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A bipartisan group of Texas lawmakers on Tuesday referred to as on Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, and the state’s Board of Pardons and Paroles to cease the execution of a person convicted of killing his two-year-old daughter in 2002.
Robert Roberson is scheduled to be executed by deadly injection Oct. 17. Prosecutors claimed his daughter, Nikki Curtis, was killed after sustaining accidents brought on by being violently shaken.
The petition from 84 lawmakers from the 150-member state House in addition to medical consultants, demise penalty attorneys, a former detective on the case and bestselling novelist John Grisham argue that the case was constructed on defective scientific proof in a uncommon exhibiting of widespread bipartisan help within the Lone Star State towards a deliberate execution, in keeping with The Associated Press.
“There is a robust majority, a bipartisan majority, of the Texas House which have critical doubts about Robert Roberson’s execution,” Democrat Rep. Joe Moody mentioned at a press convention on the state Capitol. “This is a type of points that’s life and demise, and our political ideology would not come into play right here.”
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Texas legislation permits the governor to grant a one-time, 30-day reprieve from execution. But full clemency requires a suggestion from nearly all of the Board of Pardons and Paroles, which is appointed by the governor.
Since Abbott was sworn into workplace in 2015, he has granted clemency in just one demise row case, when he commuted Thomas Whitaker’s demise sentence to life in jail an hour earlier than his scheduled execution in 2018. Whitaker had been convicted of arranging a plot that left his mom and brother fatally shot and his father wounded.
The lawmakers’ petition argues Roberson’s conviction was primarily based on inaccurate scientific proof and emphasizes that consultants have largely debunked allegations that Nikki’s signs have been per shaken child syndrome.
“Nikki’s demise … was not a criminal offense — until it’s a crime for a guardian to be unable to clarify advanced medical issues that even educated medical professionals failed to grasp on the time,” the petition reads. “We know that Nikki’s lungs have been severely contaminated and straining for oxygen — for days and even weeks earlier than her collapse.”
Texas Rep. Joe Moody, D-El Paso, speaks at a gathering of the House Investigative Committee, June 9, 2022, on the state Capitol in Austin, Texas. (AP)
Roberson, who has maintained his innocence, took his daughter to the hospital in 2002 after he awakened and located her unconscious with blue on her lips. Doctors on the time have been skeptical of Roberson’s declare that his daughter had fallen up and doing whereas they have been sleeping, with some testifying at trial that her signs have been per the indicators of shaken child syndrome.
Many medical professionals now say that medical doctors diagnose shaken child syndrome too quickly earlier than taking into consideration a toddler’s medical historical past.
The medical consultants who signed on to the petition embody these from Stanford University Medical Center, the University of Pennsylvania and Children’s Minnesota Hospital.
Roberson’s attorneys mentioned his demeanor was wrongfully used towards him, as he’s autistic, and that medical doctors didn’t rule out different medical explanations for the toddler’s signs, together with pneumonia.
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Texas Governor Greg Abbott makes an announcement on the way forward for the area business in Texas, at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, on March 26, 2024. ((Photo by SUZANNE CORDEIRO/AFP through Getty Images))
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The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals beforehand halted his execution in 2016. However, final 12 months the court docket allowed the case to renew, and a brand new date was set to hold out Roberson’s demise.
Prosecutors keep that the proof towards Roberson stays sound and that the science of shaken child syndrome has not modified as a lot because the protection argued.
Brian Wharton, a former chief of detectives in Palestine, Texas, who helped in Roberson’s prosecution, signed the petition and publicly demanded that the state halt the execution.
“Knowing all the pieces I do know now, I’m firmly satisfied that Robert is harmless,” Wharton mentioned.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
