Skip to main content

The Texas "junk science" law



As I write these words, Robert Roberson still sits on death row.  But he is still alive, and another scheduled date for his execution is in the rear view mirror.  

This is what has so far prevented the execution of Roberson.

In 2013, Texas enacted a specific legal avenue allowing prisoners to challenge allegedly wrongful convictions by arguing that changes in the field of forensic science have undermined the conviction or, in the alternative have exonerated the prisoner completely.  This is popularly known as the "Junk Science Law" -- formally Article 11.073 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure.

The "shaken baby syndrome" [or "abusive head trauma"] is the key here. A medical/physical fact like a bruise, a fever, a broken bone  is often consistent with several hypotheses about cause.  No trauma by itself tells us it was the consequence of abuse. That is an inference that, in a criminal trial, the finder of fact, paradigmatically the jury is supposed to draw. 

Jurors generally look to medical experts with regard to that inference.  As of 2002-03, many such experts believed that short falls, like the one Roberson described having happened to his daughters, could never cause severe injuries. And that shaking by a parent impatient over a baby's crying, could.  

The Texas court halting the planned October 16th execution date said, "[T]he scientific understanding of the Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS) hypothesis that was used to accuse and convict [Roberson] in 2002-2003 has been entirely discredited. The new evidence includes new expert opinions and further changes in scientific understanding of SBS since this Court decided the 03 proceeding and even after this Court decided Ex Parte Roark, 707 S.W.3d 157 (Tex. Crim. App. 2024), a significant decision that has not yet been applied to Mr. Roberson’s very similar SBS case."

The full decision is available online: robert-roberson-motion-for-stay-of-execution.pdf 

Let's try to keep him alive and, better, get him a new trial. 




Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Story About Coleridge

This is a quote from a memoir by Dorothy Wordsworth, reflecting on a trip she took with two famous poets, her brother, William Wordsworth, and their similarly gifted companion, Samuel Taylor Coleridge.   We sat upon a bench, placed for the sake of one of these views, whence we looked down upon the waterfall, and over the open country ... A lady and gentleman, more expeditious tourists than ourselves, came to the spot; they left us at the seat, and we found them again at another station above the Falls. Coleridge, who is always good-natured enough to enter into conversation with anybody whom he meets in his way, began to talk with the gentleman, who observed that it was a majestic waterfall. Coleridge was delighted with the accuracy of the epithet, particularly as he had been settling in his own mind the precise meaning of the words grand, majestic, sublime, etc., and had discussed the subject with William at some length the day before. “Yes, sir,” says Coleridge, “it is a maj...
10 comments
Read more

Searle: The Chinese Room

John Searle has become the object of accusations of improper conduct. These accusations even have some people in the world of academic philosophy saying that instructors in that world should try to avoid teaching Searle's views. That is an odd contention, and has given rise to heated exchanges in certain corners of the blogosphere.  At Leiter Reports, I encountered a comment from someone describing himself as "grad student drop out." GSDO said: " This is a side question (and not at all an attempt to answer the question BL posed): How important is John Searle's work? Are people still working on speech act theory or is that just another dead end in the history of 20th century philosophy? My impression is that his reputation is somewhat inflated from all of his speaking engagements and NYRoB reviews. The Chinese room argument is a classic, but is there much more to his work than that?" I took it upon myself to answer that on LR. But here I'll tak...
23 comments
Read more

Five Lessons from the Allegory of the Cave

  Please correct me if there are others. But it seems to be there are five lessons the reader is meant to draw from the story about the cave.   First, Plato  is working to devalue what we would call empiricism. He is saying that keeping track of the shadows on the cave wall, trying to make sense of what you see there, will NOT get you to wisdom. Second, Plato is contending that reality comes in levels. The shadows on the wall are illusions. The solid objects being passed around behind my back are more real than their shadows are. BUT … the world outside the the cave is more real than that — and the sun by which that world is illuminated is the top of the hierarchy. So there isn’t a binary choice of real/unreal. There are levels. Third, he equates realness with knowability.  I  only have opinions about the shadows. Could I turn around, I could have at least the glimmerings of knowledge. Could I get outside the cave, I would really Know. Fourth, the parable a...
Post a Comment
Read more