The Texas Supreme Court has halted a man's execution in a shocked baby case after a last-minute appeal from lawmakers

Juan A. Lozano and Michael Grazyk
| Associated press

Huntsville, Texas – The Texas Supreme Court on Thursday evening halted the planned execution of a man who would have become the first person in the US to be put to death on a murder conviction linked to a diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome.

The overnight ruling that temporarily spares the life of Robert Roberson, who was convicted in 2002 of murdering his two-year-old daughter, ended a wave of final 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.

In the hours leading up to the verdict, Roberson was locked in a jail cell a few feet from America’s busiest death chamber, the Walls Unit in Hunstville, awaiting confirmation on whether he would be taken to die by lethal injection.

“He was shocked, to say the least,” said Amanda Hernandez, spokesperson for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, who spoke with Roberson after the court stayed his execution. “He praised God and thanked his followers. And that’s pretty much what he had to say.”

She said Roberson would be returned to the Polunsky Unit, about 45 miles (72 kilometers) east, where the state’s male death row is located.

Roberson, 57, was convicted of murdering his daughter, Nikki Curtis, in the East Texas town of Palestine. His lawyers and some medical experts say his daughter died not from abuse but from complications related to pneumonia. The order capped a night of last-minute maneuvers

It is rare for the Texas Supreme Court – the state’s highest civil court – to become involved in a criminal case.

But how the all-Republican court ultimately managed to halt Roberson’s execution in the final hours underscored the extraordinary maneuvers of a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers who came to his defense.

Rebuffed by the courts and the Texas parole board in their efforts to spare Roberson’s life, lawmakers tried a different route Wednesday: issuing a subpoena for Roberson to testify before a House committee next week, which is days would be after he died. The unusual plan to buy time, some admitted, had never been tried before.

They argued that executing Roberson before he could provide subpoenaed testimony would violate the legislature’s constitutional authority. Less than two hours before Roberson’s execution, an Austin judge sided with lawmakers and paused the execution, but that was subsequently reversed by an appeals panel. The Texas Supreme Court then weighed in with its order, ending a night of uncertainty.

Roberson will testify before the committee on Monday.

“This is an innocent man. And there is too much doubt in this case,” said Democratic state Rep. John Bucy. “I agree that this is a unique decision today. We know this is not a done deal. He has a unique experience to share and we must hear that testimony in committee on Monday.’ The governor and the U.S. Supreme Court took no action to halt the execution.

Gov. Greg Abbott had the authority to delay Roberson’s sentence for 30 days. Abbott has halted only one pending execution in nearly a decade as governor and has not spoken publicly about the case.

Earlier Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to halt the execution, though Justice Sonia Sotomayor — in a 10-page statement on the case — urged Abbott to grant a 30-day stay.

Roberson’s attorneys had been waiting to see if Abbott would grant Roberson the one-time reprieve. It would have been the only action Abbott could take in the case, as the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles rejected Roberson’s pardon request on Wednesday.

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

The only time Abbott stopped an impending execution was when he spared the life of Thomas Whitaker in 2018. Lawmakers invoked Texas law based on scientific evidence

The House of Representatives committee met all day Wednesday to discuss Roberson’s case. In a surprise move at the end of the hearing, the committee issued a subpoena for Roberson to testify next week.

At its meeting in Austin, the committee heard testimony about Roberson’s case and whether a 2013 law designed to allow people in prison to challenge their convictions based on new scientific evidence was used in Roberson’s case ignored.

Anderson County District Attorney Allyson Mitchell, whose office prosecuted Roberson, told the committee that a hearing was held in 2022 in which Roberson’s attorneys presented their new evidence to a judge, who dismissed their claims.

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

Most of the House committee members are part of a bipartisan group of more than 80 state lawmakers, including at least 30 Republicans, who asked the parole board and Abbott to halt the execution. The case puts the shaken baby syndrome in the spotlight

Roberson’s case has reignited the debate over shaken baby syndrome, known in the medical community as head trauma abuse.

His attorneys 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 serious brain injury caused when a child’s head is injured by shaking or other violent impact, such as being thrown against a wall or thrown to the ground.

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

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

Roberson’s attorneys also suggested that his autism, then undiagnosed at the time of his daughter’s death, was used against him because authorities distrusted him due to his lack of emotion over her death. Autism affects the way people communicate and interact with others.

The Texas Supreme Court has halted a man’s execution in a shocked baby case after a last-minute appeal from lawmakers

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