Why author John Grisham is chronicling the life of Robert Roberson in ‘SHAKEN’
DALLAS — John Grisham is embarking on his next legal thriller — and he’s leaving its ending up to the state of Texas to decide.
In what will be the third nonfiction project of Grisham’s decadeslong career, “SHAKEN: The Rush to Execute an Innocent Man,” is set to publish June 9, 2026. The book will chronicle the story of Robert Roberson III, an East Texas man at the center of a contentious “ shaken baby syndrome ” case, who, for the third time, faces execution on Oct. 16.
“We’re watching in slow motion as the clock ticks, as this disaster unfolds,” Grisham, 70, told The Dallas Morning News last week in a sit-down interview. “I’m just here to tell the story, and I’m doing it because we know right now what’s about to happen and we’re trying to get it stopped.
“Who knows if we’re going to be successful?”
Roberson, 58, formerly of Palestine, was condemned in 2003 for the death of his 2-year-old daughter, Nikki. His prosecution, in part, relied on proving Nikki showed a triad of symptoms associated with “ shaken baby syndrome,” a medical determination that has since been heavily scrutinized by experts.
Roberson’s attorneys have long maintained that no crime occurred, arguing a multitude of evidence gathered since trial proves Nikki died of natural and accidental causes, including severe, undiagnosed pneumonia and a fall from bed.
Roberson was previously scheduled to be executed in June 2016, and again in October 2024. The latter gained national attention when a bipartisan group of Texas lawmakers intervened by subpoenaing him to testify before a House committee.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton ultimately thwarted two attempts to bring Roberson to the state Capitol to testify, while others, including Grisham, spoke on Roberson’s behalf.
“Robert’s trial was grossly unfair,” Grisham said then. “The science was terrible. The science has been debunked and discredited and disproven now for the past 15 years — we know it’s bad science.”
In “SHAKEN,” Grisham plans to explore “the many failures that led to a blameless man’s death sentence, and a justice system more eager for a conviction than the truth.”
He said he hopes the exposure will encourage those “who have the power” to look over Roberson’s case again.
“He has a very strong legal team, a very strong medical and scientific team, with plenty of new proof to get back into court and, maybe one day, have an exoneration and walk out of prison,” he said.
“That would be the perfect ending, and that’s what we’re aiming for.”
Grisham’s first nonfiction book, “The Innocent Man,” published in 2006, told the story of Ron Williamson, a former hometown baseball hero of Ada, Okla., who was convicted in 1988 of raping and murdering 21-year-old Debbie Carter. Williamson was later exonerated after serving 11 years on death row.
Grisham has since become a board member with the Innocence Project, an organization dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted individuals and reforming the criminal justice system. He has also released “Framed: Astonishing True Stories of Wrongful Convictions,” written with Jim McCloskey.
“Anytime you have great suffering, you have great drama and good stories,” Grisham said. “The injustice, the misery, the waste that you see in these cases — every wrongful conviction should have its own book.”
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