On the witness stand in March 2000, Dr. Janet Squires was unequivocal: The injuries suffered by the 13-month-old girl were “absolutely classic” signs of shaken baby syndrome. Commonly referred to by its acronym, SBS is a diagnosis based on the belief that a certain combination of injuries found in a baby or toddler could only be caused by violent shaking.
“When a baby is shaken their head flops back and forth like this,” she testified, demonstrating the violent force needed to cause injury. “And the rotational forces through the brain literally sort of shear the tissues of the brain.”
Coming from the then-director of pediatrics at Children’s Medical Center in Dallas, Squires’s testimony would be crucial to the conviction of Andrew Wayne Roark, who was sentenced to 35 years in prison for violently shaking his girlfriend’s daughter, causing permanent brain damage.
Roark insisted he was innocent. Three years earlier, in July 1997, Roark was babysitting the child, referred to in court documents as B.D., while her mother was at work. He took B.D. to the doctor for a regular check-up, then fed her ravioli for lunch before giving her a bath. According to Roark, the infant slipped in the tub, hitting the back of her head, but she seemed fine and Roark put her down for a nap. When he went to check on her, however, he found her face down next to the bed. She was limp, pale, and barely breathing. Roark called 911. At Children’s Medical Center, Squires determined that B.D. had been violently shaken. Roark was arrested that night and charged with injuring her.
A few years later, Squires would play a key role in securing a guilty verdict against another man, Robert Roberson, whom she said had violently shaken his 2-year-old daughter to death. “You really have to shake them really hard back and forth and then you typically slam them against something,” she testified at Roberson’s trial. “It’s an out of control, angry, violent adult.” Roberson, who maintained his innocence, was sentenced to death. (Squires did not respond to The Intercept’s request for comment.)
In the years after both men were sent to prison, the symptoms once believed to be indicative of SBS were called into question. For years, doctors like Squires had claimed that a triad of symptoms — subdural hematoma, brain swelling, and retinal hemorrhage — could only be explained by violent shaking. But subsequent research demonstrated that it is physically impossible for a human to cause such injuries by shaking alone and that each of the symptoms could be the result of myriad medical causes. To date, 34 people convicted based on SBS have been exonerated, according to the National Registry of Exonerations.
In 2013, Texas enacted a first-of-its-kind law, allowing people prosecuted on the basis of junk science to challenge their convictions. Roark successfully argued to his trial court that SBS had been discredited and that he was entitled to a new trial. Last week, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals agreed that key medical experts in Roark’s case would not testify the same way if the trial were to take place today: “We find that if the newly evolved scientific evidence were presented … it is more likely than not, he would not have been convicted.”
Like Roark, Roberson challenged his conviction under the state’s junk science statute and presented evidence to his trial court that the experts against him had relied on supposed symptoms of SBS that have since been discredited.
But unlike Roark, the judge in Roberson’s case disagreed that a change in the science had undermined his conviction. The Court of Criminal Appeals signed off on the judge’s conclusions, providing no explanation for its decision and clearing the way for Roberson’s execution. Texas plans to kill him on Thursday.
The Court of Criminal Appeals’ decisions in the two cases leaves an irreconcilable disparity: In Roark’s case, the court concluded that expert testimony about SBS was unsupported by science, while simultaneously deciding, in Roberson’s case, that it’s perfectly fine to send a man to the death chamber based on such testimony.
“The same prosecution expert testified in both trials making many identical pronouncements about how shaking had to be the principal explanation for the child’s brain condition,” said Roberson’s attorney, Gretchen Sims Sween, who has been fighting tirelessly to save her client’s life. “The flaws in the expert testimony are nearly identical.”
Nevertheless, the Court of Criminal Appeals refused to reconsider its ruling against Roberson in light of Roark’s case. Unless the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and Gov. Greg Abbott intervene to offer him clemency, Roberson will this week become the first person in the U.S. executed based on the debunked diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome.
Photo: Courtesy of Gretchen Sween
Angel of the Innocent
Nikki was unconscious and her lips were blue when her father Robert Roberson found her in bed the morning of January 31, 2002.
The 2-year-old had been ill the previous week: coughing, vomiting, and running a high fever. Roberson had taken her to the doctor twice and both times was sent home with drugs that, today, would not be prescribed for children her age. The night before Roberson found his daughter unconscious, Nikki had fallen out of bed; he’d comforted her and everything seemed fine. Now, she was unresponsive. Roberson rushed Nikki to the local hospital in Palestine, Texas.
Although medical personnel were able to restart Nikki’s heart, she was already brain dead.
One lump was found on the back of her head, prompting scans to be taken, which revealed no signs of abuse. However, concerns were raised about Roberson’s behavior, as he appeared emotionally detached given his daughter’s critical condition. The police were called immediately, and upon Detective Brian Wharton’s arrival, he also noted Roberson’s stoic demeanor.
Nikki was transferred to Children’s Medical Center in Dallas, where pediatrician Squires examined her. Squires, known for her work with abused children, concluded that Nikki had suffered from shaken baby syndrome. Despite no autopsy being performed, Roberson was arrested and charged with Nikki’s murder.
Roberson maintained his innocence and, in 2016, challenged his conviction under Texas’s junk science law. Just before his scheduled execution, his case was sent back to a trial court. During a hearing, new evidence was presented, including medical experts testifying that Nikki’s death could have been due to undiagnosed pneumonia worsened by medication, rather than violent shaking. Roberson’s lawyers also argued that the evidence was consistent with Nikki falling off the bed, contrary to Squires’s claims.
Despite these revelations, Roberson’s conviction was upheld, and he remained on death row. The court’s decision to proceed with his execution, despite the flawed forensic testimony, mirrors past cases like Cameron Todd Willingham and Ernest Willis, who were involved in similar flawed convictions.
The passage of Texas’s junk science law aimed to prevent wrongful convictions but has not proven effective in cases like Roberson’s. As the state faces the possibility of executing an innocent man once again, the potential for clemency lies in the hands of the Board of Pardons and Paroles and Governor Greg Abbott. However, the historical reluctance of the board to grant clemency raises concerns about Roberson’s fate.
Under Abbott, only one person on death row has had their sentence commuted.
In asking for mercy from the board and Abbott, Roberson has put together a compelling clemency petition that includes letters of support from medical professionals, families wrongly accused of child abuse, and a bipartisan group of Texas lawmakers, some of whom have visited death row to pray with Roberson.
Also advocating for Roberson to be spared is Wharton, the former detective who investigated Nikki’s death in Palestine. Now a Methodist preacher, he has expressed his regret for his role in Roberson’s conviction. In a letter to the board, he admitted discomfort with the conviction and had hoped for legal intervention for years.
“As the State of Texas, we are now focused solely on upholding our capital system and a conviction,” Wharton stated. “We failed to listen to Robert’s plea of innocence. We rushed to judgment, the jury was misled, and Robert is innocent of any crime.”
