Texas Supreme Court issues temporary stay of execution in Robert Roberson case

TYLER, Texas (KLTV) – The Supreme Court of Texas has overruled the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals by ordering a temporary stay of execution. Robert Roberson will not be executed on Thursday night.

Roberson did not make a public statement, but according to the communications director for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, he was shocked. He praised God, and then thanked all those who were there supporting him.

Roberson’s attorney Gretchen Sween sent the following statement after the temporary stay:

The vast team fighting for Robert Roberson–people all across Texas, the country, and the world–are elated tonight that a contingent of brave, bipartisan Texas lawmakers chose to dig deep into the facts of Robert’s case that no court had yet considered and recognized that his life was worth fighting for. He lives to fight another day and hopes that his experience can help improve the integrity of our criminal legal system. Thank you to all who have supported Robert, an innocent man on Texas’s death row.”

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals had ruled earlier Thursday evening against the Texas House effort to subpoena an East Texan who has been scheduled to be executed Thursday night. Those working on behalf of Roberson appealed to the Supreme Court of Texas.

Roberson, 59, of Palestine, who was sentenced in 2003 for the 2002 death of his young daughter, was set to be put to death Thursday. Roberson has long claimed to be innocent, and has garnered the support and advocacy of people across the country who believe his conviction to have been unfounded, as it was claimed she died of shaken baby syndrome, which has now been disproven; examiners now say she died of pneumonia.

Little time is left for those working on behalf of Roberson, believing he is innocent based on new information in his daughter’s cause of death, to achieve clemency for him. That led those legislators to ask the Texas Supreme Court to intervene on Roberson’s half. Governor Abbott has not weighed in, at least publicly, at this point.

A Travis County judge had earlier Thursday issued a ruling to block the execution of Roberson. This was the ruling the court of appeals ruled against at around 8 p.m. The execution warrant expires at midnight.

Rep. Jeff Leach, chairman of the House Committee on Judiciary & Civil Jurisprudence, subpoenaed Roberson in a bid to keep him from being executed this week. The subpoena is regarding the new science behind so-called shaken baby syndrome and other factors in the case.

Judge Jessica Magrum of Travis County granted the request Thursday afternoon that Roberson can be subpoenaed to testify before a panel of Texas legislators next week, effectively pressing a pause button on Roberson’s execution on Thursday night, though the attorney general will appeal.

Texas Department of Criminal Justice Communications Director Amanda Hernandez confirmed to KLTV that as long as things are still pending in the court system, like this temporary restraining order due to the subpoena, the execution will not take place Thursday. The execution warrant is good through midnight on Thursday, however.

Rep. Lacey Hull (R-Harris) and Rep. John Bucy (D-Williamson) were at the prison Thursday night, advocating for Roberson’s life to be spared.

Rep. John Bucy (D-Williamson)

Rep. Lacey Hull (R-Harris)

The subpoena Leach submitted follows:

Roberson’s lawyers waited to see if Abbott would grant Roberson a one-time 30-day reprieve. It’s the only action Abbott can take in the case as the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles on Wednesday denied Roberson’s clemency petition.

The board voted unanimously, 6-0, to not recommend that Roberson’s death sentence be commuted to life in prison or that his execution be delayed. All members of the board are appointed by the governor. The parole board has recommended clemency in a death row case only six times since the state resumed executions in 1982.

In his nearly 10 years as governor, Abbott has halted only one imminent execution, in 2018 when he spared the life of Thomas Whitaker, whose father had asked that his son not be put to death. The father had survived a shooting that Whitaker had masterminded, according to the Associated Press.

As it stands at midnight on Thursday, Roberson will live to answer the subpoena to appear before the Texas House on Monday, where his case’s details in light of new “junk science” wording that may be applied to his case. Until then, he is being taken back to Livingston to his death row cell.

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