SUB-HEADING: "Roberson was spared by an 11th-hour stay of execution from the Texas Supreme Court."
GIST: Texas death row inmate Robert Roberson is expected to appear in-person for testimony at the state Capitol on Monday after an unusual legal intervention by state lawmakers delayed his Thursday execution.
The Texas House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence issued an unprecedented subpoena to Roberson on Wednesday, less than 24 hours before he was set to die, in a desperate move to buy him more time.
Lawmakers asked the courts on Thursday to stop Roberson’s execution so that he could appear for testimony before the committee on Monday. In a historic order, the Texas Supreme Court issued a stay late Thursday, hours after Roberson was set to be executed.
“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," state Reps. Joe Moody, D-El Paso, and Jeff Leach, R-Plano, said in a statement after the high court’s order came down. “We look forward to welcoming Robert to the Texas Capitol, and along with 31 million Texans, finally giving him — and the truth — a chance to be heard.”
Roberson’s attorneys confirmed Friday that he was expected to appear for testimony in person next week. That means the Texas Department of Criminal Justice will have to securely transport Roberson the more than 200 miles from death row in Livingston to Austin.
State lawmakers, along with a broad, bipartisan coalition of supporters, had urged the state to stop Roberson’s execution, warning that he was most likely innocent and had been denied due process over 20 years of appeals.
In a dramatic legal battle that began unfolding just hours before Texas was set to execute Roberson, Texas House lawmakers sought to win Roberson more time by arguing that only he could provide unique testimony relevant to the committee’s work on criminal justice matters and in particular, the state’s pioneering 2013 junk science law — which Roberson had tried, and failed, to use to prove his innocence.
“His testimony on his access to justice and due process are unique because he is a person with autism in a case unlike any other in the State of Texas — the first potential ‘shaken baby syndrome’ execution,” Leach and Moody wrote in their petition to the Texas Supreme Court. “No other person can provide the Committee with this information. Given the dispute over some of the facts surrounding his case, it is also essential for the Committee to hear from him personally to judge his credibility as a witness.”
All of Roberson’s appeals have been rejected by the courts so far, raising concerns among lawmakers that the judiciary was failing to properly implement the state’s junk science law. That law was created to allow the courts to overturn a conviction if the science at the center of the case had since changed or been discredited."
The entire story can be read at:
https://www.khou.com/article/news/local/texas/robert-roberson-death-sentence-stay-execution/285-7990df03-0e55-4e16-8e6f-c6c07083d250
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog.
- SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL:
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985
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FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."
Lawyer Radha Natarajan:
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
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FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;
