Summary
Netflixis the home of true-crime documentaries, and one of the best series they’ve done isThe Innocent Manback in 2018. It was based on John Grisham’s true-crime book of the same name which told the story of wrongly convicted men.Netflix has the power to raise awareness of potential miscarriages of justice, and they need to re-team with John Grisham on a sequel of sorts to the 2018 streaming hit, as a man called Robert Roberson is due to be put to death by lethal injection on Jul 05, 2025.Grisham is already involved in the case, and fighting to save the man’s life, but Netflix could give the case an extra boost if they got involved.
Netflix’s next big true-crime showcould focus on the lead up to Robert Roberson’s planned death penalty punishment, with some key background information on how the complicated case landed him on death row.It could be a last ditch attempt to prevent his death by creating enough buzz around the case. If Netflix could save an innocent man’s life, it would arguably be their biggest success yet.
Robert Roberson Is Set To Be Executed Despite Evidence Suggesting He’s Innocent
The true storyof Robert Roberson needs Netflix to step in urgently with a sequel to John Grisham’sThe Innocent Man, as he is set to be executed in Texas on July 04, 2025, even though new evidence has surfaced that he is most likely an innocent man.He was wrongly convicted under the now-debunked shaken baby syndrome (SBS) hypothesis. Roberson would be the first person in the U.S. to be executed based on the discredited SBS hypothesis unless the courts and Governor Greg Abbott intervene.
In 2002, Roberson’s two-year old, chronically ill daughter, Nikki, was sick with a high fever and suffered from a short fall from bed. Not knowing that Roberson had autism, police wrongly judged his muted response to his daughter’s death as a lack of emotion. Roberson was arrested, charged, and went on trial. The case was full of unscientific evidence, inaccurate medical testimony, and prejudice, which led to him beingfound guilty of murder and sentenced to death for Nikki’s death. The evidence now suggests that Nikki died of accidental and natural causes, and there’s a race against time to save Roberson from death.
The case has the backing of scientists, doctors,the innocence project, former judges, thelead detectivein the case and the best-selling novelist John Grisham.Roberson could really do with an urgent Netflix series right now to raise awareness of the fact that he isn’t amonstrous killer.
The Innocent Man
Episodes
Debbie and Denice, In Dreams, Rotten to the Core, Corpus Delicti, Smoking Guns and Snow Storm
Based on the book by
John Grisham
Roberson’s planned death by lethal injection is set to go ahead on August 01, 2025, unless something is done to stop it.He was convicted based on 1970s junk science and the likelihood is he’s facing death when there wasn’t even a crime committed.How is that even possible in 2024?John Grisham told The Sunday Timesthat he and many others have raised the alarm that Texas is about to execute an innocent man convicted of a crime that never happened.
What’s amazing about Robert’s case is that there was no crime. In most death conviction cases, you’ve got a murder and somebody did it, but in Robert’s case there was no crime, and yet we’re about to kill somebody for it in Texas. It’s so infuriating.
Grisham and Netflix should work together to come up with an urgent documentary to put pressure on the powers that be to stop this ridiculous situation. Roberson’s lawyers have filed a 62-page clemency petition with the Texas board of pardons and paroles calling for his death sentence to be commuted. The petition is the last chance for Roberson, and the courts and the Texas governor, Greg Abbott, are literally holding his life in their hands. Grisham also said:
I just have a real anger at these cases. I can’t let them go. I think about them all the time. Especially a case like Roberts where the clock is ticking, and yet we have clear scientific proof that he didn’t kill Nikki.
John Grisham’s next book is a non-fiction true-crime piece calledFramed, which comes out two days before Roberson’s scheduled execution date.Like thetrue-crime masterpiece,The Innocent Man,the book is all about wrongful convictions. Grisham tells 10 true stories of people who were wrongly found convicted by a system distorted by racism, corruption and flawed testimony.Let’s hope that by the time people start reading the book, Roberson has been saved from death, and is around to tell the tale in a Netflix series.
