Texas Supreme Court stops man’s execution in shaken baby case after lawmakers make last-minute appeal – Houston Public Media

The Texas Supreme Court on Thursday evening halted the planned execution of a man who would have been the first person in the United States executed for murder related to a diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome.

Supporters of Robert Roberson, who was convicted of murdering his 2-year-old daughter in 2002, turned to the Texas Supreme Court, which does not normally get involved in criminal cases, after the U.S. Supreme Court and the Texas Court of Appeals, the state’s highest criminal court , earlier in the day rejected appeals to stop his lethal injection.

Robertson’s supporters include a coalition of Republicans and Democrats who say Roberson is innocent and was convicted based on flawed scientific evidence.

Hours after the original execution time of 6 p.m. local time in Texas, Roberson remained in a prison cell just meters from the death chamber at the Walls Unit in Huntsville.

Gov. Greg Abbott had the authority to delay Roberson’s punishment for 30 days. Abbott has stopped only one impending execution in nearly a decade as governor and has not commented publicly on the case.

The Texas appeals court ruling was one of many legal decisions in the hours before Roberson’s scheduled lethal injection.

At the same time that a state judge in Austin issued a preliminary injunction, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to stop the execution, although Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked Abbott to grant a 30-day stay in a 10-page opinion on the case.

The state’s legal battle to carry out the execution faced a midnight CDT deadline to authorize Roberson’s execution. However, it was likely that the case would have to be solved long beforehand, as officers had to carry out procedures such as inserting intravenous needles and allowing time for an injection to take effect and for a doctor to pronounce him dead.

Early Thursday evening, a judge in Austin paused the execution after Texas lawmakers issued a subpoena for Roberson to testify before them next week in a final attempt to stop the execution.

“This is an extraordinary remedy that the legislature is seeking. But it’s not unreasonable. The legislature is granted that constitutional authority,” Rep. Jeff Leach, a Republican and member of the Texas House of Representatives Criminal Justice Committee, said during the Zoom court hearing .

Roberson, 57, was convicted of murdering his daughter Nikki Curtis in the East Texas city of Palestine. Roberson has long maintained his innocence, supported by some notable Republican lawmakers, Texas GOP megadonor and conservative activist Doug Deason and the case’s lead investigator. Roberson’s lawyers and some medical experts say his daughter died not from abuse but from complications related to pneumonia.

“He is an innocent man and we are on the verge of killing him for something he didn’t do,” said Brian Wharton, the lead Palestinian police investigator who investigated Curtis’ death.

Lawyers are calling on the Texas governor and Supreme Court to intervene
Roberson’s lawyers waited to see whether Abbott would grant Roberson a one-time reprieve of 30 days. That’s the only action Abbott can take in the case, since the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles rejected Roberson’s request for clemency on Wednesday.

The board voted unanimously 6-0 not to commute Roberson’s death sentence to life in prison or delay his execution. All board members are appointed by the governor. The parole board has recommended a pardon in a death row case only six times since the state resumed executions in 1982.

In his nearly decade as governor, Abbott has only prevented one imminent execution, when he saved the life of Thomas Whitaker in 2018.

“We pray that Governor Abbott does everything in his power to prevent the tragic, irreversible mistake of executing an innocent man,” Gretchen Sween, one of Roberson’s attorneys, said in a statement.

An Abbott spokesman did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

Bipartisan committee takes extraordinary steps to stop execution
The Texas committee held a daylong meeting Wednesday on the Roberson case. Surprisingly, at the end of the hearing, the committee issued a subpoena for Roberson to testify next week.

During its meeting in Austin, the committee heard testimony about Roberson’s case and whether a law created in 2013 that allows prison inmates to challenge their convictions based on new scientific evidence was ignored in Roberson’s case.

Anderson County District Attorney Allyson Mitchell, whose office prosecuted Roberson, told the committee that a trial took place in 2022 where Roberson’s lawyers presented their new evidence to a judge, who dismissed their claims.

“Based on the totality of the evidence, a murder has taken place here. Mr. Roberson took the life of his almost three-year-old daughter,” Mitchell said.

Most members of the committee are part of a bipartisan group of more than 80 state lawmakers, including at least 30 Republicans, who had asked the parole board and Abbott to stop the execution.

The execution puts shaken baby syndrome in the spotlight
Roberson’s case has reignited the debate over shaken baby syndrome, known medically as abusive head trauma.

His lawyers, as well as Texas lawmakers, medical experts and others, including best-selling author John Grisham, say his conviction was based on flawed and now outdated scientific evidence. The diagnosis refers to a severe brain injury caused by a child’s head being injured by shaking or other violent impact, such as being thrown against a wall or thrown onto the floor.

Roberson’s supporters do not deny that head injuries and other injuries from child abuse are real. But they say doctors misdiagnosed Curtis’ injuries as being related to shaken baby syndrome and that new evidence showed the girl died as a result of severe pneumonia.

Roberson’s lawyers say his daughter fell out of bed at Roberson’s home after being seriously ill for a week.

Roberson’s lawyers also suggested that his autism, which had not been diagnosed at the time of his daughter’s death, was used against him as authorities became suspicious of him because of his lack of emotion in the face of her death. Autism affects the way people communicate and interact with others.