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October 18, 2024
Amid serious claims of innocence, Texas Supreme Court halts execution based on legislative subpoena
This local article, headlined "In stunning move, Texas Supreme Court halts Robert Roberson execution in 'shaken baby' case," provides an effective review (with links) of the legal drama yesterday that ultimately halted a closely watched execution date. Here are just some excerpts of just some part of quite a story:
The Texas Supreme Court late Thursday spared Robert Roberson on the night he was set to die by lethal injection, a rare and head-spinning eleventh-hour decision in one of the most controversial death penalty cases in years.
The all-Republican court's decision comes in response to a first-of-its-kind legal maneuver in which a state House committee voted to subpoena Roberson for a hearing scheduled days after his execution date. It could buy Roberson — who was set to become the first American executed for a conviction involving "shaken baby" syndrome at 6 p.m. Thursday — weeks or months to live as court proceedings continue to play out.
The order caps a whirlwind two-day effort from a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers who feverishly fought to keep a man they believe to be innocent from the execution chamber and riveted the nation's attention on Texas' application of the death penalty.
The House representatives who led the movement expressed relief in a Thursday night joint statement. "For over 20 years, Robert Roberson has spent 23.5 hours of every single day in solitary confinement in a cell no bigger than the closets of most Texans, longing and striving to be heard," said Reps. Jeff Leach, R-Plano, and Joe Moody, D-El Paso. "And while some courthouses may have failed him, the Texas House has not."
The drama Thursday took off when Leach and Moody successfully asked a Travis County state District Court to temporarily stay the execution to allow Roberson to answer a summons that the House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence unanimously approved Wednesday.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals shortly thereafter overturned that lower court's approval of the lawmakers' request in a 5-4 decision, and minutes later Leach and Moody filed an emergency motion with the Texas Supreme Court to intervene, arguing the Criminal Appeals Court lacked jurisdiction over a ruling made in a civil court. Leach posted on social media before the state Supreme Court's decision that he was "Praying as if everything depends on God, which it does. But working as if everything depends on us."
The state Supreme Court agreed with the lawmakers, with Justice Evan Young writing in a concurrence that "the underlying criminal-law matter is within the Court of Criminal Appeals’ authority, but the relief sought here is civil in nature, as are the claims that have been presented to the district court."
Roberson's case for a reprieve has drawn widespread support from more than 80 Texas House members as well as from U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Dr. Phil and others. After the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a petition to delay the execution around 4 p.m. Thursday, Sotomayor wrote in a statement that "mounting evidence suggests ... Roberson committed no crime at all." Sotomayor and others have urged Gov. Greg Abbott to grant Roberson a 30-day reprieve, but the governor has remained silent on the case.
October 18, 2024 at 09:48 AM | Permalink
Comments
Can somebody explain how the Texas Supreme Court (which only has authority over civil cases) can stay the execution of a criminal sentence when the equivalent court with jurisdiction over criminal cases (the Court of Criminal Appeals) has rejected the stay? Does this mean that the legislature, by issuing subpoenas, can effectively commute a criminal sentence?
Not saying that the Court of Criminal Appeals should not have issued the stay, but this seems to be the Texas Supreme Court and Texas legislature usurping the authority given to the governor and the Court of Criminal Appeals.
Posted by: tmm | Oct 18, 2024 10:02:01 AM
I know nothing about Texas procedures here, tmm, but I sense this is a persistent challenge in a variety of settings -- eg, is post-covictions review a civil or criminal proceeding (which can, in various ways, implicate different constitutional rules as well as other matters of procedure)? It seems civil rights suits are understood to be civil, but there are seemingly court-created rules limiting when/how those suits can proceed if/when a criminal defendant is involved. I know there is some jurisprudence on these fronts, but not a lot of it seems all that clear or compelling.
Posted by: Doug B | Oct 18, 2024 11:51:02 AM
Knowing a little about Texas procedure, they are one of a handful of states that have separate high courts for criminal and civil cases. Collateral review cases in Texas goes to the Court of Criminal Appeals. From what I am reading, the essence of the Texas Supreme Court ruling is that this current case is about enforcing the legislative subpoena. In my mind, there is a problem if a legislative committee can block executions by issuing subpoenas for people on death row. That seems to be the legislative branch getting into the business of the judicial and executive branch.
Posted by: tmm | Oct 18, 2024 12:00:35 PM
I have no idea about the procedural issues involved. I do believe it is wrong to execute someone if you aren't sure of their guilt. Getting that right is, or should be, the purpose of the legal system. I find the opposite point of view difficult to understand.
Posted by: William Jockusch | Oct 18, 2024 7:49:53 PM
I guess I can never think like a lawyer, in that I am utterly horrified by the idea that someone everyone knows to be innocent must be sacrificed on the altar of Law, i.e. nobody is authorized with the power to stop the senseless execution, so Mr. Robeson must die and there's no point in complaining about it.
If the person who did pause the execution is to be punished for his unauthorized action, then we ought to admit that the U.S. is a failed state, Christianity is a failed religion, and Moloch is our god. If so, I just hope that the nine Supreme Court justices are the next blood sacrifices that are called for.
Posted by: Keith Lynch | Oct 20, 2024 10:16:31 PM
Keith--please explain how everyone knows this guy is innocent.
Posted by: federalist | Oct 21, 2024 2:59:58 PM
Because "Shaken Baby Syndrome" is today recognized as junk science. His child died of pneumonia. That's the opinion of the expert witness whose testimony convicted him years ago. As for why he didn't seem to be emotional enough when his child died, that's because he is autistic. See the Wikipedia articles on him and on Shaken Baby Syndrome.
Nobody is still claiming he is guilty. Instead they're claiming that he has exhausted his appeals, so Texas is required to go ahead and execute him even though he's innocent.
Posted by: Keith Lynch | Oct 22, 2024 12:25:23 AM
Actually, that is not what the Texas Courts are saying. Roberson got a hearing on his claims related to new science. The trial court rejected those claims on the merits in 2022. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals summarily affirmed the trial court's ruling in 2023. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals found that the petition filed in 2024 did not include enough new information to warrant a rehearing of his claims.
Admittedly, many believe that the Texas courts got the facts wrong. But somebody has to decide the facts and there is no reason to believe that public opinion or legislative bodies are better at fact-finding than courts.
Posted by: tmm | Oct 22, 2024 12:24:16 PM
tmm, what's your sense on factual innocence? Just because shaken baby syndrome is not as tight as one may expect, was there other evidence?
Posted by: federalist | Oct 22, 2024 4:22:59 PM
I don't know enough about the evidence in this case. For whatever reasons, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals thought that Roberson's case was different from the other cases in which they have set aside conviction based on shaken baby, but, without reviewing the full transcript of the original trial and the evidentiary hearing on his actual innocence motion, I would hesitate to proffer a guess based on reporting on the case. From the summary by the trial court on the actual innocence motion (it can be found in the appendix to the 2023 cert petition), it appears that the supporters of Roberson are minimizing the evidence of bruising which preceded the medical intervention and the evidence of multiple impacts.
Posted by: tmm | Oct 22, 2024 5:14:27 PM
I read that the bruising was from the failed resuscitation attempt. CPR does a lot of damage, but it's worse than the alternative.
Posted by: Keith Lynch | Oct 23, 2024 6:49:31 PM
