Texas attorney general and state lawmakers spar over death row inmate in 'shaken baby' case
A bipartisan group of Texas lawmakers who used their legislative powers and the courts to stop an execution last week with only hours to spare have drawn public rebuke from state Attorney General Ken Paxton.
A bipartisan group of Texas lawmakers who used their legislative powers and the courts to stop an execution last week with only hours to spare has drawn public rebuke from state Attorney General Ken Paxton, stirring claims against his office on Thursday of "misrepresentation" in the death row inmate's case.
Robert Roberson, 57, was set to become the first person in the U.S. executed in a "shaken baby" case until members of the state House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee issued a subpoena to have him testify at a legislative hearing this week. Despite efforts by the attorney general's office to appeal, as the execution was scheduled to get underway on the evening of Oct. 17, the Texas Supreme Court, in an 11th-hour decision, sided with the lawmakers, handing Roberson a temporary reprieve.
Paxton had not personally commented on the issue until Wednesday, when his social media account posted a list of reasons for why Roberson's execution should proceed.
"Today, my office released the original autopsy report and other evidence to correct falsehoods amplified by a coalition interfering with the capital punishment proceedings in which Robert Roberson was scheduled to be executed for the murder of his two-year-old daughter Nikki," the attorney general said.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton at the Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Md., on Feb. 23.Mandel Ngan / AFP - Getty ImagesAmong the reasons he gave were that the jury did not convict Roberson on the basis of "shaken baby syndrome" and that the father murdered his daughter in 2002 by "beating her so brutally that she ultimately died."
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