Texas high court rejects execution delay for man convicted of ‘shaken baby’ murder

The Texas Supreme Court Nov. 15 denied a state House committee’s attempt to delay the execution of a man convicted of murder in the 2002 death of his 2-year-old daughter, after lawmakers questioned the evidence behind his conviction.

Robert Roberson was scheduled Oct. 17 to become the first person in the U.S. executed over a murder conviction connected to a diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome in the 2002 death of his then 2-year-old daughter, Nikki Curtis.

But that conviction, a group of Republican and Democratic legislators argued, was based on outdated science. They called into question whether a crime was committed at all, arguing evidence instead suggests that the chronically ill child likely died from complications with severe pneumonia. They argued such a mistake was a common misdiagnosis at the time.

A bipartisan group of state House lawmakers seeking to delay Roberson’s scheduled execution issued a subpoena for his testimony before the state House of Representatives, an unprecedented maneuver that was criticized by the governor’s office. The Texas Supreme Court temporarily halted the execution in response to the subpoena in October.

But in its November opinion, the Texas Supreme Court said, “The dispute before us has nothing to do with Roberson’s guilt or innocence or with the propriety of his sentence, and we express no view on any of those criminal-law matters.”

The court said its decision was based on the “separation-of-powers question presented.”

“Categorically prioritizing a legislative subpoena over a scheduled execution, in other words, would become a potent legal tool that could be wielded not just to obtain necessary testimony but to forestall an execution,” the opinion said.

The Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops has urged prayer for Roberson and for a stay of his execution. The conference said in a recent newsletter that in the event “a new date is requested, state law requires a 90-day posting of the date so the earliest the State would execute him will be in February.”

“We continue to pray for Robert and that the facts of his case, in light of new scientific evidence, will receive a thorough review by the courts,” the conference said.

Pope Francis revised the Catechism of the Catholic Church in 2018 to clarify the church’s teaching that capital punishment is morally “inadmissible” in the modern world and that the church works with determination for its abolishment worldwide.

The hearing held by lawmakers in October for Roberson drew advocates like television personality and psychologist Phil McGraw and legal affairs novelist John Grisham. Roberson was slated to testify at the hearing, but that appearance did not happen amid lawmakers’ dispute with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton about whether that would be in person or via video conference.

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