Texas man faces execution after clemency bid fails | Crime News

Despite doubts about his guilt, a man in Texas is set to be executed for the murder of his two-year-old daughter.

Robert Roberson is scheduled to receive a lethal injection Thursday after the Texas Pardon Board rejected his request for clemency.

If the execution moves forward, he will be the first person in the United States to face the death penalty for a murder conviction related to the controversial diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome.

Roberson has maintained his innocence in the death of his daughter Nikki Curtis, and the lead investigator investigating the case has also come to his defense and called on the state to cancel the execution.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott could grant a one-time 30-day reprieve from Roberson’s scheduled execution, but he cannot grant full clemency without the parole board’s recommendation.

Gretchen Sween, one of Roberson’s lawyers, called on the governor to grant the stay “so that we can continue to pursue Mr. Roberson’s claim of innocence.”

“We pray that Governor Abbott does everything in his power to prevent the tragic, irreversible mistake of executing an innocent man,” Sween said.

In his nearly decade as governor, Abbott has only prevented one imminent execution.

“System failed”

Calls to stop Roberson’s execution are growing amid questions about the evidence that his daughter suffers from shaken baby syndrome, a brain injury caused by shaking or violent impacts.

Roberson’s supporters say doctors misdiagnosed Curtis’ injuries as being related to shaken baby syndrome and new evidence shows the girl died not from abuse but from complications related to severe pneumonia.

Roberson’s lawyers also point out that his autism, which was undiagnosed at the time of his daughter’s death, was used against him as authorities became suspicious of his lack of emotion about what had happened to his daughter.

One prominent voice defending Roberson is conservative activist Doug Deason, who wrote in a post on X on Tuesday: “I believe he is innocent.”

Another supporter is the lead investigator in Roberson’s case, Brian Wharton, who has expressed regret for playing a role in his conviction.

“Knowing everything I know now, I firmly believe that Robert is an innocent man,” Wharton said at a recent news conference organized by Roberson’s supporters. “The system failed, Robert.”

The Anderson County District Attorney’s Office, which prosecuted Roberson, said in court documents that after a hearing in 2022 to review new evidence in the case, a judge rejected theories that pneumonia and other illnesses caused Curtis’ death.

“Increase in execution rate”

Roberson is one of several men scheduled to be executed next month in the United States, where death penalty laws are set by individual states.

Derrick Ryan Dearman, convicted of killing five people in a 2016 Alabama home bombing, will face lethal injection on the same day as Roberson.

Thomas Eugene Creech, convicted of six murders including the 1981 slaying of a fellow inmate, is scheduled to receive a lethal injection on Nov. 13, about nine months after the state failed its first attempt to kill him by finding a functioning vein , into which you can introduce the deadly drug.

UN human rights spokesman Seif Magango issued a statement expressing concern about the “rise in the execution rate” in the US, where six people were killed in 12 days last month.

One of those executed was Emmanuel Littlejohn, who was killed by lethal injection last month despite a parole board recommendation in Oklahoma that his life be spared.

Another man, Marcellus Williams, whose murder conviction was questioned by a prosecutor, was also executed by lethal injection in September.

“We urge the United States to join the growing global consensus to abolish the death penalty worldwide – starting by immediately imposing a moratorium on executions,” Magango said.