PUBLISHER'S NOTE: Call for Action: Dear readers: Attorney General Paxton wants the court to allow Texas to kill Robert Roberson on Thursday October 16, 2002. Once the court sanctions the date (which is quite likely) the ball will start rolling, and before you know it, this innocent man, who should have been left to grieve his daughter's death, yet was convicted because of junk shaken baby 'science.' will be dead as will, thanks to Texas's well-documented lust to kill, innocence be damned. This horrific, unreliable travesty of justice must be stopped. What can we do, while Robert Roberson's lawyer's battle it out in the courts? Here is my proposal. This year, International Wrongful Conviction Day falls on Thursday October 2, 2025 - exactly two weeks before the targeted execution date. 14 days. It's a day devoted to helping free people from wrongful convictions no matter where they are located on the globe, and to creating fair justice systems.
My vision is one in which individuals and organizations around the world use this day to hold events related to the case - and to bombard Paxton with protest from all over the world. Bloggers, columnists, editorials, authors, pathologists and other forensic scientist Innocence organizations, Amnesty International, lawyers groups, religious organizations, such as churches synagogues, and mosques, (Thou shall not kill!) and ordinary individuals around the globe who cannot tolerate the prospect of this pending travesty - all sending this message to the State of Texas: Cancel the execution, and use the courts to confront the junk science that placed him on death row and free him - instead of using the courts to sanction his death.
In winding up, the good news is that Robert Roberson understandably has a huge number of supporters, including bi-partisan legislative support. Indeed, addition to great lawyers, the Innocence Project, the experts, he already has a powerful, committed movement behind him. This is great. I'm just suggesting that in addition to all of this, we should take advantage of the fact that International Wrongful Convictions Day comes just 14 days before the day on which Texas wants to kill him - and that, if it comes to this awful prospect, we should make full use of this concurrence.
And a next-to-final word: While I truly hope that A.G. Paxton will come to his senses, and not keep Robert Roberson on death row a second longer (yes, dear reader, I know what you are probably thinking). Until that happens, this battle must be fought.
I'm only adding one more way in which we can fight it.
I would very much appreciate hearing your reaction to my proposal and any other suggestions which you may have, at:
hlevy15@gmail.com
Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog;
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QUOTE OF THE DAY: "Gretchen Sween, one of Roberson’s attorneys, criticized the office of Attorney General Ken Paxton for asking for a new execution date when Roberson still has an appeal pending before the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals that his legal team says contains “powerful new evidence of his innocence.” “There is no justification for the Attorney General’s relentless effort to kill an innocent human being — and no state law or moral law that authorizes seeking an execution date under these circumstances,” Sween said in a statement."
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PASSAGE OF THE DAY: " Roberson’s attorneys have asked that a hearing be held over whether a new execution date should be set. It was not immediately known when a court hearing could be held as the case currently does not have a presiding judge as the previous judge recused herself from the case in November. Roberson had been in a holding cell in October, a few feet away from America’s busiest death chamber in Huntsville, waiting to receive a lethal injection when he was granted an execution stay after a group of Texas lawmakers issued a subpoena for him to testify before a House committee several days after he was scheduled to die. The Texas Supreme Court ruled in November that although the subpoena was valid, it could not be used to circumvent a scheduled execution. Roberson never testified before the House committee as Paxton’s office blocked efforts to have him speak to lawmakers."
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STORY: "Prosecutors ask for new execution date for Texas man in shaken baby syndrome case." published by The Independent (Reporter Juan A. Lozano), on June 17, 2025. (Juam A. Lozano is a reporter for The Associated Press based in the Independent's bureau in Houston, Texas who has covered state and federal courts and legal issues in the Houston-area,)
SUB-HEADING: "A new execution date is being requested for Robert Roberson."
GIST: "A new execution date has been requested for Robert Roberson, a Texas man who had been set last year to become the first person in the U.S. to be put to death for a murder conviction tied to a diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome.
Monday’s request from the Texas Attorney General’s Office was the first time authorities had asked for a new execution date since Roberson received a stay in October.
The execution's delay followed a flurry of last-ditch legal challenges on the night of his scheduled lethal injection that were prompted by an unprecedented maneuver from a bipartisan group of Texas lawmakers who say he is innocent and was sent to death row based on flawed science.
In its five-page motion, the Texas Attorney General’s Office said because the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the state’s top criminal court, has previously denied appeals in Roberson’s case, “the criteria for setting an execution have been met.”
The attorney general’s office requested a new execution date of Oct. 16.
The attorney general’s office did not immediately reply to an email seeking comment Tuesday.
Court documents show the Anderson County District Attorney’s Office, which had prosecuted Roberson, has agreed to let the Texas Attorney General’s Office take over the case.
Roberson, 58, was convicted of the 2002 killing of his 2-year-old daughter, Nikki Curtis, in the East Texas city of Palestine.
Prosecutors argued he violently shook his daughter back and forth, causing severe head trauma in what’s called shaken baby syndrome.
His lawyers and some medical experts say his daughter died not from abuse but from complications related to pneumonia.
Gretchen Sween, one of Roberson’s attorneys, criticized the office of Attorney General Ken Paxton for asking for a new execution date when Roberson still has an appeal pending before the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals that his legal team says contains “powerful new evidence of his innocence.”
“There is no justification for the Attorney General’s relentless effort to kill an innocent human being — and no state law or moral law that authorizes seeking an execution date under these circumstances,” Sween said in a statement.
In its latest appeal filed in February, Roberson’s legal team said new evidence, including statements from pathologists that state the girl’s death was not a homicide and question the reliability of conclusions by the medical examiner on the cause of death, show “no rational juror would find Roberson guilty of capital murder; and unreliable and outdated scientific and medical evidence was material to his conviction.”
Roberson’s attorneys have asked that a hearing be held over whether a new execution date should be set. It was not immediately known when a court hearing could be held as the case currently does not have a presiding judge as the previous judge recused herself from the case in November.
Roberson had been in a holding cell in October, a few feet away from America’s busiest death chamber in Huntsville, waiting to receive a lethal injection when he was granted an execution stay after a group of Texas lawmakers issued a subpoena for him to testify before a House committee several days after he was scheduled to die.
The Texas Supreme Court ruled in November that although the subpoena was valid, it could not be used to circumvent a scheduled execution.
Roberson never testified before the House committee as Paxton’s office blocked efforts to have him speak to lawmakers."
The entire story can be read at:
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OBJECTION FILED BYY ROBERT ROBERSON'S LAWYERS:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1o1tMSsIed2goGitVt76DtzLS1jBXSsyJ/view
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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;
