Texas execution halted – Robert Roberson alive for now!

A tumultuous week of incredible twists and turns preceding the scheduled execution date of Texan Robert Roberson on Oct. 17 ended with Roberson still alive.

A collective gasp of relief was heard around the state at 4:00 p.m. on Oct 17, when an Austin judge issued an order blocking the execution from taking place. This came after an outrageously negative court hearing, a unanimous denial by the Texas Board of Pardons and thousands of petitions turned in by exonerees with the Texas Innocence Network. Also, there were multiple press conferences and an eight-hour hearing by the Texas House of Representatives Criminal Jurisprudence Committee on Texas’ junk science law that ended with their passing a resolution to subpoena Roberson to testify on Oct. 21. 

But the fight didn’t stop there. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton immediately appealed the CJC’s resolution to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals which overturned the ruling that had blocked the execution. Then, legislators from the CJC appealed the CCA ruling to the Texas Supreme Court which ultimately stopped the 6:00 p.m. execution at 10:00 p.m. that night.

During all this maneuvering, Roberson was in a cell in the death house next to the execution chamber for seven or eight hours not knowing what was happening.

The people who Roberson had asked to witness his execution included his spouse Manuela Roberson, his friends Linda Snyder and David Snyder and Brian Wharton. Wharton was the police detective who investigated his case and helped convict him in Palestine, Texas, in 2002. Wharton later realized his error and campaigned to stop the execution, because he came to believe Roberson was an innocent man.

Executions more widely challenged

This case, coupled with that of a likely innocent Marcellus Williams executed in Missouri on Sept. 24, has generated widespread publicity regarding the shaky grounds that the death penalty sits on in the U.S. After Williams’ execution, the NAACP said in a post on X, “Missouri lynched another innocent Black man.”

Roberson was convicted in 2002 of murdering his 2-year-old daughter Nikki, who had fallen out of bed and was turning blue, because she could not breathe. At the hospital, the child, who had been sickly her entire short life, was pronounced dead.

Because Roberson did not appear to be grieving, the hospital staff became suspicious, and he was ultimately charged and convicted due to their diagnosis of “shaken baby syndrome.” However, an autopsy later revealed Nikki’s death was caused by pneumonia and sepsis.

Roberson has autism; his actions were quite typical for a person on the autism spectrum. But in 2002, no one at the police department or hospital in Palestine, Texas, knew about his disability, which caused him to not display the emotions expected of a grieving father.

For more than two decades Roberson proclaimed his innocence, saying his little girl died from being sick. Finally, when he was able to get good attorneys, the facts started coming out.

Attorney Gretchen Sween presented the facts about Roberson, his autism and Nikki’s serious health issues, which had caused her father to take her to the doctor many times before she died. Scientists and doctors with impeccable credentials testified in an evidentiary hearing in 2021, yet despite the clear and detailed facts that shaken baby syndrome is no longer considered a viable cause of death, the judge sided with the prosecution and denied relief. Texas’ highest criminal court agreed.

Challenging junk science laws

At the time of Roberson’s trial, shaken baby syndrome — now referred to as abusive head trauma — was a common misdiagnosis.

In 2013 the Texas Legislature passed what is now called the junk science law, or statute 11.073. The law allows a person convicted of a crime to seek relief if the evidence used against them is no longer credible.

However, according to a report by the Texas Defender Service, “of the 25 applications filed by people sentenced to death, 64% were dismissed or denied. Applications from death-sentenced people constituted 34% of all applications filed. The deadly consequences of this pattern are clear: People may be executed following convictions that rest on faulty science, because they are unable to obtain relief under 11.073.” (tinyurl.com/4jyw36s3)

When an execution date was ordered this past summer, action went into high gear. A bi-partisan majority of the Texas House of Representatives urged the state to grant clemency. Famed writer and retired attorney John Grisham penned op-ed pieces in the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post. Almost all Texas media was reporting on the case as were national press from the New York Times to CNN to Time Magazine.

A group of legislators spent several hours at the prison housing death row visiting Roberson and praying with him. Even the coach of the San Antonio Spurs basketball team urged Texans to contact the governor and ask for the execution to be stopped.

No one knows what will happen after Roberson testifies before the House Committee. Another execution date could be immediately set by either the Anderson County District Attorney or Attorney General Paxton, although it would have to be at least 90 days away. This would then necessitate a new round of appeals and hopefully some court or judge or body would find a way to listen to the facts of the case and either drop the charges or order a new trial.

When Roberson was asked what he wanted, he simply said he wanted to go home.