In The Politics of Autism, I discuss interactions between the justice system and autistic people.
An autistic man is on death row for a crime he didn't commit.
An autistic man is on death row for a crime he didn't commit.
In a state where the death penalty is as ingrained as cowboy boots and conservative politics, news of Robert Roberson’s death sentence broke through in Texas after the rarest of phenoms: a noisy, bipartisan effort that bypassed the governor’s office to save a man from lethal injection.
For years, the appeals of Roberson’s capital murder conviction for the 2002 death of his chronically ill, 2-year-old daughter had lumbered through the courts, tracing a byzantine process that often fails to register with residents of the nation’s execution capital, where 591 inmates have been put to death in the state since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976.
But while lawmakers were making historic interventions, many Texans took note of the silence by the person traditionally empowered to step in at the last minute: Gov. Greg Abbott.
“Abbott’s silence is deafening,” said Brandon Rottinghaus, a professor of political science at the University of Houston.
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Roberson, 57, of Palestine, was convicted of his daughter’s death in 2003 after an autopsy determined his daughter, Nikki, who had been ill with a fever, had died of shaking and blows. Investigators believed that Roberson’s emotionless demeanor was further evidence of his guilt. Roberson has since been diagnosed as having autism, which could explain Roberson’s behavior at the time. A police detective whose investigation sent the East Texas man to death row, now supports Roberson’s claims of innocence.
