Watch Live: Robert Roberson missing from hearing before Texas lawmakers after his execution was halted

Texas lawmakers were expected to hear testimony Monday at the state Capitol Robert Robersona prisoner sentenced to death whose execution took place temporarily canceled last week. Ultimately, however, Roberson did not appear before the legislative panel as scheduled after Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office declined to allow Roberson to testify in person, citing safety concerns, and lawmakers declined to allow him to appear virtually due to his autism and unfamiliarity to leave modern technology after more than 20 years in a maximum security prison.

The Texas House Criminal Justice Committee said it was opposing Paxton’s decision in hopes of allowing Roberson to testify in person at another time.

“I expect a quick resolution to these ongoing discussions,” Democratic Rep. Joe Moody, the chairman of a House committee that led the effort to stop the execution, said at Monday’s hearing, referring to conversations with the U.S. Attorney’s office Attorney General. “I will keep everyone updated once these plans are finalized.”

Moody noted that the subpoena requiring the inmate’s testimony remained in effect and could be enforced “dramatically” if the committee decided to take a tough approach. However, given the spate of contradictory moves by different agencies in the Roberson case, the chairman added: “We are not interested in escalating the division between the branches of government.”

Roberson, 57, was scheduled to die by lethal injection on Thursday for the 2002 murder of his 2-year-old daughter, Nikki Curtis. But as scientific developments in recent years cast doubt on fundamental aspects of his case and conviction, authorities began to question his guilt. Roberson was convicted of aggravated murder because his daughter died of shaken baby syndrome, a condition that was once used as evidence of child abuse and that experts now consider outdated and too vague to support a criminal charge.

At Monday’s hearing, Phil McGraw, who plays Dr. Phil, a well-known television host and doctor of psychology, said the medical assessment of Roberson’s daughter was flawed when she died after a period of documented illness and a prescription for medication may have caused her to rapidly deteriorate.

“There is no such thing as shaken baby syndrome,” he said, arguing that the traumatic head injury that seeks to define it would be accompanied by “very clear signs” of abuse by an adult, “which were not present in this case.”

During his testimony, McGraw said he believes Roberson “did not have due process. I don’t think he had a fair trial and I think he should.”

Advancing scientific and medical understanding of the syndrome and its symptoms has led to at least a dozen exonerations in the United States in recent decades. But prosecutors and courts argue that there is evidence of Roberson’s guilt outside of Curtis’ diagnosis, even as the lead investigator who helped secure his murder conviction openly proclaims the man’s innocence and his office’s own errors in assessing him Roberson admitted to his behavior before learning about his autism.

Texas Rep. Jeff Leach, co-chair of the Criminal Justice Committee, expressed similar sentiments in his opening remarks at the hearing. Leach said he came to the conclusion shortly after meeting the inmate that Roberson was “totally innocent.”

“The purpose of this hearing … is to ask questions and find out the truth. Finding out where the system went wrong, where it failed Nikki and where it failed Mr. Roberson,” Leach said.

Roberson maintains he did not kill his daughter. He would be the first person in the United States to be executed for a conviction related to shaken baby syndrome if his execution moves forward.

Hours before it was scheduled to take place Thursday, a Travis County judge issued a temporary restraining order to pause the proceedings so he could testify before a bipartisan group of state lawmakers on the Criminal Justice Committee. The committee had subpoenaed Roberson the night before to testify at the hearing. At issue were “criminal cases involving the death penalty” and a groundbreaking “junk science” law that would allow Texas inmates to appeal their convictions if the scientific or forensic evidence used to convict them was exposed or found to be unreliable.

The subpoena followed a recommendation earlier in the day by the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to deny Roberson’s clemency request, effectively preventing Gov. Greg Abbott from granting clemency without court intervention. Abbott could still delay the execution for 30 days through an executive stay.

Abbott has asked the Texas Supreme Court to reject the subpoena for Roberson’s testimony. The governor’s general counsel said in a letter to the state’s highest court that the House committee “stepped out of line” by issuing a subpoena ensuring the execution would be delayed for at least 90 days. It said the committee’s “tactics” essentially opened the door to a “rewrite of the Constitution to reallocate a power that belongs only to the governor.”

The Texas Court of Appeals then overturned the district judge’s injunction. Then, when the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a request to stay Roberson’s execution — with Justice Sonia Sotomayor writing in her ruling that “the Supreme Court is unable to act without a challengeable federal lawsuit” — the Texas Supreme Court stopped the execution. His last-minute decision upheld a civil complaint filed by Roberson’s attorneys and state lawmakers.

“Whether the legislature may use its authority to compel the presence of witnesses to block the executive branch’s authority to carry out a death sentence is a question of Texas civil law, not its criminal law,” said Texas Supreme Court Justice Evan Young Texas, in its statement .