HOUSTON (AP) — A Texas man who could become the first person in the United States to be executed for a murder conviction related to his diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome will be executed, amid claims from a coalition of lawyers and diverse advocates. , faces lethal injection Thursday night. He was innocent and was convicted on flawed scientific evidence.
Robert Roberson has been waiting to see whether his execution will be stopped by either Gov. Greg Abbott or the U.S. Supreme Court, the last two steps he could take to seek a stay of execution. He is scheduled to receive a lethal injection at the state prison in Huntsville.
Roberson, 57, was convicted of killing his 2-year-old daughter Nikki Curtis in 2002 in Palestine, East Texas. Mr. Roberson has long maintained his innocence, backed by prominent Republicans and the lead detective in the case.
“He is innocent and we are going to kill him for something he didn’t do,” said Brian Wharton, the lead Palestinian police detective who investigated Curtis’ death.
Mr. Roberson’s lawyers were waiting to see whether Mr. Abbott would grant Mr. Roberson a one-time 30-day reprieve. This is the only action Abbott can take in the case, since the Texas Board of Pardons and Parole denied Roberson’s request for clemency on Wednesday.
The board voted unanimously, 6-0, not to recommend commuting Roberson’s death sentence to life in prison or delaying his execution. All members of the Board of Directors are appointed by the Governor. Since the state resumed executions in 1982, parole boards have recommended clemency in death row cases only six times.
In nearly a decade as governor, Abbott has only stopped an impending execution once, in 2018 when he saved the life of Thomas Whitaker, whose father had asked that his son not be put to death. His father had survived a shooting that Whitaker masterminded.
“We pray that Governor Abbott will do everything in his power to prevent the tragic and irreversible mistake of executing an innocent man,” Gretchen Sween, one of Roberson’s attorneys, said in a statement.
A spokesperson for Mr. Abbott did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
Mr. Roberson’s attorney also has a request pending with the Supreme Court. The nation’s highest courts have rarely given death row inmates an 11th-hour reprieve.
Late Wednesday, a Texas House committee that met all day on Roberson’s case issued a subpoena for him to testify at a hearing next week. It was not immediately clear whether Thursday’s execution could be delayed as a result of the committee’s request. A spokesperson for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice did not immediately respond to an email.
One of those calling for blocking Mr. Roberson’s execution is Doug Deason, a Texas Republican Party major donor and conservative activist who has spoken to Mr. Abbott’s staff.
“I believe he is innocent,” Deason wrote in a post to X on Tuesday.
During a meeting in Austin, the Texas House Criminal Justice Committee discussed Roberson’s case and the 2013 law enacted to allow people in prison to challenge their convictions based on new scientific evidence. He heard testimony about whether the law was ignored in Roberson’s case.
Anderson County District Attorney Alison Mitchell, whose office prosecuted Roberson, told the committee that a court hearing will be held in 2022 in which Roberson’s attorneys will present new evidence to the judge, but the judge said it rejected their claims. Mitchell said the prosecution’s case shows that Curtis was abused by her father.
“The combined evidence shows that a murder occurred here. Mr. Roberson took the life of his almost 3-year-old daughter,” Mitchell said.
Most of the committee members were part of a bipartisan group of more than 80 state legislators, including at least 30 Republicans, who had asked the parole board and Abbott to halt executions.
Mr. Roberson’s scheduled execution has renewed debate in the medical community about shaken baby syndrome, also known as abusive head trauma.
His lawyers, Texas lawmakers, medical experts and others, including best-selling author John Grisham, argue that his conviction was based on incomplete and now outdated scientific evidence. . This diagnosis refers to severe brain damage that occurs when a child’s head is injured by a violent impact, such as a shake or being slammed against a wall or thrown on the floor.
Roberson’s supporters do not deny that the head and other injuries caused by child abuse are real. But doctors misdiagnosed Curtis’ injuries as related to shaken baby syndrome, and new evidence showed he died from complications related to severe pneumonia.
Roberson’s lawyers claim he was wrongfully arrested and convicted after taking his daughter to the hospital. She fell from her bed at Roberson’s home after being seriously ill for about a week.
Ms. Roberson’s lawyers also argued that her daughter’s undiagnosed autism at the time of her death made authorities suspicious of Ms. Roberson because of her lack of emotion in response to what happened to her daughter. This suggests that it may have been used against Autism affects the way people communicate and interact with others.
The American Academy of Pediatrics, other medical organizations and prosecutors say the diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome is justified and that doctors consider all possibilities, including disease, when determining whether an injury was the cause. are.
Mr. Roberson’s scheduled execution comes less than a month after the state of Missouri put Marcellus Williams to death, commuting Mr. Roberson’s conviction and death sentence to life in prison. Questions remained as to whether it should have been done. Williams was convicted in the 1998 murder of social worker and former St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Richa Gale.
Roberson’s execution is scheduled to take place on the same day that Alabama is scheduled to execute Derrick Dearman, who was convicted of killing five people with an ax and gun in a 2016 drug case.
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