HUNTSVILLE, Texas — A judge has granted a temporary order stopping the execution of an East Texas man who has maintained his innocence for over two decades.
Robert Roberson III, 57, was set to be executed Thursday at 6 p.m. for the capital murder conviction in the death of 2-year-old daughter Nikki Curtis that has been highly contested.
But under two hours before the scheduled execution, Travis County District Judge Jessica Mangrum granted a temporary restraining order on the grounds of the subpoena for Roberson that was issued by the Texas House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence late Wednesday night.
The committee held a hearing on Wednesday over the 2013 so-called Junk Science Writ and Roberson's case, and at the conclusion of the hearing, the members issued the subpoena. That hearing they subpoenaed Roberson for is scheduled for Oct. 21, four days after he was scheduled to be executed.
During a hearing Thursday afternoon, Mangrum asked the representatives if the subpoena was legal and valid. State Rep. Joe Moody responded "the Legislature has authority to issue a subpoena and do its job."
Ed Marshall with the Texas Attorney General's Office defended the Texas Department of Criminal Justice in the hearing, and he told the judge that the subpoena was valid as far as he could tell.
"This is not a shaken baby case," Marshall told the judge. "[Roberson] was not indicted for shaking a baby. He was indicted for blunt force trauma and murder of a 2-year-old. The evidence supports the fact that there were multiple blunt for trauma impacts to the child's head."
The temporary order stopping Roberson's execution shall be valid for 14 days and a hearing will be held in Travis County on Oct. 31 to consider a temporary injunction. The state is planning to appeal the temporary restraining order.
The 2013 junk science law in question allows people to challenge wrongful convictions by showing changes in the field of forensic science.
In 2003, Roberson was convicted of capital murder in the death of his 2-year-old daughter Nikki Curtis, who was found unresponsive and taken to the hospital by Roberson. He maintained his innocence for roughly two decades with his lawyer citing junk science as the reason for his conviction.
His defense team has long said that Nikki's death was not caused by abuse or violent shaking as suggested in Roberson's 2002 trial. The defense says the now-debunked "Shaken Baby Syndrome" hypothesis was used to convict Roberson.
On Wednesday afternoon, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles voted against commuting Roberson’s death sentence to life in prison or delaying his execution. His last chances to be saved from execution were assumed to be the U.S. Supreme Court or Gov. Greg Abbott's intervention.
On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court denied Roberson's request to stay the scheduled execution.
In a statement regarding the court's decision, Justice Sonia Sotomayor emphasized that very few cases more urgently call for a stay of execution "than one where the accused has made a serious showing of actual innocence, as Roberson as here." But she said there is no claim under federal law for the Supreme Court to act on. Instead, she said Roberson's only hope is a reprieve from Abbott.
These filings come after Judge Alfonso Charles on Tuesday during a hearing in an Anderson County courtroom denied a request to vacate Roberson's execution date.
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