LIVINGSTON — A group of bipartisan state lawmakers traveled Friday afternoon to the Allan B. Polunsky Unit to meet, pray and share hope with an East Texas man who has spent the past two decades on death row. Yet, less than three weeks out from his second execution date, Robert Roberson was by far the most hopeful person in the room, they said.
“That is a man who, even in a very dark time, a very questionable time for him, has nothing but hope and joy in his heart,” said Rep. Joe Moody, D-El Paso, outside the Livingston prison. “That is a man who is grateful for the time that we had to spend today. He told us this is a day that he would never forget, and I can assure you it is a day we will never forget.”
Roberson, 57, was convicted of capital murder in 2003 for reportedly shaking his 2-year-old daughter, Nikki, to death. He is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Oct. 17 in Huntsville.
Roberson previously faced execution in 2016, but the date was stayed after his attorneys argued the conviction involving “shaken baby syndrome” was based on “junk science” and “false, misleading and scientifically invalid testimony.”
The 90-minute visit Friday — which in addition to Moody included Reps. Lacey Hull, R-Houston, Christian Manuel, D-Beaumont, Kronda Thimesch, R-Lewisville, John Bucy, D-Austin and Salman Bhojani, D-Euless — came less than two weeks after more than 80 state lawmakers signed a letter raising “grave concern” that Texas was again preparing to execute Roberson “for a crime that did not occur.”
The letter was written in support of a clemency petition filed Sept. 17 asking for Roberson’s death sentence to be commuted, or the execution delayed 180 days to allow the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and Gov. Greg Abbott to give the filing “appropriate consideration.” The board has not yet voted on whether to recommend clemency.
Others who have supported Roberson include John Grisham, bestselling author and Innocence Project board member, and Brian Wharton, the former Palestine detective who led the investigation and whose testimony helped convict him.
“I believe he is innocent,” Hull said. “We want our justice system to work and I think Texans deserve to know that if a man is going to be executed, that it is right and he is guilty.”
When Nikki died in February 2002, the cause was ruled to be blunt-force head injuries. Roberson, according to court documents, said Nikki accidentally fell from her bed, but medical staff at a Palestine hospital alerted police because they believed her injuries — including bruises on her face, a bump on the back of her head and bleeding outside her brain — were suspicious.
Experts such as Patrick Barnes, professor emeritus at Stanford University, have said when Roberson was tried in 2003, the bleeding over Nikki’s brain was part of a triad of symptoms that shaken baby syndrome diagnoses were often based on, in addition to brain swelling and bleeding in the eyes.
In the decades since, Barnes said research has established those symptoms are not “presumptive proof of abuse.”
Attorneys wrote in the clemency filing that scientific and medical evidence now show that Nikki, who was chronically ill, died of a combination of natural and accidental causes, including “severe, undiagnosed” pneumonia.
“We can’t write a bill right now to do anything for Robert,” Moody said. “We can use the time that we have and the voices that we have to spread this message across Texas. … It’s incumbent upon us to demand the best of our justice system and what’s happening in this case is not the best.”
Meeting with Roberson face-to-face, the lawmakers said, gave them something the court documents and the science could not: a chance to see his humanity.
As they sat together in a small circle of folding chairs, Roberson told them about the work he has done in ministry and Bible study groups to strengthen his relationship with God. They talked about his childhood and the best of growing up on a farm. They laughed together when Roberson said he was once one of countless young men to latch on to the pipe dream of becoming an NFL player. They asked about his favorite memories, to which Roberson shared stories of holding his daughter and watching his baby cousins open presents on Christmas morning.
“We didn’t see a man who was scared, we didn’t see a man who was angry,” Bucy said. “We saw a man who was not losing his faith, but sharing his faith.”
Moody said Roberson’s hope will continue to inspire his own, but acknowledged he understands what Roberson is up against. Earlier this month, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals dismissed a motion to halt the execution and a new application for relief — without reviewing the merits of the claims.
“There is nothing easy about this,” Moody said. “But the difficult work is the work worth doing.”