertainty has delayed all three of Roberson’s execution dates, including one in October 2024 and another in October 2025. The latter came to a halt in light of an exoneration in a similar shaken baby case out of Dallas County. In that case, Andrew Roark’s conviction was vacated on the basis that the science of shaken baby syndrome had evolved and that expert witnesses would have given different testimony had he gone to trial in 2024.
Nearly a year has passed since Roberson’s last stay. Smith County District Judge Austin Reeve Jackson has yet to rule on whether Roberson will be granted an evidentiary hearing to argue how the change in science could have changed his guilty verdict.
With each new out-of-state ruling, Roberson’s lawyers have filed notices of “persuasive authority.” They aren’t legally binding, but Jackson can choose to rely on and follow the decisions made by other jurisdictions.
Here’s what Roberson’s team has filed—and why his lawyers say each decision matters.
New Jersey
The 1st notice was filed in November 2025, when the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled 6-1 that a shaken baby syndrome diagnosis—also known as abusive head trauma—is not generally accepted within the “biomechanical community” and therefore unreliable for admission at trials.
The state’s public defender's office hailed it a "landmark" decision that reflects the importance of “well-supported scientific evidence” in criminal cases.
Gretchen Sween, who has represented Roberson since 2016, outlined how some of the more significant findings made in New Jersey apply to Roberson’s case. One stated that the neck would be the first place to look for an injury on a child who was shaken, “yet Nikki had no neck or spinal cord injuries.”
Sween also noted the importance of recognizing that Nikki was a toddler, not an infant.
“Nikki was a nearly 30-pound toddler,” she said, “and there has never been an attempt to validate SBS/AHT with respect to a child Nikki’s age and size.”
Sween concluded by stating the high court’s decision “goes much farther than Roberson is asking Texas to go.”
“Mr. Roberson is not asking a Texas court to resolve the raging contemporary debate about whether SBS/AHT has any efficacy,” Sween wrote. “He is only asking for a new trial that would reflect the changes in scientific understanding with respect to SBS since his 2003 trial.”
Georgia
Roberson’s attorneys then flagged the case of Danyel Smith, a Georgia man sentenced to life in prison for the death of his 2-month-old son, Chandler. His conviction was vacated in July after a judge concluded changes in science undercut the integrity of his conviction.
Roberson’s attorneys argued Smith and Roberson’s cases share striking similarities: Both were convicted in 2003 in cases rooted in shaken baby syndrome. Both involved male caregivers who brought injured children to hospitals seeking medical care. And both men refused to accept plea deals in exchange for lesser sentences, stating they would not admit to crimes they didn’t commit.
In Smith’s case, attorneys have said evidence shows his son’s death was due to medical complications stemming from his premature birth. Roberson's attorneys, meanwhile, have argued Nikki, who was chronically ill, died of natural and accidental causes, including severe, undiagnosed pneumonia and a fall from bed.
“Mr. Smith’s evidence presents an alternative medical explanation for Chandler’s death that is so material it would probably produce a different outcome,” reads the order granting Smith a new trial.
California
The most recent filing came earlier this month after a California appeals court granted relief to a man convicted of killing his infant daughter, finding advances in medical science undermined testimony used against him.
Jason Moore, of Hemet, California, was convicted in 2014 based on the theory his 3-month-old daughter died of abusive head trauma. He was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.
In both Moore and Roberson’s cases, the men said their children suffered injuries after short falls from bed, while prosecutors argued the injuries showed the children had been shaken. In both cases, doctors pointed to brain swelling and bleeding around the brain and eyes as signs of abuse.
The California court found that newer research had weakened doctors’ earlier claims that those injuries could not be caused by a short fall and concluded those changes in science were significant enough to undermine confidence in his conviction.
“The evidence presented at the evidentiary hearing demonstrated that current scientific knowledge does not support the absolute conclusion that a short fall could not cause the injuries suffered,” the California ruling reads.
Sween wrote that the decision serves as further proof that advancements in the scientific understanding of abusive head trauma “can be material to the outcome of a criminal case.”
Source: dallasnews.com, Jamie Landers, September 24, 2026
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