Writer makes his case for Robert Roberson, scheduled to be executed on Thursday
Texas plans to execute an inmate named Robert Roberson on Thursday, and crime novelist John Grisham begins an op-ed in the Washington Post by asking everyone to say a prayer for him. The reason? "Roberson has spent the past 22 years on death row for a crime that perhaps never occurred, and now Texas is hellbent on executing him." Roberson, as previous coverage has laid out, was convicted of killing his 2-year-old daughter as a result of "shaken baby syndrome." Since his conviction, mountains of doubt have emerged about that diagnosis. The consensus of multiple experts is that the more likely cause of death was "viral pneumonia, not physical abuse," writes Grisham, a retired lawyer.