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Editor’s note: this article was corrected to include the correct date of Roberson’s schedule execution, which was to take place on October 17.
CV NEWS FEED // Texas Supreme Court granted Robert Roberson — a man on death row for murdering his own child — a stay of execution on October 17 after a group of bipartisan lawmakers pleaded for mercy.
According to USA Today, the lawmakers’ efforts delayed his execution, which was set to take place by lethal injection at 6 p.m. on October 17.
After the hours-long delay, the group of five Republican and four Democratic lawmakers on the Texas House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence ultimately persuaded the court to grant the stay and save a man many believe to be innocent.
Roberson had been in solitary confinement for the past 20 years after being convicted for the death of his daughter Nikki in 2002.
The 2-year-old, who had been prescribed now-illegal opioids for chronic illness, had pneumonia in both lungs and undiagnosed sepsis. She fell out of her bed in the middle of the night. Roberson said that he comforted her and they both went back to sleep.
The next morning, Nikki’s lips were blue and she was not breathing. Roberson brought her to the hospital, and she was declared dead the following day. Doctors concluded that she had died from “shaken baby syndrome,” despite her other health issues. This is now widely considered a “junk science” diagnosis, according to USA Today.
The lead investigator of the case, Brian Wharton, wrote, “Robert is a completely innocent man and we got it completely wrong, because we were looking for the wrong things.”
He added, “I was wrong. I didn’t see Robert. I did not hear Robert. I can tell you now, he is a good man. He is a kind man. He is a gracious man. And he did not do what the state of Texas and I have accused him of.”
Cardinal Daniel DiNardo from the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston had pleaded for a stay of execution, along with the other bishops of Texas, according to a news release on the Archdiocese’s website.
In an October 17 post on the Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops’ website, the bishops thanked the Supreme Court for granting Roberson a stay of execution and added that his unjust sentence was partially due to the autism diagnosis he received later in life.
“[Roberson] immediately fell under a cloud of suspicion due to his lack of emotion when he brought his daughter to the emergency room,” their statement read. “Robert has since been diagnosed with autism, which could explain the flat affect police and medical staff observed at the time. One of the major hallmarks of autism is a reduced range of emotional expression.”
The bishops also referenced Texas’ 2013 “junk science” law, which allows prisoners to challenge convictions that were based on outdated scientific evidence.
“Now is the time for all Texans to demand justice for Robert and denounce the execution of a likely innocent man which violates the laws of God and humanity to which we hold one another accountable,” the bishops wrote.
Roberson will presumably testify before the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee on October 21, USA Today reported. The committee will be looking at the lawfulness of Roberson’s conviction as it relates to the “junk science” law.
