Tell HN: Texas about to execute Robert Roberson, a 57-year-old man with autism 11 by rossant | 0 comments on Hacker News. On Thursday, Texas is likely to execute Robert Roberson, 57, a man with autism sentenced to death in 2003 after his daughter Nikki died [1, 2]. His conviction is based on the idea that shaken baby syndrome, or abusive head trauma (SBS/AHT), can be reliably diagnosed by a few specific signs—primarily bleeding around the brain and behind the eyes. I first encountered this theory when I was personally suspected of harming my own 5-month-old son back in 2016 [3], my ASD-related difficulty in expressing emotions being used against me. Eventually, the nanny became the main suspect, and she was prosecuted, though my wife and I were not. Four years later, all charges against her were dismissed. It turned out there had been no crime after all: my son had a medical condition that resembled abuse but wasn’t. I discovered that this is extremely common, as the science linking