The Supreme Court docket declined to dam Texas from executing Robert Roberson, who insists his conviction for murdering his 2-year-old daughter rests upon a debunked model of shaken child syndrome, however his execution is quickly on maintain below a state court docket ruling handed down moments beforehand.
Roberson, 57, was scheduled to be executed by deadly injection Thursday night, which might make him the primary individual within the U.S. to be put to loss of life over such a conviction.
In an order issued lower than two hours earlier, the Supreme Court docket denied Roberson’s emergency attraction to halt it. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a solo assertion explaining that the court docket was “powerless to act without a colorable federal claim” however burdened that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) nonetheless had authority to subject a 30-day delay.
“That could prevent a miscarriage of justice from occurring: executing a man who has raised credible evidence of actual innocence,” Sotomayor wrote.
Moments earlier than the Supreme Court docket’s order, nonetheless, Roberson’s execution was placed on maintain when a Texas Home committee emerged profitable in an uncommon last-ditch effort to delay it — for now.
On Wednesday, the committee subpoenaed Roberson to testify. They went to court docket on Thursday, when a decide granted their movement for a brief order blocking the state from executing him, in accordance with The Related Press and KXAN, which, like The Hill, is owned by Nexstar Media Group.
A jury in 2003 discovered Roberson responsible of murdering his 2-year-old daughter, Nikki Curtis, who died after medical doctors noticed subdural bleeding, mind swelling and retinal hemorrhages. On the time, these mixed signs have been seen as proof of shaken child syndrome attributable to youngster abuse.
Roberson maintains his innocence, and his attorneys level to specialists who’ve since discredited the medical idea. His attorneys argue Roberson’s daughter as an alternative died from pneumonia that progressed to sepsis, which induced her to fall from her mattress and endure head trauma. Additionally they say Roberson’s autism was used in opposition to him.
“Robert did not harm Nikki in any way,” Roberson’s attorneys wrote to the Supreme Court docket. “There was no crime — only the tragic natural death of a little girl.”
Roberson’s Supreme Court docket bid to dam his execution rested on a Texas legislation handed over a decade in the past that permits challenges to convictions primarily based on modified science.
The Texas Court docket of Felony Appeals declined to dam Roberson’s execution on procedural grounds. In his emergency attraction to the Supreme Court docket, Roberson’s attorneys claimed his due course of rights have been violated as a result of the state panel tossed his case in a “boilerplate” order that contained no evaluation of his arguments.
“We have reached an ominous moment in terms of the sanctity of law when vast swathes of the public can be more aware of the facts of this case and moved by the injustice it represents than the state judiciary that was charged with adjudicating it,” his attorneys wrote in court docket filings.
However Texas contended Roberson “falls short” of proving his innocence and at most confirmed a “battle of the experts” in regards to the proof.
“He clearly advocates for a new rule — that a state court must provide an explanation for the application of a state procedural rule when a capital state habeas applicant raises a claim of actual innocence based on new scientific and medical evidence. That was not the rule at the time of Roberson’s conviction, and it’s not the rule today,” the Texas lawyer basic’s workplace wrote in court docket filings.
The Supreme Court docket not often intervenes to dam executions. Final time period, the justices acquired roughly 30 requests to take action however solely halted one, in accordance with The Hill’s evaluation of the court docket’s docket.
The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles on Wednesday voted to not suggest Roberson’s sentence be commuted to life in jail or delay his execution. Such a suggestion was required for Abbott, Texas’s Republican governor, to grant clemency, although he retains authority to offer a 30-day reprieve.
