Robert Roberson: The eleventh race to save a Texas death row inmate from execution in the 'shaken baby' case.

CNN
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Texas death row inmate Robert Roberson sat praying Thursday evening in a cell just feet from the execution chamber where he was set to die by lethal injection for the “shocked baby” death of his toddler.

As he prayed, the state and his lawyers argued over his fate in a remarkable exchange of last-minute legal maneuvers.

Roberson's life was ultimately spared by the Texas Supreme Court, which issued a temporary stay of his execution just before his death sentence was set to expire at midnight.

Now a new date must be set for Roberson's execution to buy valuable time for his lawyers and a bipartisan group of Texas House members who believe he was wrongly convicted of murder attributed to the death of his 2-year-old daughter Nikki Shaken baby syndrome.

Shock struck Roberson when a group of Texas officials informed him of the stay Thursday night, and he began praising God and “proclaiming his innocence,” just as he had done for the past two decades, according to Amanda Hernandez, one Spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

The dramatic turnaround began Wednesday when the bipartisan Texas House Criminal Justice Committee, in an unusual last-ditch effort to delay Roberson's death, issued a subpoena asking him to testify next week before the panel that is considering the legality of his case .

The committee's actions gave Roberson's lawyers new hope as all other options to stop the execution had failed. Within days, his legal team lost multiple appeals in state courts, the Texas Pardon Board rejected his clemency request, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene.

“The great team fighting for Robert Roberson – people across Texas, across the country and around the world – are elated tonight that a group of courageous, bipartisan Texas lawmakers have decided to dig deep into the facts of Robert Roberson “I realized that his life was worth fighting for,” Roberson's lawyer Gretchen Sween said Thursday evening.

Just over 90 minutes before Roberson's execution began, the House committee managed to obtain an injunction against the state and halt the execution. The victory was short-lived, however, as a divided Texas appeals court overturned the decision.

Following the appeals court's decision, the House committee asked the Texas Supreme Court to issue a preliminary injunction against the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and the Texas Department of Corrections Division. Although the Supreme Court immediately issued a temporary stay of execution, the request for an injunction is still pending.

“For over 20 years, Roberson has spent 23.5 hours every day in solitary confinement in a cell no larger than most Texans’ closets, longing to be heard,” said committee members Rep. Joe Moody and Rep . Jeff Leach in a joint statement following the stay. “And while some courthouses may have failed him, the Texas House has not.”

As the barrage of legal challenges unfolded, Roberson sat in a cell at the Huntsville unit where his execution was scheduled to take place. According to his sister-in-law Jennifer Roberson, he spent time in prayer and also spoke with his wife and other family members several times.

“When we talked to Robert earlier, I thought to myself, 'You have to be strong, you have to comfort him.' And that’s the exact opposite of what happened,” she said. “I was nervous and he comforted me, told me to obey God, stay strong, keep faith, keep hope.”

Roberson's family feels “amazing” after the stay, Jennifer Roberson said. “It took nearly 22 years for Texas to do the right thing.”

Among those desperately waiting for news in the case was Brian Wharton, the former Palestine, Texas, detective who led the investigation into Nikki's death. Wharton has since said the investigation was too narrowly focused and has joined the fight to save Roberson.

“Tonight they finally came and told us he got a stay and his wife started crying and everyone else took a deep breath. Because we all know he is innocent,” Wharton told CNN on Thursday. “We have been fighting this fight for some time and have been trying to get a fair hearing.”

Roberson is scheduled to testify before the House committee on Monday, or possibly sooner if the court orders it.

“We look forward to welcoming Robert to the Texas Capitol and finally giving him – and the truth – a chance to be heard, along with 31 million Texans,” Reps. Moody and Leach said in their statement.

CNN has reached out to the offices of Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for comment on the court's decision.

Supporters of Roberson insist that the diagnosis that his daughter died of shaken baby syndrome is inaccurate and has been discredited.

The Texas House committee voted to subpoena Roberson as it considers using a law commonly referred to as “junk science writ” – which opens the door for people to challenge their convictions if new scientific evidence has emerged since her trial are.

Lawmakers said the medical evidence presented at Roberson's 2003 trial “contradicts modern scientific principles.”

While child abuse pediatricians maintain the validity of the diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome, Roberson's lawyers say there is ample evidence that his daughter, Nikki Curtis, did not die of child abuse.

At the time of her death, she was suffering from double pneumonia that had progressed to sepsis and was prescribed two medications that were now considered unsuitable for children and would have further impaired her ability to breathe, they argue, citing medical experts.

In addition, Roberson's lawyers say she fell out of bed and was particularly vulnerable in her sickly condition.

Other factors also contributed to his conviction, they argue. Doctors who treated Nikki “suspected” abuse based on her symptoms and general mindset at the time of her death without examining her recent medical history, the inmate’s lawyers claim. His behavior in the emergency room — which was viewed as callous by doctors, nurses and police who saw it as a sign of his guilt — was actually a manifestation of an autism spectrum disorder that went undiagnosed until 2018, according to his lawyers.

Roberson's lawyers do not dispute that babies can and do die from shaking. However, they contend that more benign explanations, including illness, can mimic the symptoms of tremors, and these alternative explanations should be ruled out before a medical expert testifies with certainty that the cause of death was abuse.

Shaken baby syndrome is accepted as a valid diagnosis by the American Academy of Pediatrics and is supported by child abuse pediatricians who spoke to CNN. First described in the mid-1970s, the condition has been considered a type of “abusive head trauma” for about 15 years – a broader term that describes actions other than shaking, such as hitting a child on the head.

Criminal defense attorneys have also oversimplified the way doctors diagnose abusive head trauma, child abuse pediatricians say, pointing out that many factors are taken into account in the determination.

“The conclusion is simply that (Nikki) was the victim of an abusive head injury. “Definitely,” said Dr. Sandeep Narang, a pediatrician and child abuse attorney, told CNN after he said he was asked by a supporter of Roberson's defense to review testimony in the case.

Still, the diagnosis has been at the center of debates in courtrooms across the country. According to the National Registry of Exonerations, courts in at least 17 states and the U.S. Army have exonerated 32 people convicted in shaken baby syndrome cases since 1992.

Child abuse pediatricians like Dr. Antoinette Laskey, chairwoman of the Council on Child Abuse and Neglect of the American Academy of Pediatrics, disputes these statistics. She pointed to a 2021 study that found only 3% of all convictions in shaken baby syndrome cases between 2008 and 2018 were overturned, and only 1% of those were overturned based on medical evidence.