ANDERSON COUNTY, Texas — Robert Roberson, an East Texas death row inmate whose execution was halted in October, is defending the actions of a Texas House committee that contributed to stopping his death in the final hours.
Roberson III, 57, was set to be executed Thursday, Oct. 17, in connection with the 2003 Anderson County conviction in the death of his 2-year-old daughter Nikki Curtis. He has claimed his innocence for roughly two decades with his lawyer citing junk science as the reason for his conviction.
However, because of intervention by the House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence and ultimately the Texas Supreme Court, the scheduled execution was blocked for the time being. That committee issued a subpoena seeking for Roberson to testify about his case and the state's junk science law that his lawyers have attempted to use multiple times to exonerate Roberson. He ultimately did not testify because representatives had concerns over his autism and current technology.
In a filing to the state Supreme Court, Roberson's lawyer Gretchen Sween wrote that Roberson has repeatedly tried to have Texas courts to consider the changes in scientific understandings based on the 2013 junk science law, including how short falls and naturally occurring illnesses like pneumonia can be misinterpreted as abuse. Because of these multiple failed attempts, Sween says there needs to be changes considered.
"That kind of failure is precisely what lawmakers, committed to criminal justice reform, should investigate through the kind of hearing convened by the House’s Criminal Jurisprudence Committee last month," Sween wrote.
Also in the brief, Sween said the brief that State Rep. Cody Harris and other representatives denouncing the actions of the House committee wrote is based on "extreme distortions and outright fabrications of the record" and it will not aid the Supreme Court in any respect. It also claims that Harris' brief wants the court to consider an unauthenticated document from 2008 and the statement of a prison inmate who was previously deemed not credible.
Sween said claims from Harris' brief and statements from the Texas Office of Attorney General have taken to "this injustice to a new low."
"Mr. Roberson has always maintained his innocence, rejecting multiple plea deals that would have spared him the death penalty. But he, who has no medical training, has also never claimed to be able to explain what caused Nikki to cease breathing," Sween wrote in the brief.
In a brief filed with the Texas Supreme Court, Harris, who represents Anderson, Cherokee, Navarro and part of Henderson counties, and other representatives said the committee held a "one-sided trial" that "left Nikki and her family without the justice they deserve."
Sween said the trial was not "one-sided" during the committee hearing as Anderson County District Attorney Alyson Mitchell was invited, but she proved to be unfamiliar with post-conviction and trial records related to Roberson's case.
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