QUOTE OF THE DAY: "Roberson's attorney, Gretchen Sween, asserted that she feels the subpoena was valid and suggested Paxton had ulterior motives for seeking to keep the condemned man from speaking about his conviction. She said that the motion was made "seemingly without legal basis." "The real 'fear' at play here seems to be that seeing and hearing from Robert will make it clear to the public that an innocent man sits on death row who is also a gentle soul with a pronounced disability," Sween wrote in an email to the American-Statesman. "Texans deserve better." As of 9 p.m. Thursday, the committee hearing was still scheduled for noon Friday at the Capitol."
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STORY: "Here's why Texas AG wants to stop death row inmate Robert Roberson from testifying at Capitol," by Reporter Bayliss Wagner, published by The Austin American-Statesman, on December 19, 2024.
GIST: Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton on Thursday night filed a motion in state District Court seeking to block death row inmate Robert Roberson from testifying at the Capitol on Friday, extending an intra-party power struggle that began when a Texas House committee in October successfully fought to have the man's execution delayed.
Paxton's motion comes two days after the House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence again subpoenaed Roberson to appear at a hearing Friday at noon, with Chair Rep. Joe Moody, D-El Paso, and state Rep. Jeff Leach saying the man could provide valuable insight into a Texas law on "junk science."
The motion once again could jeopardize House lawmakers' plan to hear from the man after the attorney general intervened to block the committee's first effort two months ago.
Roberson, of East Texas, would be the first man in the country executed for a conviction involving 'shaken baby' syndrome, and his lawyers and a bipartisan group of lawmakers have argued that new scientific evidence casts doubt on a diagnosis of shaken baby that a jury was provided before Roberson was convicted of murdering his two-year-old daughter, Nikki, in 2003.
Several prominent Texas Republicans, including Paxton, Gov. Greg Abbott and some House lawmakers, have not supported Roberson's innocence claim. Abbott declined to grant the condemned man a reprieve in October.
This time, Paxton filed for a last-minute protective order against the new subpoena on behalf of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, which oversees the state prison system. Texas law allows “any … person affected” by a subpoena to file for a protective order, and doing so automatically exempts them from complying with the subpoena until and unless a court says they must do so.
While Paxton does not represent Roberson, he argues that TDCJ is affected by the subpoena because Roberson is in the prison system's custody. The motion was filed in state District Court in Polk County, where the death row unit for men is located.
Paxton's office also argued in the Thursday filing that the new subpoena is invalid.
"In addition to presenting serious security risks, the subpoena is procedurally defective and therefore invalid as it was issued in violation of the House Rules, the Texas Constitution, and other applicable laws," a news release from Paxton's office reads.
Paxton said the subpoena violates House rules because a quorum of committee members did not vote to approve it, though the Jurisprudence Committee voted to allow Moody to subpoena Roberson indefinitely.
"In addition to violating House Rules, any purported delegation of the Legislature’s future subpoena power to a single legislator violates the Texas Government Code and the Texas Constitution," Paxton's filing reads.
The state's top lawyer also requested that a hearing on the motion not take place until Jan. 13 — the day before the House committee that summoned Roberson dissolves as the 89th legislative session begins. The lawmakers' subpoena would no longer be valid when the Legislature reconvenes Jan. 14.
Both Moody and Leach declined to comment on the new development Thursday night. However, several weeks ago, Leach said he felt that Paxton would seek to run out the clock.
“What the attorney general's office, I feel like, is doing right now, is trying to delay as much as possible and not work with us,” Leach told The Texas Tribune on Dec. 6. "They’re basically ignoring the Supreme Court's order, knowing that in a month or so, when the new legislative session convenes, our committee goes away."
In the Supreme Court decision which Leach referred to, all nine Republican justices ruled that a subpoena could not delay a future execution or interfere with another branch's "prerogatives," but upheld the Legislature's power to compel legislative testimony otherwise.
Roberson's attorney, Gretchen Sween, asserted that she feels the subpoena was valid and suggested Paxton had ulterior motives for seeking to keep the condemned man from speaking about his conviction. She said that the motion was made "seemingly without legal basis."
"The real 'fear' at play here seems to be that seeing and hearing from Robert will make it clear to the public that an innocent man sits on death row who is also a gentle soul with a pronounced disability," Sween wrote in an email to the American-Statesman. "Texans deserve better."
As of 9 p.m. Thursday, the committee hearing was still scheduled for noon Friday at the Capitol."
The entire story can be read at:
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;
