The execution of a Texas man convicted of killing his 2-year-old daughter under a disputed shaken baby syndrome diagnosis was put on hold Thursday hours before he was scheduled to die when Texas lawmakers demanded he appear at an upcoming hearing.
The Texas Supreme Court halted the scheduled lethal injection late Thursday after both the U.S. Supreme Court and the state Court of Criminal Appeals rejected appeals to do so earlier in the day.
The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles had previously unanimously declined to recommend clemency or grant Robert Roberson a 180-day reprieve from his death sentence. In a last-ditch effort on Wednesday, his lawyers filed a petition to the U.S. Supreme Court to stay his execution and consider whether the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied Roberson due process by refusing to consider new evidence of his innocence.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor noted in a statement that “mounting evidence suggests” Robertson “committed no crime at all.”
“Few cases more urgently call for such a remedy than one where the accused has made a serious showing of actual innocence, as Roberson has here,” Sotomayor wrote in the statement. “Yet this court can grant a stay only if Roberson can show a ‘significant possibility of success on the merits’ of a federal claim.”
Sotomayor said Roberson’s fate is now up to Texas authorities ― and specifically in the hands of Gov. Greg Abbott, who could have granted him a 30-day reprieve, which he did not do.
In an unusual turn of events, a subpoena from the Texas House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee had halted Roberson’s execution just before it was scheduled. The committee, made up of five Republicans and four Democrats, unanimously voted on Wednesday night to subpoena Roberson, 57, to testify on Oct. 21 .
“It’s an unprecedented subpoena and an unprecedented case,” Benjamin Wolff, director of the Texas Office of Capital and Forensic Writs, told the Texas Tribune on Wednesday.
The committee’s argument that Roberson could not be executed while he was under subpoena went before a judge on Thursday, who agreed and issued a temporary restraining order.
Robert Roberson meets with Texas lawmakers on Sept. 27 at a prison in Livingston, Texas.
Roberson will now appear before lawmakers to testify on a Texas law that allows prisoners to challenge their convictions based on “junk science.” Roberson’s lawyers have argued that his case merits a new trial under the state law, pointing out that similar cases have received new trials.
The committee heard testimony earlier on Wednesday about Roberson’s case and shaken baby syndrome, a diagnosis some experts say has been misused in the criminal justice system to wrongfully convict parents and caregivers. The testimony included medical experts and Brian Wharton, the former lead detective who spearheaded Roberson’s arrest in 2002 but who now says he deeply regrets his role in his conviction.
Wharton, who is now a Methodist minister, also admitted that he had doubts about Roberson’s guilt during the trial. Jane Pucher, an attorney on Roberson’s legal team, told HuffPost in an interview on Wednesday that her client had forgiven Wharton.
“His ability to do that and to show such graciousness and love for people, no matter how they came into his life. I think that’s just who he is,” Pucher said.
Roberson has maintained his innocence for over 20 years in the death of his daughter, Nikki Curtis, who prosecutors said died of child abuse. But Roberson’s lawyers now say scientific and medical evidence suggests the 2-year-old died of complications from bacterial and viral pneumonia.
Roberson has gained the support of a bipartisan group of lawmakers and medical experts who cast doubt on his conviction. His lawyers wrote in a motion to stay that detectives and prosecutors did not consider other causes for Nikki’s death when convicting him, including the child’s medical history.
Nikki had suffered from a respiratory infection, vomiting and diarrhea in the days leading up to her death, according to the motion. Roberson rushed her to a local emergency room in Palestine, Texas, on Jan. 28, 2002, and she developed a 104.5 fever the following day.
The toddler was discharged, but three days later, Roberson found her unconscious with blue lips and rushed her back to the hospital. By the time she arrived at the emergency room, her eyes were already fixed and dilated, signs of brain death. She died on Feb. 1.
Pucher told HuffPost that Roberson was diagnosed later in life with autism and had difficulties expressing his emotions. At the time of his daughter’s death, police and medical staff took his “cold and distant” demeanor as a sign of guilt. She said she believes Roberson’s autism played a “really central role in his wrongful conviction.”
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