Death row inmate Robert Roberson will testify at the hearing at the Capitol

On Thursday, a subpoena from a Texas House committee bought death row inmate Robert Roberson — who was hours away from becoming the first American to be put to death on a shaken baby syndrome conviction — more than three months to live after the Texas Supreme. The Court effectively stayed his execution.

Now, on the day Roberson is scheduled to answer that subpoena, it remains unclear if and how he will testify after a new wave of legal filings and behind-the-scenes communications.

While the state prison system said Saturday it will not make Roberson available for in-person testimony, lawmakers have expressed uncertainty about whether Roberson can answer their subpoenas virtually, according to court documents. Roberson’s attorney Gretchen Sween told the State House in a letter that Roberson cannot effectively appear virtually because of his autism and his inexperience with Zoom, adding that she objected because he would not be provided with counsel. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice did not immediately respond to the American Statesman’s questions.

Watch Robert Roberson’s testimony live

The hearing will be streamed live beginning at noon at https://house.texas.gov/video-audio/

Gov. Greg Abbott is trying to quash Roberson’s testimony to House

Adding to the chaos, Gov. Greg Abbott, who broke weeks of silence in the death row inmate’s case, asked the Texas Supreme Court in a court filing early Monday morning to subpoena House lawmakers. Delegates to reject.

In an amicus brief, Abbott argued that only the governor has the power to grant clemency, including a 30-day reprieve, and that Thursday’s court order would thwart the separation of powers enshrined in the state constitution.

The House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence hearing will focus on whether lawmakers should revise a decade-old law intended to provide redress for people convicted based on faulty science, Section 11.073 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure.

Who is Robert Roberson?

Roberson, 57, of Palestine, Texas, about 200 miles northeast of Austin, came within minutes of being put to death Thursday evening before the Texas Supreme Court upheld a Travis County judge’s ruling that the House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence was valid. effectively delaying his execution until a new date can be set. The order does not address Roberson’s underlying criminal conviction.

Roberson was convicted in 2003 of murdering his two-year-old daughter Nikki, but Roberson and a number of high-profile advocates — including both Republican and Democratic state lawmakers — have maintained the man is innocent. His daughter’s diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome has been questioned in light of evidence that she was given inappropriate doses of cough medicine and that she had pneumonia and sepsis, which may have led to her death. Prosecutors and the state have maintained that Roberson abused the child and that she died from blunt force trauma, although a detective who played a key role in the original trial now says he is confident Roberson killed his daughter.

Members of the Criminal Jurisprudence Committee previously told the Court of Criminal Appeals that Roberson’s death sentence, handed down in 2003, relied solely on the theory of shaken baby syndrome, and they included in their legal brief a statement from Dr. Norman Guthkelch, a physician known for establishing the theory of shaken baby syndrome. The syndrome hypothesis is that it should not be relied upon to obtain convictions.

More: In stunning fashion, the Texas Supreme Court has halted Robert Roberson’s execution in the shaken baby case

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Will death row inmate Robert Roberson testify in person at Capitol?