“Simply Untrue”: Lawmakers Refute Unprecedented Attack by Texas Attorney General in Robert Roberson’s Case

On October 23, 2024, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton released a press state­ment, the orig­i­nal autop­sy report, and oth­er case records in an effort to ​“set the record straight” and ​“cor­rect false­hoods” that he accused state law­mak­ers of mak­ing about Robert Roberson (pic­tured). In this unprece­dent­ed attack, AG Paxton also char­ac­ter­ized the defense efforts as ​“eleventh-hour, one-sided, extra­ju­di­cial stunts that attempt to obscure facts and rewrite his past.” Texas Governor Greg Abbott has 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 a stay of his execution. 

Both the autop­sy and a 2016 let­ter from the med­ical exam­in­er state that two-year-old Nikki Curtis died from blunt force head injuries, which AG Paxton says were inflict­ed by Robert Roberson and prove the case was not about ​“Shaken Baby Syndrome” (SBS). But for­mer juror Terre Compton, who recent­ly tes­ti­fied before mem­bers of the Texas House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence, said that ​“every­thing that was pre­sent­ed to us was all about shak­en baby syn­drome.” Ms. Compton added, ​“that was what our deci­sion was based on. Nothing else was ever men­tioned or pre­sent­ed to us to consider.”

In response to AG Paxton’s claims, a bipar­ti­san group of leg­is­la­tors released their own report and char­ac­ter­ized AG Paxton’s report as ​“mis­lead­ing and in large part sim­ply untrue.” State Reps. Joe Moody, Jeff Leach, and two oth­ers released a 16-page, point-by-point refu­ta­tion to AG Paxton’s state­ment, iden­ti­fy­ing cita­tions and tri­al exhibits to sup­port their asser­tions. ​“We know that the laws our leg­is­la­ture cre­at­ed to cor­rect those prob­lems haven’t worked as intend­ed for Robert and peo­ple like him. That’s why we’re here and why we won’t quit,” they said. Rep. Moody also released a per­son­al state­ment in which he says the AG’s report is a ​“col­lec­tion of exag­ger­a­tions, mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tions, and full-on untruths.” Rep. Moody said that the Committee ​“didn’t issue the sub­poe­na [for Roberson to tes­ti­fy] to cre­ate a con­sti­tu­tion­al cri­sis, and we weren’t inter­est­ed in esca­lat­ing a divi­sion between branch­es of government.”

This extra­or­di­nary exchange between the Attorney General and state law­mak­ers arose after the Texas Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence held a two-day hear­ing on the dis­cred­it­ed SBS hypoth­e­sis used to con­vict Mr. Roberson and the Texas ​“junk sci­ence” statute. In an unprece­dent­ed maneu­ver, the Committee issued a sub­poe­na to Mr. Roberson to tes­ti­fy on Monday October 21^st – four days after his sched­uled exe­cu­tion. This legal­ly bind­ing sub­poe­na result­ed in a stay of exe­cu­tion just 90 min­utes before it was sched­uled to occur. Because the Attorney General object­ed, Mr. Roberson did not tes­ti­fy on October 21, 2024. 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 because of Mr. Roberson’s autism.

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 SBS. Despite three new expert reports show­ing Nikki died of pneu­mo­nia, no court has been will­ing to con­sid­er the evi­dence that clears Mr. Roberson from any crime.