A bipartisan group of Texas lawmakers on Tuesday called on Republican Gov. Greg Abbott and the state's Board of Pardons and Paroles to halt the execution of a man convicted of killing his 2-year-old daughter in 2002.
Robert Roberson is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Oct. 17. Prosecutors have argued that his daughter, Nikki Curtis, died from injuries sustained from being violently shaken.
The petition, filed by 84 of the state's 150 lawmakers, medical experts, death penalty lawyers, a former detective who worked on the case and best-selling author John Grisham, argues that the case is based on flawed scientific evidence and marks a rare display of broad bipartisan support in the Lone Star State against the planned executions. Associated Press.
“There is a bipartisan majority in the Texas House of Representatives who have serious doubts about the execution of Robert Roberson,” Democratic Rep. Joe Moody said at a news conference at the State Capitol. “This is one of those issues that is a matter of life and death, and our political ideology has no place here.”
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Robert Roberson III is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Oct. 17. (Texas Department of Criminal Justice via The Associated Press)
Texas law allows the governor to grant a one-time 30-day reprieve, but a full pardon requires the recommendation of a majority of the governor-appointed Board of Pardons and Paroles.
Since taking office in 2015, Governor Abbott has only pardoned one death row inmate, commuting the death sentence of Thomas Whitaker to life in prison in 2018, just hours before his scheduled execution. Whitaker had been convicted of conspiring to shoot and kill his mother and brother and wound his father.
The lawmakers' petition argues that Roberson's conviction was based on inaccurate scientific evidence and highlights that claims that Nikki's symptoms were consistent with shaken baby syndrome have been largely debunked by experts.
“Nikki's death is not a crime unless her parents' failure to explain complex medical issues that even trained medical professionals could not understand at the time,” the petition states. “We know that Nikki's lungs became severely infected and she suffered from a lack of oxygen for several weeks before and after she collapsed.”
Rep. Joe Moody, R-El Paso, Texas, speaks during a House Investigative Committee meeting at the State Capitol in Austin, Texas, June 9, 2022. (Associated Press)
Roberson, who maintains his innocence, took his daughter to the hospital in 2002 after waking her up to find her unconscious and with blue lips. Doctors at the time were skeptical of Roberson's claim that her daughter had fallen out of bed while sleeping, and some testified at the trial that her symptoms were consistent with signs of shaken baby syndrome.
Many medical experts now say doctors are diagnosing shaken baby syndrome too quickly, before taking into account a child's medical history.
Medical experts who signed the petition include those from Stanford University Medical Center, the University of Pennsylvania and Children's Hospital of Minnesota.
Roberson's lawyers argued that because Roberson is autistic, his behavior was unfairly used against him and that doctors failed to rule out other medical explanations for the baby's symptoms, such as pneumonia.
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Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced the future of Texas' space industry in 2024 at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, on March 26, 2024. (Photo by SUZANNE CORDEIRO/AFP via Getty Images)
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The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals had stayed the execution in 2016, but last year the court allowed the trial to resume and set a new date for Roberson's execution.
Prosecutors argue that the evidence against Roberson remains strong and that the science behind Shaken Baby Syndrome has not changed as much as the defense has argued.
Brian Wharton, a former chief of criminal investigations in Palestine, Texas, who helped prosecute Roberson, signed a petition and publicly called for the state to halt the execution.
“Given everything I know now, I firmly believe Robert is innocent,” Wharton said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
