AUSTIN (Nexstar) — After a dramatic, last-hour legal battle and an unprecedented stay of execution, Texas death row inmate Robert Roberson is set to testify to his innocence in front of House lawmakers in person at the Capitol on Monday.
In a last-hour ruling Thursday night, the Texas Supreme Court halted Roberson’s execution scheduled for that evening. Lawmakers subpoenaed Roberson to testify in front of the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee at a date after his execution in an effort to delay his death. The Court ruled the Texas Department of Criminal Justice must honor that subpoena.
Roberson was convicted in 2003 of murdering his two-year-old daughter. He has maintained his innocence ever since, and a bipartisan majority of the Texas House is demanding a new trial in light of new medical evidence that could exonerate him.
His testimony will assist lawmakers’ inquiry regarding whether courts are properly adhering to Texas’ 2013 “junk science” law, which allows for new trials in cases where scientific evidence is later found faulty. In Roberson’s case, medical experts testified Wednesday that the “shaken baby syndrome” hypothesis under which Roberson was convicted is now bad science. Instead, they say there is considerable evidence that Roberson’s daughter died of natural causes — not homicide.
“I want him to be able to tell his story, what his life was like prior to this, what the investigation looked like through his lens,” Chair of the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee Joe Moody, D-El Paso, told Nexstar. “We want to hear from him. He’s an autistic man who can, I think, shed light on his experience, and the legislature can use that information to make the decisions that we need to make going forward in making policy to let us do our job. And so I’m just grateful that the court respected our authority to issue that subpoena.”
Moody says their novel legal move is unprecedented, and no death row inmate has ever been granted the privilege to leave prison to testify in public. He is arranging the complicated logistics with TDCJ and the Department of Public Safety, he told Nexstar.
“Every case is very unique. This one is extremely unique because of the proximity and time to Mr. Roberson’s execution. So I anticipate that this was unprecedented for a reason. It’s because these situations don’t arise very often,” Moody said.
Late Thursday night, a group of lawmakers stood in solidarity with Roberson in Huntsville as he learned the news he would wake up on Friday morning.
“He was shocked, to say the least,” TDCJ Communications Director Amanda Hernandez said. “He praised God, and he thanked his supporters.”