HUNTSVILLE, TX — Robert Roberson, 57, was supposed to be executed on Thursday, Oct. 17, after his conviction of murdering his daughter Nikki Curtis, 2, based on the “shaken baby syndrome,” or known in the medical community as abusive head trauma, according to AP News.
The Texas Supreme Court halted the execution of Roberson, who would have become the first person in the U.S. put to death for a murder conviction tied to a diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome, said AP.
“The late-night ruling to spare for now the life of Robert Roberson…capped a flurry of last-ditch legal challenges and weeks of public pressure from both Republican and Democratic lawmakers who say he is innocent and was sent to death row based on flawed science,” added AP.
Roberson’s lawyers, Texas lawmakers, and medical experts said his conviction was based on “faulty” and “now outdated” scientific evidence, said AP.
Bestselling author John Grisham and other advocates for Roberson argue that doctors have misdiagnosed Curtis’s injuries as “being related to shaken baby syndrome” when “new evidence has shown the girl died from complications related to severe pneumonia.”
Roberson filed a petition for clemency on Sept. 17, after new medical and scientific evidence revealed that his daughter “died of severe viral and bacterial pneumonia” that “medical professionals missed in 2002,” showing her illness “progressed to sepsis and then septic shock” when she fell off the bed, AP said.
“Hospital staff did not know Mr. Roberson had autism and judged his response to his daughter’s grave condition as lacking emotion,” his defense stated, emphasizing lack of diagnoses for both the pneumonia and autism spectrum disorder in 2002.
“To date,” Roberson’s case overview read that “no court has been willing to consider three new expert reports showing how Nikki died of pneumonia, proof that Mr. Roberson is innocent of any crime.”
Roberson’s case raised “important separation of powers questions that should not be rendered moot” by his execution, according to his attorneys and a Texas Supreme Court order granting emergency motion for lawmakers.
According to news outlets, it is “rare” for the Texas Supreme Court, the state’s highest civil court, to “get involved in a criminal matter.”
“The vast team fighting for Robert Roberson—people all across Texas, the country, and the world—are elated tonight that a contingent of brave, bipartisan Texas lawmakers chose to dig deep into the facts of Robert’s case,” read a statement from Gretchen Sween, Roberson’s attorney.
The Texas House committee held an all-day meeting on the case on Wednesday, Oct. 16, according to AP News, where they deliberated on “whether a 2013 law created to allow people in prison to challenge their convictions based on new scientific evidence was ignored in Roberson’s case.”
“In a surprise move at the end of the hearing,” Juan A. Lozano and Michael Graczyk reported, “the committee issued a subpoena for Roberson to testify next week.”
This was the “extraordinary maneuver” that the “bipartisan coalition of state House” lawmakers did to “come to his defense” and stop Roberson’s execution in the “final hours,” AP wrote.
In this last moment of desperation to buy time, the “unusual plan” involved issuing a subpoena for Roberson to “testify before a House committee next week, which would be days after he was scheduled to die,” AP’s Lozano and Graczyk noted.
Lawmakers argued that executing the man before he could offer “subpoenaed testimony” would “violate the Legislature’s constitutional authority.” It was a bipartisan legislative effort to stop the “all-Republican court” from carrying out the execution, said Roberson’s attorneys.
“Less than two hours before Roberson’s execution, a judge in Austin sided with lawmakers and paused the execution,” reported AP, adding the attempt was then “reversed by an appeals panel.” Finally, the Texas Supreme Court “weighed in” with a restraining order to prevent the Oct. 17 execution, ending a “night of uncertainty.”
This seesaw of decisions between separations of powers has allowed Roberson to stay alive a little longer, now that he is scheduled to “testify before the committee Monday,” AP News reported.
“This is an innocent man. And there’s too much shadow of a doubt in this case,” said Democratic state Rep. John Bucy. “I agree this is a unique decision today. We know this is not a done deal. He has a unique experience to tell and we need to hear that testimony in committee on Monday.”
Roberson’s case is supported by “34 eminent scientists and doctors, a bipartisan group of 84 Texas legislators, 8 advocates for parental rights, 8 organizations that advocate for people with Autism and their families, faith leaders, innocence advocacy groups, former judges,” and “70 attorneys who have represented people wrongfully accused of child abuse,” said the defense.
At least 30 of the state legislators were Republican, who asked the parole board to stop the execution.
However, Allyson Mitchell, an Anderson County District Attorney whose office prosecuted Roberson, believed otherwise, telling the committee that “based on the totality of the evidence, a murder took place here.”
Mitchell testified that a judge from a 2022 court hearing rejected the new evidence and Roberson’s attorneys’ claims of innocence.
The defense said Brian Wharton, the lead detective in charge of investigating Curtis’s death and who testified at trial that “Mr. Roberson (was) arrested based on a doctor’s Shaken Baby hypothesis made even before an autopsy was performed,” has come to believe Roberson’s innocence.
The defense criticized Gov. Greg Abbott, U.S. Supreme Court, and the Texas parole board on their inaction to delay or even halt the execution, noting a Texas governor has authority to delay capital punishment for 30 days, but Gov. Abbott has “halted only one imminent execution in nearly a decade” and “has not spoken publicly about the case.”
While the U.S. Supreme Court “refused to halt” the execution, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a 10-page statement about Roberson’s case, urging Gov. Abbott to grant the 30-day delay.
“It would have been the only action Abbott could take in the case as the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles on Wednesday denied Roberson’s clemency petition,” AP wrote. “The board voted unanimously, 6-0, to not recommend that Roberson’s death sentence be commuted to life in prison or that his execution be delayed.”
AP added “all board members are appointed by the governor.”
“For over 20 years, Robert Roberson has spent 23.5 hours of every single day in solitary confinement in a cell no bigger than the closets of most Texans, long and striving to be heard,” read a joint statement from State Representatives Joe Moody and Jeff Leach.
The lawmakers added, “And while some courthouses may have failed him, the Texas House has not. We’re deeply grateful to the Texas Supreme Court for respecting the role of the Texas legislature in such consequential matters.”
