22 December 2024 :
December 19, 2024 - Texas. Texas Attorney General’s Office Refuses to Cooperate with Committee Subpoena for Robert Roberson, Blocking His Testimony for the 2nd Time
On December 17, 2024, a bipartisan group of Texas legislators in the House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence issued a new subpoena for death sentenced Robert Roberson to testify in person on December 20 about the state’s junk science law, under which he failed to receive relief. Gretchen Sween, attorney for Mr. Roberson, said that he was “eager to testify and grateful for the chance to be heard.” But just 2 days after the issuance of the subpoena, and a day ahead of Mr. Roberson’s scheduled testimony, the Office of the Attorney General filed a motion for a protective order to prevent Mr. Roberson from testifying in front of the House Committee. AG Ken Paxton argues that Mr. Roberson is a security threat and that “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.” AG Paxton wrote that because Mr. Roberson’s case has become “highly publicized,” there are increased risks with transporting him to Austin, and to mitigate these risks even slightly, TDCJ would have to devote significantly more human and physical resources to the transportation” of Mr. Roberson than an entire group of prisoners. According to the AG, legislative subpoenas must receive approval from two thirds of a committee, and the committee did not reconvene to approve this subpoena. AG Paxton took to social media to argue that his motion “automatically excuses” Texas Department of Criminal Justice from acknowledging the subpoena until resolution of the motion.
In a statement released after AG Paxton’s motion was filed, Ms. Sween said that she “expected to sit beside [her] client, Robert Roberson” but instead, the AG’s office “have, for a second time, interfered with the Committee’s lawful right to obtain his appearance and take his testimony.” While she did not participate in the transportation negotiations, Ms. Sween said, “at the outset of all this, high level personnel with TDCJ made it clear to [her] personally that it would be no trouble at all to bring Robert to the Capitol. Then the OAG intervened. And now they have done so again — relying on baseless and vague smear and cheap fear mongering to justify an act seemingly without legal basis.” According to Ms. Sween, “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.” Chair of the Committee, Joe Moody, and member Jeff Leach previously accused the AG’s office of intentionally stonewalling Mr. Roberson’s testimony. Representative Leach, said during a panel discussion in early December 2024 that he believes the AG’s office is “trying to delay [testimony] until the start of the next session, which is just horrifying and maddening to me.”
Previously, the House Committee, unanimously issued a subpoena for Mr. Roberson to testify on October 21, 2024 — four days after his scheduled execution date. The unprecedented maneuver, in the form of a legally binding subpoena, resulted in a stay of Mr. Roberson’s execution just 90 minutes before it was scheduled to occur. Because of objections from AG Paxton, however, Mr. Roberson did not testify on October 21. AG Paxton said Mr. Roberson would only be allowed to testify over video “in interest of public safety,” which both the Committee members and counsel for Mr. Roberson say would not be effective or appropriate because Mr. Roberson has autism. The Committee held its scheduled hearing on October 21, but did not hear testimony from Mr. Roberson. In the days following this hearing, AG Paxton’s office released a press statement to “set the record straight” about the case and to “correct falsehoods” that he accused state lawmakers of making about Mr. Roberson. AG Paxton also characterized the defense’s efforts to have Mr. Roberson testify as “eleventh hour, one sided, extrajudicial stunts that attempt to obscure facts and rewrite his past.” Texas Governor Gregg Abbott also reacted aggressively to efforts to save Mr. Roberson from execution, alleging that lawmakers “stepped out of line” by issuing the subpoena that resulted in the stay of execution.
In November 2024, the Texas Supreme Court ruled that the legislative committee’s subpoena overstepped its power and “concluded that under these circumstances the committee’s authority to compel testimony does not include the power to override the scheduled legal process leading to an execution.” However, the Court said that “if the committee still wishes to obtain [Mr. Roberson’s] testimony, we assume that the department can reasonably accommodate a new subpoena.” The Court added that “so long as a subpoena issues in a way that does not inevitably block a scheduled execution, nothing in our holding prevents the committee from pursuing judicial relief in the ordinary way to compel a witnesses’ testimony.” In response to the Court’s ruling, Chairman Moody and member Jeff Leach said that “the Supreme Court strongly reinforced our belief that our committee can indeed obtain Mr. Roberson’s testimony and made clear that it expects the Executive Branch of government to accommodate us in doing so.” The legislators added that they “look forward to working with the Executive Branch to do just that.”
Mr. Roberson was convicted and sentenced to death in 2003 for the death of his daughter Nikki, who medical experts have since determined died from severe viral and bacterial pneumonia that doctors failed to diagnose, not from abuse or “Shaken Baby Syndrome.” Despite 3 new expert reports showing Nikki died of pneumonia, no court has been willing to consider the evidence that clears Mr. Roberson of any crime.
