14 ms·
Texas man sent to death row over junk science denied US Supreme Court appeal
- ThinkBeat 3y agoI am surprised that the crime here would result in the death penalty. Did the man hasve prior convictions?
- michaelmrose 3y agoI don't believe child killing would require prior convictions in order to get the death penalty in Texas.
- throwaway447 3y agoIANAL but it surprises me too. Sounds more like 2nd degree murder. Lack of intention, lack of planing, lack of maliciousness. https://manshoorylaw.com/blog/difference-between-1st-2nd-and-3rd-degree-murders/ https://manshoorylaw.com/blog/difference-between-1st-2nd-and...
- croes 3y ago>Roberson was portrayed by prosecutors as a cold and calculating father who displayed no emotion It seems they have portrayed him as a cold, calculating murderer.
- kaliqt 3y agoOh, of course, that makes all the difference. Upgrade the charges!
- michaelmrose 3y agoSeems to me you are conflating fault and guilt. Second degree murder implies at minimum extreme indifference to human life if not intent to harm whereas he took her to the doctor then the hospital and gave her medicine then deemed medically appropriate and only now known to be harmful. Where are you seeing the extreme indifference to human life?
- WarOnPrivacy 3y ago> I don't believe child killing would require prior convictions in order to get the death penalty in Texas. Noting here that using 'child killing' in this context loads the term. It unhelpfully stirs intended and unintended deaths together and conflates murder with awful mistakes made by poorly equipped, poorly informed or overpressured parents. Parents who've lost infants after rolling onto them while sleeping - they ought not be lumped together with people who've killed a child thru a planned, horrific act.
- michaelmrose 3y agoCorrect but do bear in mind that he isn't being accused of rolling over while sleeping he is being accused of shaking her to death by battering her little brain a cause of death we now have no reason to believe is accurate.
- autoexec 3y agoTexas has a fetish for murdering prisoners. They'll jump at any chance they can find.
- zirgs 3y agoThis is why I'm against the death penalty.
- A_D_E_P_T 3y agoThe death penalty isn't the problem here. We arguably still have an innocent person wasting away in prison, which is hardly much better than death. The problem is a judicial review system that's extremely hesitant to consider exculpatory evidence following a conviction... and here we have an edge case where the conviction was gained by discredited scientific means. Science adapts quickly to new evidence and new methods, and quickly discards old ones; the courts don't work that way.
- gambiting 3y agoThe core of the issue is somewhere else - it's the jury system. It's crazy to me that so much of the American "justice" relies on juries where they are free to ignore any scientific evidence and just vote the way that seems right to them. At the end it's a matter of which side can build a more passionate argument to sway the juries, rather than what evidence is actually presented and its rational meaning. So yeah of course the American judicial system is not willing to review past convictions based on scientific discoveries, because the convictions were rarely made on that basis anyway.
- resolutebat 3y agoStatistically speaking, isn't it still better to have a jury of multiple people requiring unanimous consent, as opposed to a single equally fallible judge?
- rg111 3y agoYou can appeal many times. And there are multiple judges listening to a case. And we also need to get rid of elected judges. The developed world do just fine wuthout a jury system.
- madaxe_again 3y agoSadly, this is entirely unsurprising - justice is blind, generally in the worst possible way, and states do not like to admit that they are capable of making mistakes. Millions, if not billions, of people have suffered and died over the years purely because states wanted to dogmatically and cruelly demonstrate their ownership and power over the individual.
- komali2 3y ago> The country’s highest court issued its denial on Monday morning giving no explanation > he has already exhausted appeals through Texas state courts and must now rely on the mercy of the Republican governor Greg Abbott This is not what a justice system looks like. This is a step up from "justice" under feudal systems, but the gaping holes like this make it a small step. Even though it "works" sometimes (often?), the "worst case scenario" is so bad that the entire system must be measured by it. None of us are in this man's shoes through absolutely no action taken on our part (beyond not having kids for those of us that don't). As his lawyer says, this is a nightmare situation, but that's the reality of the USA "justice" system. I agree that this is an example of State violence exercised arbitrarily over the individual but I don't attribute agency to the State here, I think it's more mundane in this case. This to me is more a symptom of the overall degradation humans in the USA and reflective of decreasing respect for human life in that country, and in general the modern world. IMO it's worth considering why this kind of blatant injustice, and similar ones, hasn't led to more outcry. To me that's an alarm bell that the majority of people have successfully been cowed, and more dramatic restrictions on our human rights are to come (we can see various governments and bureaucracies fighting an unending war against our technological freedoms).
- ifdefdebug 3y agoMaybe they consider that after destroying so thoroughly and completely a probably innocent man's life, it's just better to get the job done once and forever.
- misja111 3y agoWell I'm against death penalty, and surely some things seem to have gone wrong in this court case, but the case is not as clear as the Guardian makes it look. When you read a bit more about the case, you find for instance this: > At trial, witnesses also testified that Roberson had a bad temper and would shake and spank Nikki when she wouldn’t stop crying.
- chakintosh 3y agoThat's circumstantial evidence.
- boomboomsubban 3y agoThe Guardian's original article before the appeal was denied covered this I think >Its argument cites testimony from Teddie, Roberson’s estranged girlfriend, who said he had a bad temper and would yell at Nikki and hit her. Roberson’s legal team counter that Teddie was not a credible witness. Her own sister testified for Roberson, insisting she had never seen him mistreat Nikki and telling the jury Teddie had a problem with telling the truth. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/24/texas-death-row-robert-roberson-supreme-court-shaken-baby-syndrome https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/24/texas-death-ro...
- meheleventyone 3y agoEven if he was an abusive father that doesn’t mean he murdered the kid. Let alone that the evidence used to convict him of doing so was sound. Whilst I think that sort of physical abuse of children is repugnant it alone isn’t reason for the guy to be facing the death penalty. Which is a really long winded way of saying that this sort of muddying of the waters isn’t a great argument.
- sharperguy 3y agoWhen it comes to babies, doing ANYTHING irresponsible with them is a huge risk because if the baby were to die, you would immediatedy be under suspicion and have difficulty proving your innocence even if the death was just by chance.
- 3y ago
- laserlight 3y agoRelated major thread from a week ago: A journey into the shaken baby syndrome/abusive head trauma controversy https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37650402 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37650402 September 2023 (1012 points)
- boomboomsubban 3y agoAnd the thread on this case that led to that one being posted https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37632122 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37632122
- Yeul 3y agoIf the US didn't have the death penalty he'd just be sentenced to life in prison and nobody would care. Another argument against corporal punishment I suppose.
- registeredcorn 3y agoNot to be too argumentative, but wouldn't that be an reason for the death penalty? That is, if the stakes are higher (life and death), people naturally care far more than they otherwise would. Were there no death penalty, then people would more naturally fall into that bureaucratic mental trap of "there's still time", when the time they're thinking of is the time of a human's life. Personally, I find the concept of life in prison to be one of the greatest injustices made by man, and would vastly prefer people to be killed under false premise, or by outright mistake, rather than wasting away for decades under harsh conditions, surrounded by misery, despair, and hopelessness. This modernist quirk of "'life' behind bars" comes off with some strange stink of clinically accepted torture, under the understanding of the ineptitude of a system of justice run by human beings. Just my two cents though, I know some would strongly disagree for various reasons.
- PetitPrince 3y agoThe dissuasive value of death penalty have already been discussed a lot, but the discussion that immediately come to mind is the eloquent speech given by the French ministrer of justice (Robert Badinter) when they abolished death penalty in 1981 (if you speak French, have a listen; it's one of the great speeches). The arguments were: - There's no correlation between death penalty abolition and a reduction or increase in criminality curve - The most death penalty-able crimes are crimes of passion or folly. People are not rational actors in these case, and have a death penalty - "Cold-blooded" criminal (trafficker, pimp, maffiosi and such) would never put themselves in a situation where they could get death penalty - "Criminal passion are no less stopped by the fear of death than other more noble passion. If the fear of death would dissuade people to act, then we would have neither great soldiers nor great sportmen. We admire them, but they do not hesitate in face of death. Nor will other people, taken by other passions. It's only for death penalty that we think that death will prevent people in their most extreme passions. This is not true."
- mrtri 3y ago[dead]
- bell-cot 3y agoAh, America. Where (comic book character) Superman's endless fight "for Truth and Justice" became "for Truth, Justice, and the American Way" - because the writers of the series soon noticed that truth and justice were definitely not the American way. And had a pretty good feel for just how far they could go, in editorializing that sad fact.
- krapp 3y agoThat motto was only ever used for radio dramas in the 1940s and the tv series in the 1950s. Over the long history of the Superman franchise, there have been plenty of variations[0], most without the "American way." [0]https://www.supermanhomepage.com/the-history-of-supermans-truth-and-justice-motto/ https://www.supermanhomepage.com/the-history-of-supermans-tr...
- heresie-dabord 3y agoIf we look at the system as it functions without applying a pernicious humanist bias, we see that property rights are protected with great success for those who can afford property.
- bell-cot 3y ago> property rights are protected... 1) You might want to search on "civil asset forfeiture" and compare that to the history of the Bill of Rights. 2) Also talk to a few residential landlords, about the innumerable rights of deadbeat and destructive tenants, the various COVID evictions moritoriums, etc.
- rocqua 3y agoWhich rights would be better protected than property rights?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- 3y ago
- StillBored 3y agoFor a very similar case see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cameron_Todd_Willingham https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cameron_Todd_Willingham, He was executed in Texas despite there being real concern that he was innocent (which he claimed from day one) and the majority of the evidence used to convict him was arson patterns that have been widely considered to be junk science for decades now too. And after listening to Josh Dubin on Joe Rogan a few years back (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROU7G0d4iyE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROU7G0d4iyE) its pretty clear the US has a fairly high error rate for death row. (Also I'm not a big fan of joe rogan, but this might be one of his better podcasts)
- rossant 3y agoYes, there are similar forensic unreliability issues between arson and shaken baby syndrome. Look up "negative corpus" [1]: it's not because you could not find any explanation for a fire or a death that it's necessarily a crime. [1] https://www.nafi.org/blog/negative-corpus/ https://www.nafi.org/blog/negative-corpus/
- cyanydeez 3y agoYou think it's just for death row?
- asadotzler 3y agoNo, no one thinks it's just for death row, only that executions are final and there's no undoing them, and so the expectations among the general public are that we're much more careful in those cases. We can release a falsely jailed person and even pay restitution or the time lost, but we can't do the same for an executed person so the stakes are higher and one would expect a lower false positive rate as a result.
- zackees 3y ago[dead]
- fzeroracer 3y agoUnfortunately, Texas is far and away the most corrupt state in the union. This isn't even a particular exaggeration, we know that the state has executed innocent people multiple times and their response is to double down on it. I don't see a way for this man to have the case properly reevaluated. So he's trapped in the worst possible situation.
- mihaic 3y agoI know it's something that is very frowned upon publicly give the emotional response, but I honestly put infanticide at one step below murder, and I'm sorry that high emotions make any discussion futile. It's still atrocious, but given how easy negligence could lead to death and how an infant is not really a person in my eyes, I'd consider a special category for it.
- registeredcorn 3y agoIn your opinion, when does a person become a person, then? Surely if it's a matter of mental aptitude, you've considered the ramifications of mental retardation, etc. Is it just a size thing, or something else? Genuinely curious. Note: I'd probably still expect some emotional responses if this receives a lot of interest.
- asynchronous 3y ago[flagged]
- mihaic 3y agoI'm from Romania actually, this isn't something tied to my upbringing. Infanticide has been a cruel part of human life almost for our entire existence. You'd be surprised to find out how common it was before the universal religions pacified us.
- mihaic 3y agoI honestly can't quantify myself what makes "a person", only list instances when it's a clear yes/no for me personally. Note that I'm not advocating anything, I'm just giving my view. At 6 months a child feels mostly like an instinct-driven animal, but at 2-3 years for instance they clearly have awareness of themselves and the world. Somewhere a switch happens, and in this gray area I don't know. Adults with mental retardation still have a consciousness, but if you're a braindead vegetable you don't, so the line is somewhere there.
- 3y ago
- nobodyandproud 3y agoLost in all this: Why haven’t the doctors recanted?
- rocqua 3y agoIs there room for that? To what degree is that admitting to perjury? It seems to me like it is really hard to make room to recant in a justice system. Mostly because if allows already convicted people to pressure experts to recant. But also because it lets people get out of intentional perjury (not that these doctors were intentionally wrong). Besides that, I imagine they really don't want the publicity. Or perhaps they feel like they are morally covered by their original testimony being phrased like "according to the state of the art", or "to the best of my current knowledge", so that new insights don't make the statements false.
- boomboomsubban 3y agoAt least one of the doctors called as a witness has.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- sophyphreak 3y agoAutistic parent is going to get killed for being Autistic. This is just another reason why I don't want children and don't get near children. I don't want the trouble of other people's prejudice.
- tamimio 3y agoAnother case on how the judicial system is flawed, so many cases where innocent people were convicted while the real crooks are having dinner on private jets.
- sillywalk 3y agoIt's Texas, he'll die.