Texas House panel may never hear death row inmate Robert Roberson's testimony after new legal move

ByKayla Guo, The Texas Tribune

Friday, December 20, 2024 1:03PM

Motion filed to block death row inmate Robert Roberson from testifying

Attorney General Ken Paxton sought to delay legal proceedings until Jan. 13 - the day before the committee disbands - even as lawmakers vowed to continue fighting to hear from Robert Roberson.

A Texas House Committee was left without its key witness on Friday after Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a motion late Thursday barring death row inmate Robert Roberson from testifying at the Capitol.

The bipartisan House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence had planned to hear directly from Roberson on Friday at noon about his failed efforts to overturn his capital murder conviction using the state's junk science law, which grants new trials in cases that relied on scientific evidence that is later discredited.

But Paxton's motion, which argued that the panel's subpoena to Roberson was "procedurally deficient and overly burdensome," excused the state prison system from complying with the committee's subpoena and allowing Roberson to testify in person.

That left the future of Roberson's testimony unclear.

Lawmakers have tried for weeks to bring him to Austin after the Texas Supreme Court noted in November that state officials should be able to produce Roberson for testimony in compliance with a subpoena that does not interfere with a scheduled execution. After the committee's first subpoena expired, it served him with another one this week.

Roberson was convicted of capital murder in 2003 for the death of his 2-year-old daughter Nikki, who was diagnosed with shaken baby syndrome. He has argued that new scientific evidence discredits Nikki's diagnosis and shows she died of natural and accidental causes.

The first subpoena from the Texas House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence seeking Roberson's testimony forced a delay of his scheduled October execution. That led to a Texas Supreme Court ruling on Nov. 15 that said a legislative subpoena of a death row inmate could not be used to postpone an execution.

Roberson's execution has not yet been rescheduled. The district attorney in his case has not yet requested that the court set a new execution date, which could not land within 90 days of her request.

Reps. Joe Moody, D-El Paso, and Jeff Leach, R-Plano, have accused the attorney general's office of stalling Roberson's testimony until the panel automatically dissolves next month with the start of the new legislative session.

In his motion to block Roberson's testimony, Paxton asked the court to hold a hearing before it decides whether to grant his request. But he asked that the hearing not be set before Jan. 13, 2025, saying he "will be out of the country."

The new legislative session starts - and the committee disbands - on Jan. 14.

"The attorney general's office knows that and is trying to delay until the start of the next session, which is just horrifying and maddening to me," Leach said at an event with the Tribune on Dec. 6.

Paxton's office, which legally represents the prison system, has hamstrung earlier efforts to secure Roberson's in-person testimony by insisting that nothing legally compels the executive branch to bring him to the Capitol.

Fifteen emails between Moody and Paxton's office obtained by the Tribune document the ongoing tensions between lawmakers and the executive branch over Roberson's case.

In response to the committee's first subpoena, Paxton's office sunk plans for Roberson to testify at an Oct. 21 hearing in person and said that the inmate would only be permitted to appear virtually due to public safety concerns - an arrangement the panel opposed due to Roberson's autism.

Instead, Moody suggested that the committee could travel to death row and take Roberson's testimony there. But after Moody adjourned the Oct. 21 hearing, Paxton's office shut that possibility down.

"The subpoena issued to Mr. Roberson required his testimony on Monday, and TDCJ did not impede Mr. Roberson's compliance with the subpoena, going so far as to attempt to facilitate his appearance via Zoom," Kimberly Gdula, the attorney general's chief of general litigation, wrote to Moody on Oct. 25. "The House's subpoena has now expired, and the committee has adjourned."

After the Texas Supreme Court issued its ruling that Roberson could testify as long as it didn't interfere with an execution, Moody asked Gdula in an email if they could reach an agreement on having Roberson testify without requiring a new subpoena.

On Dec. 6, Gdula sent a series of questions and conditions, and sought to bar Moody from directly contacting the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, which operates the state prisons.

She asked "why Roberson could not furnish any needed testimony through safer alternatives like remote appearance by video," and claimed that the office "had no information as to what topics you intend to discuss that only Roberson would be able to provide relevant testimony on."

She also wrote that representatives from the attorney general's office, the Anderson County District Attorney's office and Gov. Greg Abbott's office had "a right to be present at any hearing where Roberson is testifying so they may assert any objections to questions that go beyond the scope of the Committee's limited authority to question a death-row inmate."

Moody rejected the conditions, reiterating the committee's opposition to a virtual appearance due to Roberson's autism, referencing public materials describing the committee's reasoning in seeking Roberson's testimony and noting that the committee and TDCJ had addressed various safety and logistical issues on Oct. 18 - before Paxton's office stepped in.

"This is a subpoena, so any opinion related to 'the import of Roberson's testimony' does not authorize disobedience of it," he wrote. "Anyone may attend this public hearing, but no one will be recognized to 'assert any objections' because this is not an adversarial proceeding and there is no judge to whom you may object."

Moody and Leach, at the Tribune's Dec. 6 event, vowed to continue fighting for Roberson despite opposition from the attorney general's office - and even through the start of a new legislative session.

"We will not relent in the pursuit of justice for Mr. Roberson," Leach said. "If they want to thumb their nose in the face of the Legislature that egregiously and blatantly, they can be - and should be - assured that a new committee next session ... will issue a new subpoena if we have to."

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