Texas Lawmakers Ask Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to Stay Robert Roberson’s Execution and Consider Evidence Proving No Crime Occurred in His Case

(Austin, Texas, October 16, 2024) Late Monday, attorneys for Robert Roberson filed a successive habeas application and an emergency motion for stay of execution in the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA), urging the court to consider the mountain of medical and scientific evidence proving that his chronically ill two-year-old daughter, Nikki, died as a result of illness, accident, and improper medications, not homicide. 

Successor habeas petition: https://tinyurl.com/ycymcbup

Emergency stay application: https://tinyurl.com/mrxyyjuz

In a letter brief also filed in the CCA late Tuesday, members of the Texas House of Representatives who serve on its Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence wrote to “respectfully request a stay of execution for Robert Roberson until the end of the 2025 legislative session so that the legislature can consider amendments to Article 11.073 and other legislation that may affect this case.”

“We believe that Article 11.073 has not been the pathway to relief—or even a new trial—that the legislature intended in cases like Mr. Roberson’s. Here, significant scientific and medical evidence that no jury has had the chance to hear now shows that natural and accidental causes can explain the death of his chronically ill daughter, Nikki, not just the abusive shaking that the State argued at trial had to have caused her death. It is beyond dispute that medical evidence presented at Mr. Roberson’s trial in 2003 is inconsistent with modern scientific principles. Article 11.073 was meant exactly for cases like this one.”

The letter brief from Texas lawmakers can be accessed here.

Because of the serious concerns reflected in its brief, the Texas House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence also has scheduled a hearing on the application of Article 11.073 in capital cases. Watch here.

“The CCA must look at the actual evidence before it that proves Robert Roberson is innocent,” said Gretchen Sween, one of Mr. Roberson’s attorneys. “We have so many highly qualified experts who have looked at Nikki’s medical and autopsy records, and they agree she did not die from head trauma—let alone inflicted head trauma. The State’s theory at trial was based on debunked science, a medical examiner’s woefully inadequate investigation and its theory that a crime occurred relies on the cynical notion that no court will look at the new evidence.” 

Mr. Roberson’s innocence claim has attracted widespread, diverse, and growing support, including from 34 eminent scientists and doctors, a bipartisan group of 86 Texas legislators, eight advocates for parental rights, eight organizations that advocate for people with autism and their families, faith leaders, innocence advocacy groups, former judges, 70 attorneys who have represented people wrongfully accused of child abuse, and best-selling novelist John Grisham.

A group of bipartisan lawmakers recently met and prayed with Mr. Roberson on death row. The lawmakers’ press release and photos about their Sept. 27 visit with Mr. Roberson can be accessed here. 

Brian Wharton, the lead detective who interviewed Mr. Roberson after hospital staff called the police, investigated the case, and testified for the State at trial has come to believe that Mr. Roberson is innocent and the legal system made a terrible mistake. A powerful New York Times opinion video showing Mr. Wharton’s with Mr. Roberson on death row is available here.