Page 2 of 5 FirstFirst 1234 ... LastLast
Results 11 to 20 of 42

Thread: Robert Leslie Roberson III - Texas Death Row

  1. #11
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Location
    Germany
    Posts
    13,014
    No. 15-7246 *** CAPITAL CASE ***
    Title:
    Robert Leslie Roberson, III, Petitioner
    v.
    William Stephens, Director, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Correctional Institutions Division
    Docketed: December 4, 2015
    Lower Ct: United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
    Case Nos.: (14-70033)
    Decision Date: August 10, 2015
    Rehearing Denied: September 9, 2015

    ~~~Date~~~ ~~~~~~~Proceedings and Orders~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    Dec 2 2015 Petition for a writ of certiorari and motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis filed. (Response due January 4, 2016)
    Dec 31 2015 Brief of respondent William Stephens, Director, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Correctional Institutions Division in opposition filed.
    Jan 14 2016 DISTRIBUTED for Conference of February 19, 2016.
    Feb 29 2016 Petition DENIED.

    http://www.supremecourt.gov/search.a...es/15-7246.htm

  2. #12
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Death Row Inmate Who Killed Daughter Pursues Clemency

    After the U.S. Supreme Court denied his bid for a new trial on Tuesday, a lawyer for Texas death row inmate Robert Roberson III says his client is seeking clemency from the state's Board of Pardon and Paroles with his June 21 execution date approaching.

    Roberson, on death row for killing his two-year-old daughter in 2002, told the high court his right to due process was violated when his trial judge did not allow an expert to testify about mental lapses he suffered due to a brain injury.

    "Obviously I'm not happy about the denial of the cert petition," said Seth Kretzer, one of Roberson's attorneys. "That being said, probably 98 percent of all cert petitions get denied. We were hopeful, but you know your odds before going into these things."

    The testimony Roberson's expert would have given during his trial, if allowed, could have confused a jury, been misleading or received undue weight, the state had argued in court filings. And even if the judge made a mistake by excluding the testimony, the error probably wouldn't have changed the jury's decision, Assistant Attorney General Jennifer Morris wrote for the state.

    The state also contended that the trial court didn't have to admit evidence of mental disease or capacity that would have challenged whether Roberson intentionally killed his daughter, especially because an insanity defense was not used.

    Texas does not allow defendants to assert a diminished-capacity defense in which they argue they shouldn't be held responsible because they weren't fully aware of their actions. The state, though, does allow a defendant to argue they did not have the mental ability to have criminal intent, which was Roberson's defense, Kretzer said.

    But barring one defense and not the other doesn't make sense, he said.

    "Those two concepts are fundamentally opposed," Kretzer said. "If you don't allow diminished capacity, but you do allow someone to show that they didn't have the ability to form the criminal intent, aren't you inherently saying that they have diminished capacity?"

    Before this petition, Roberson had another before the high court late last year. During the appeals process, Roberson sought new attorneys, saying his appointed ones, Kretzer and Wes Volberding, were ineffective and had conflicts of interest that prevented them from fully fighting for him. He went to Texas Defender Service, whose attorneys filed a petition with the Supreme Court asking it to order a lower court to appoint a third attorney. The court denied that request in December.

    Kretzer said he doesn't expect the parole board to take up the request until closer to the execution date.

    http://www.texastribune.org/2016/03/...pursues-cleme/
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  3. #13
    Moderator Ryan's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2013
    Location
    Newport, United Kingdom
    Posts
    2,454
    Issue of Mental Health Assessment a Focus as 3 Fight Death Sentences

    Randall Mays is on death row for killing two sheriff's deputies. Scott Panetti was sentenced to die for killing his estranged wife's parents. And a jury condemned Robert Roberson for killing his 2-year-old daughter.

    Beyond being on Texas’ death row, the three share another common thread: their attorneys are challenging whether the criminal justice process addresses the issue of mental illness fairly and comprehensively when weighing the death penalty for killers.

    In each case, trial prosecutors and attorneys for the state have argued the men intentionally killed their victims and understand why they were convicted and sentenced to death, a constitutional benchmark before the condemned can be executed.

    But attorneys for the men argue that although their clients are killers, their documented mental health histories could negate the intentional killing argument and therefore raise the question of whether execution is cruel and unusual punishment. Though the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that states can't execute the intellectually disabled, an exact legal definition of that condition remains open to debate. Any of these three cases could ultimately help clarify that issue for others in similar situations.

    Mays’ and Panetti’s attorneys argue their clients aren’t competent to be executed. Roberson’s attorneys say his right to due process was violated at trial.

    Criminal justice experts say that determining mental health can be hard for anyone, including judges, defense attorneys, prosecutors and jurors. They say the cases of Mays, Panetti and Roberson are key in furthering the discussion in how mental health is gauged when applying the death penalty.

    "When a defendant has mental or emotional problems, those problems don't just affect his or her conduct at the time of the crime," said Robert Dunham, the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. “They affect the way he or she is able to relate to his [or her] lawyers, to the defense lawyers, and the way they appear to the court and the way they appear to the jury.”

    Thoroughly gauging one’s illness takes training, which many in the criminal justice system may not have, he said.

    "Mental illness is a complicated phenomenon, which some people who are luridly psychotic, the disorder may be obvious, but even people who are psychotic are not psychotic all the time," Dunham said.

    Robert Roberson

    Roberson, 49, was sentenced to death in 2003 for fatally beating his 2-year-old daughter, Nikki, in Palestine. He faces a June 21 execution.

    During his trial, his attorneys argued that he was trying to quiet his daughter and lost his temper as a result of a brain injury. Roberson’s fight might not see a happy ending.

    But prosecutors said the killing was intentional, calling witnesses who said that his daughter's injuries were consistent with signs of shaking, bruising and blunt force trauma. Witnesses testified that Roberson had a bad temper and would shake and spank Nikki when she wouldn’t stop crying.

    Roberson’s attorneys have said his due process was violated because Roberson wasn’t allowed to have an expert testify at his trial that he thought Roberson suffers from mental lapses from his brain injury. Saying that a jury probably wouldn’t have found him guilty if it had heard about his mental history, the attorneys are asking an appeals court to throw out his conviction. He’s now represented by Texas Defender Service attorneys, who declined to comment on his case.

    Doug Lowe, the Anderson County district attorney during the trial, told The Texas Tribune that if Roberson wanted to raise his mental health as an issue at trial, he should have pleaded insanity. You either have insanity or you don’t, Lowe said.

    "So they're saying we don't want to go [for] insanity, but we do want to slip this evidence in to say that he didn't intend to commit the crime and therefore it's not murder," Lowe said. "It wasn't an intentional or knowing act. They want to have it both ways."

    The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a 2006 case that states aren’t required to admit mental health evidence by the defense if they aren’t pleading insanity.

    During the appeals process, the state has pointed to that case, Clark v. Arizona. Roberson did not launch an insanity defense at trial.

    When insanity isn’t used as a defense, judges often determine that mental health evidence is irrelevant, said George Dix, a professor in the University of Texas School of Law. Intent to kill is not a complicated mental state to be in, he said.

    "In many of the cases, if you carefully analyze what the expert is offering to testify to, he's essentially offering to testify that although the defendant did intend to kill, or intended to assault in other cases, his decision to do that was influenced by a pretty distorted perception of reality," Dix said.

    Denied relief twice by the U.S. Supreme Court, Roberson has shifted focus to clemency, with a request before the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles.

    Randall Mays

    On May 17, 2007, Henderson County sheriff's deputies responded to a domestic disturbance call at a Payne Springs home. Randall Mays and his wife were arguing.

    When a deputy tried to arrest Mays, Mays got a rifle and began shooting, drawing return fire from deputies. During the firefight, Mays killed Inspector Paul Steven Habelt and Deputy Tony Price Ogburn, and wounded Deputy Kevin Harris. Mays surrendered after being shot himself.

    He pleaded not guilty to the killings, claiming his history of mental illness did not allow him to knowingly and intentionally kill his victims.

    At Mays’ trial, witnesses testified that he was friendly but had a history of mental illness. A psychologist for the defense explained that paranoia could become exaggerated in a moment of crisis, but even someone who is paranoid can intentionally and knowingly kill someone. The psychologist spoke in general and never interacted with Mays, so she couldn’t speak to the case specifically.

    Psychiatrist Theresa Vail diagnosed Mays with depression and a psychotic disorder, according to court records. Vail, who treated Mays when he was in jail, said "that he suffered from delusions and hallucinations and that he was afraid that he was being poisoned and plotted against."

    Vail said Mays' mental illness was severe and possibly permanent due to a history of drug abuse that would have damaged his brain. She did not talk to Mays about killing the deputies. Gilda Kessner, a psychologist also testified that Mays had paranoid personality disorder and psychosis but never spoke to Mays herself. Another psychiatrist, David Self, testified that he did not examine Mays directly but believed Mays suffered from delusions and paranoia, court records show.

    A prosecutor told jurors that Mays could not be both a "nice guy" and a "paranoid psychotic."

    "He's apparently the friendliest, most trusting guy they've ever met. And yet on the other hand, the Defense wants you to believe that he's some sort of paranoid psychotic," the prosecutor argued at Mays’ trial. “You can't just throw all the defenses against the wall and see what sticks. There has to be – there has to be a theory here."

    The jury took an hour to find Mays guilty of capital murder.

    Now, Mays’ attorneys say he is not competent to be executed, citing his mental health record. Mays, now 56, has a history of mental illness dating back to the 1980s, when he was committed twice to a state hospital, and was characterized as "actively psychotic," delusional and combative, according to details from a Texas Court of Criminal Appeals opinion.

    The court has placed his execution on hold, intervening after his attorneys argued his competency has not fully been evaluated. A Henderson County court ruled Mays did not provide a “substantial showing” to prove that he lacks the competency to be executed. The Court of Criminal Appeals disagreed and returned the case to the same county, where Mays’ attorneys will get another shot at arguing that their client is not competent for execution.

    Mays is represented by public defenders in the state's Office of Capital and Forensic Writs attorneys, who declined to comment for this article.

    Scott Panetti

    Panetti, 58, a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic, shot and killed his in-laws, Joe and Amanda Alvarado, in 1992. After two hearings to gauge his competency to stand trial for capital murder, Panetti dropped his legal counsel, against the judge’s advice.

    He rejected an offer to plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence and, representing himself, offered an insanity defense without calling mental health witnesses. Panetti tried to call John F. Kennedy, Pope John Paul II and Jesus Christ as witnesses. He was found guilty of capital murder and sentenced to death in 1995.

    Panetti's case went before the U.S. Supreme Court in 2007. The question before the court: can Texas execute someone who understands the crime they committed but not why they're condemned to death? Justices said no and returned his case to Texas so his competency could be evaluated. Nearly a decade later, the issue is still not resolved.

    Part of Panetti’s story includes tales of religious delusions and hearing voices. Texas has said, though, Panetti is not mentally ill. Then-Attorney General Greg Abbott addressed the case during a 2014 interview with Mark Davis, the host of a Dallas-Fort Worth radio talk show.

    “Anyone can do strange things, and if strange things were good enough to get criminals off of death row, believe me, they’d be doing strange things all the time, every day,” said Abbott, now Texas governor. “Based upon the conclusions of many judges in this case, this guy is not insane, and at some point in time, that decision just needs to be put to rest.”

    Panetti was scheduled to die in 2004 and again in 2014. Both times, the executions were halted so courts could weigh competency concerns. An appeals court now is weighing whether to send Panetti’s case to another court to determine whether he can have federally appointed counsel and funds for an evaluation by a mental health expert. Panetti can’t afford legal costs on his own.

    Judges with the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals asked last year why Texas doesn’t provide funding for death row convicts to file and support incompetency claims. It’s not required to, an attorney for the state said. Asked about the Panetti case, a spokeswoman for the Texas attorney general’s office referred to the brief filed in the case.

    The state insists Panetti can make the claim he shouldn’t be executed, but one of his pro bono attorneys, Kathryn Kase, says he can’t afford to do it, nor does he have the mental capacity to on his own.

    Panetti’s lawyers say they can’t file a case arguing his incompetence for execution because he hasn’t received a mental health evaluation for more than seven years.

    Jack Stoffregen, chief public defender with Texas Regional Public Defenders for Capital Cases, told The Texas Tribune in September that it’s hard for defendants to make the argument that they shouldn’t be executed due to mental illness if they don’t have access to an expert evaluation.

    “If the defendant’s incompetent, how is that defendant even going to know to ask, to make the request for a counselor?” Stoffregen said.

    Panetti doesn’t take medication because of a previous allergic reaction to psychotropic drugs, said Kase, executive director of Texas Defender Service.

    After years of not being medicated and schizophrenia having brain-deteriorating effects, Panetti is “still very ill,” she said. Leaving death row would not mean freedom for Panetti, the attorney said.

    “If Scott Panetti were out in the world, he wouldn't be wandering around freely,” Kase said. “He would be in a mental institution. He's that sick.”

    https://www.texastribune.org/2016/05...-process-ques/

  4. #14
    Administrator Aaron's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2015
    Location
    New Jersey, unfortunately
    Posts
    4,382
    Texas is scheduled to execute this man in six days—but four experts say he was convicted based on junk science

    The scientific evidence was conclusive, doctors told a Texas jury in 2003: capital murder defendant Robert Roberson had violently shaken his two-and-a-half-year-old daughter to death.

    Thirteen years later—and just days before Roberson is scheduled to be executed—four medical experts are now claiming that the scientific theory used to convict him has been thoroughly debunked.

    Roberson, 49, is the next death row inmate in America scheduled to be executed, and will go to the death chamber June 21. He was sentenced to death in 2003 for the murder of his daughter, Nikki Curtis.

    Last week, he filed an application for a writ of habeas corpus—essentially an appeal to stay his execution and be given a new hearing—to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the highest criminal court in the state. A decision is expected within days.

    At the time of Roberson’s trial, doctors believed that certain symptoms in a child could conclusively prove they were violently shaken or abused, based on a theory known as Shaken Baby Syndrome. But in the last decade, the four experts who submitted affidavits as part of his appeal say, there’s been a sea change in the scientific understanding of the issue.

    Now his best last hope to postpone an execution and get a new hearing is Texas’ junk science law, which guarantees defendants a new trial if they can prove they were convicted based on scientific evidence that has since been discredited. It’s seen as one of the most progressive laws in the country of its kind.

    Roberson, whose lawyers say suffers from “severe limitations in intellectual functioning,” was Nikki’s biological father but essentially shared custody with the parents of Nikki’s mother, whom she had lived with for the first two years of her life. He brought her home from her grandparents house in Palestine, Texas, on the evening of January 30, 2002, and put her to bed. Early the next morning, he was woken up by her crying, and found that she had fallen on the floor. She seemed OK, he told investigators, so he put her back in her bed and went to sleep. When he woke up again a few hours later, she was blue and barely breathing. Roberson rushed her to the hospital, and she was declared dead the next day.

    Prosecutors dismissed Roberson’s account, his lawyers say, and instead charged him with murdering his daughter by shaking or beating her. At the time, most doctors believed that they could determine that a child could be diagnosed with Shaken Baby Syndrome based on three symptoms: retinal hemorrhaging, subdural hematoma/hemorrhaging, and edema, or brain swelling. Roberson’s jury was told that because Nikki had signs of all three, she must have been abused.

    The defense didn’t contest that explanation or call any medical experts. On February 14, 2003, the jury convicted Roberson and sentenced him to death.

    Now, however, a growing group of scientists disagree with this method of diagnosing Shaken Baby Syndrome. Research has shown that the same symptoms can be caused by other natural or accidental causes, the four experts who reviewed Roberson’s case write. They present a range of possible causes for Nikki’s death that were not explored during the trial: meningitis due to an ear infection; an injury before Roberson arrived; a short fall like the one he described or a congenital condition.

    “The medical personnel in this case seemed to adopt the presumption that child abuse was the root cause from the outset, a presumption that appears to have imposed a cognitive bias that prevented them from investigating all reasonable possible causes of death either before or after her death,” wrote Dr. Harry Bonnell, a forensic pathologist.

    Notably, the experts—who also include two other doctors and a professor of mechanical engineering—agreed that “it is impossible to shake a toddler to death without causing serious neck injuries—and Nikki had none,” the appeal states.

    Across the country, there are several hundred people in prison for murder convictions based on Shaken Baby Syndrome, L.A. Weekly reported, even though the latest scientific findings would undermine their cases. The American Academy of Pediatrics now doesn’t even use the term “shaken baby syndrome,” based on an understanding that its effects are not only caused by shaking. (A smaller contingent of doctors, however, still believe the kind of evidence used to convict Roberson is conclusive.)

    The prosecution in Roberson’s case also originally charged him with sexually assaulting Nikki, and several witnesses talked about that theory in front of the jury. But no evidence was presented that any sexual assault took place, and the prosecution dropped the charge at the last minute. Roberson’s lawyers argue that was highly prejudicial. “The State used this rank speculation to drive home its view that Robert was not just a poor, mentally impaired father struggling with sobriety, but a deviant—capable of raping and brutally shaking his own daughter to death,” they write.

    Gretchen Swenn, Roberson’s attorney, declined to comment while the case is being considered by the court.

    Last year, Roberson asked the U.S. Supreme Court to remove his previous lawyers, James Volberding and Seth Kretzer, alleging that they had failed to adequately represent him in his appeals. The justices declined to hear his case.

    That means that this appeal is most likely Roberson’s last chance at a stay of execution. He has an application for clemency pending at the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, but clemency for Texas death row inmates is exceedingly rare.

    The state has not yet filed a response to Roberson’s appeal. The Court of Criminal Appeals is expected to rule on his case in the next few days.

    “When the trial record is viewed through the lens of current science and evidence-based medicine, it is clear that he is innocent of capital murder,” Roberson’s appeal states

    http://fusion.net/story/314584/rober...xas-death-row/
    Don't ask questions, just consume product and then get excited for next products.

    "They will hurt you. They will hurt your grandma, these people. The root cause of this is there's no discipline in the homes, they don't go to school, you know, they live off the government, no personal accountability, and they just beat people up for no reason, and it's disgusting." - Former Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters

  5. #15
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2015
    Location
    Pennsylvania
    Posts
    4,795
    The American Academy of Pediatrics now doesn’t even use the term “shaken baby syndrome,” based on an understanding that its effects are not only caused by shaking.

    Abusive Head Trauma: A New Name for Shaken Baby Syndrome

    2009

    Shaken baby syndrome is a term often used by doctors and the public to describe abusive head trauma inflicted on infants and young children. While shaking an infant can cause neurologic injury, blunt impact or a combination of shaking and blunt impact can also cause injury. In recognition of the need for broad medical terminology that includes all mechanisms of injury, the new AAP policy statement, “Abusive Head Trauma In Infants and Children,” recommends pediatricians embrace the term “abusive head trauma” to describe an inflicted injury to the head and its contents. Pediatricians should learn to recognize the signs and symptoms of abusive head trauma, including those caused by both shaking and blunt impact, and consult with pediatric subspecialists when necessary.

    https://www.aap.org/en-us/about-the-...No+local+token


    Deaths resulting from AHT
    During 1999–2014, a total of 2,018 (90%) of 2,247 AHT deaths were classified as definite or presumptive, ranging from a high of 97% in 2001 to 81% in 2013. Nearly all definite or presumptive AHT deaths were simultaneously identified as assault-related TBI deaths.

    http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/864058

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention identifies SBS as "an injury to the skull or intracranial contents of an infant or young child (< 5 years of age) due to inflicted blunt impact and/or violent shaking"

    The Crown Prosecution Service for England and Wales recommended in 2011 that the term shaken baby syndrome be avoided and the term non accidental head injury (NAHI) be used instead

    Up to half of deaths related to child abuse are reportedly due to shaken baby syndrome.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abusive_head_trauma
    "There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche

  6. #16
    Senior Member CnCP Legend FFM's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2013
    Posts
    1,363
    No surprise, the CCA stayed this one too.

    Judge Meyers dissents.

    http://www.search.txcourts.gov/Searc...9-9a735c2140f7

  7. #17
    Administrator Aaron's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2015
    Location
    New Jersey, unfortunately
    Posts
    4,382
    I'm devastated this was stayed. We haven't had an x chat in over a month now
    Don't ask questions, just consume product and then get excited for next products.

    "They will hurt you. They will hurt your grandma, these people. The root cause of this is there's no discipline in the homes, they don't go to school, you know, they live off the government, no personal accountability, and they just beat people up for no reason, and it's disgusting." - Former Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters

  8. #18
    Senior Member CnCP Addict Richard86's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2014
    Location
    Wiltshire, England
    Posts
    500
    The controversy around shaken baby syndrome has been in the news in the UK in the last few months as well. Clive Stafford Smith wrote this piece and although I largely disagree with it (Squier is being disciplined for misrepresenting the medical consensus, not because she deviated from it), it's in the same context as the Roberson case.

    -------

    On Friday, I witnessed something akin to a reenactment of the trial of Galileo, precisely four centuries after the original. Dr Waney Squier faces being struck off by the General Medical Council (GMC) for having the temerity to challenge the mainstream theory on shaken baby syndrome (SBS).

    For years, the medical profession has boldly asserted that a particular “triad” of neurological observations is essentially diagnostic of SBS. Since the Nuremberg Code properly prevents human experimentation, this is an unproved hypothesis, and there has been rising doubt as to its validity.

    I am convinced that Squier is correct, but one does not have to agree with me to see the ugly side to the GMC prosecution: the moment that we are denied the right to question a scientific theory that is held by the majority, we are not far away from Galileo’s predicament in 1615, as he appeared before the papal inquisition. He dared to suggest that the Bible was an authority on faith and morals, rather than on science, and that 1 Chronicles 16:30 – “the world is firmly established, it cannot be moved” – did not mean that the Earth was rigidly lodged at the epicentre of the universe. It was not until 1982 that Pope John Paul II issued a formal admission that the church had got it wrong.

    Shaken baby syndrome is almost unique among medical diagnoses in that it is not focused on treating the child. If an infant has bleeding on the brain (a subdural hematoma), the doctor wants to relieve the pressure – it is of little relevance how the infant came about the injury. SBS is, then, a “diagnosis” of a crime rather than an illness, and when a brain surgeon comes into the courtroom and “diagnoses” guilt, the defendant, mostly a parent, is likely to go to prison – or worse.

    I have defended a number of emotionally charged capital cases where doctors have opined that a child had to have been shaken by an angry parent because it was “impossible” for the triad of neurological sequelae to result from an accident – it “had” to be caused by shaking. Many American doctors adhere to a bizarre notion that an infant cannot suffer a fatal head injury from a fall of less than three storeys. While we cannot drop a series of infants on their heads to test this, it would appear to be plain folly. The velocity of a five-foot fall means a child’s head can hit the ground at roughly 15mph, which is faster than most people – short of Usain Bolt - can sprint. I invited a series of neurosurgeons to run headlong into a hardwood wall in one courtroom, so we could see what happened to them. They politely declined, and stuck to their silly theory.

    What other doctor will be prepared to question the prosecution theory if it means the end of a career?
    Squier has now been branded a “liar” by the panel, and found “guilty” of paying insufficient respect to her peers. Dr Michael Powers, perhaps the eminent QC in the area of medico-legal practice in the UK, believes that the GMC tribunal – made up of a retired wing commander, a retired policeman and a retired geriatric psychiatrist – was not qualified to understand the complex pathology of the developing brain. “It is therefore sad, but not surprising, that they have reached the wrong conclusion,” he said. “The proper forum for debating these issues is the international neuroscience community.”

    Powers has a point: Michele Codd, the chair of the panel, was a general duties officer in the RAF for 32 years. One might doubt whether Stephen Marr, a retired Merseyside police officer, would hold up a constable’s hand to a prosecution theory that has sent so many people to prison.

    Nisreen Booya was the sole person with any meaningful medical qualifications on the panel, but in a rather different area: she is a retired psychiatrist specialising in geriatric issues such as Alzheimer’s, an illness that, like infant head trauma, is “poorly understood”. She is quoted as saying that she “made a career of trying to provide innovative services” in her field – and yet she condemns Squier for thinking outside her own rigid box. All three are doubtless honourable people, but they are simply wrong to hold SBS up as the fifth gospel.

    At the risk of being diagnosed with “I told you so” syndrome, I wrote an article 20 years ago questioning whether forensic hair analysis was really science. I was pleased therefore when, in 2015, the FBI admitted that they had got it wrong for decades – but this came after thousands of men, women and children had been convicted on the basis of latter-day snake oil, and scores had been sent to death row.

    Those deemed to be blasphemers often suffer a gruesome fate. Although Squier may be struck off, at least she will not be burned at the stake. But the impact on medical science will be immense, because what other doctor will be prepared to question the prosecution theory if it means the end of a career? This is a very dark day for science, as it is for justice.

    Source: The Guardian

    On another note:

    Roberson was in the course of committing or attempting to commit aggravated sexual assault on the child.
    I'm guessing they had some evidence of that, in which case the whole is shaken baby syndrome is junk science argument becomes rather moot, since if you rape a child to death you're probably getting the needle no matter what mechanism led to their death!

  9. #19
    Moderator mostlyclassics's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2013
    Location
    Wilmette, IL
    Posts
    627
    I'm guessing they had some evidence of that, in which case the whole is shaken baby syndrome is junk science argument becomes rather moot, since if you rape a child to death you're probably getting the needle no matter what mechanism led to their death!
    Richard, my understanding of the case was that the sexual abuse evidence was equivocal. If that's the case, and if "shaken baby syndrome" is illusory, then there's just not enough "beyond a reasonable doubt" evidence to give Roberson a Texas Hot Shot.

  10. #20
    Senior Member CnCP Legend FFM's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2013
    Posts
    1,363
    Quote Originally Posted by Clarkaaron54 View Post
    I'm devastated this was stayed. We haven't had an x chat in over a month now
    It's the amended 'junk science statute' that our legislature enacted back in 2013 that's getting a lot of these thugs a stay from the CCA at the last minute. I was annoyed at this from the beginning, because I knew all of them would start filing frivolous 'innocence' and 'mental retardation' petitions at the eve of their execution date. You know what the results were? Frivolous appeals. Garcia White, Richard Vasquez, Julius Murphy, etc.... all have had their death dates cancelled because of that. Stack that with the Texas Forensics Commission into investigating faulty DNA analysis, and you've got even more delays in the works. I've petitioned the local state senators to get rid of or amend the statute next year so that these attempts at endless appeals will stop. I suggest the rest of you do the same.

Page 2 of 5 FirstFirst 1234 ... LastLast

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

Tags for this Thread

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •