Death row inmate Robert Roberson won’t yet testify before Texas House

(HUNTSVILLE, TEXAS) — Robert Roberson — whose murder conviction in the death of his 2-year-old daughter has come under scrutiny — did not testify Monday before the Texas House committee as previously planned.

Committee members decided against having Roberson address the hearing via video call. However, they did not state whether Roberson would or would not testify before the committee.

“Robert is a person with autism who has significant communication challenges, which was a core issue that impacted him at every stage of our judicial of our justice system,” said state Rep. Joe Moodie. “He’s also spent most of the last two decades alone, locked away from the modern technology we now take for granted. Video conference is poorly suited for Robert specifically to provide his testimony and would only further the harm he’s already suffered.”

Still, the committee continued its hearing on a law that Roberson himself attempted to use to challenge his conviction based on a clinical diagnosis that could be related to different causes.

“I was one of the 12 jurors on the case of Robert the trial, and I took that position very seriously,” a juror on the case told to the House committee on Monday:

“Everything that was presented to us was all about ‘shaken baby syndrome,’ That is what our decision was based on,” she continued. “Nothing else was ever mentioned or presented to us to consider. If it had been told to us, we would have now, I would have had a different opinion. And I would have found him not guilty.”

Among the witnesses speaking before the committee was Dr. Phil McGraw, the talk show host and forensic psychologist. He argued that if legislators execute Roberson, “the death penalty could come under real attack.”

“When we talk about due process and fair trial, that means that all the evidence, everything that is relevant and pertinent to that trial, gets before the trier of fact, whether it be a judge or a jury, and that there’s fair representation and I certainly don’t think that standard has been met here that that high standard by which we would deprive someone of their life has been met,” McGraw said.

Roberson was set to become the first person to be executed in the U.S. based on a death attributed to “shaken baby syndrome,” although several lawmakers, scientists and public figures have cast doubt over the cause of death.

He was set to be executed on Oct. 17. The U.S. Supreme Court had previously decided not to intervene in the case, the Texas Supreme Court issued a temporary stay in the case in what were supposed to be his final hours.

Roberson was found guilty of the 2002 murder of his 2-year-old daughter, Nikki, in part, based on the testimony from a pediatrician who described swelling and hemorrhages in her brain to support a “shaken baby syndrome” diagnosis.

However, evidence not shown to the jury at the time states that Nikki had chronic interstitial viral pneumonia and acute bacterial pneumonia at the time of her death and had been prescribed respiratory-suppressing drugs by doctors in the days leading up to her death, and had fallen from her bed the night before her death.

Additionally, Roberson’s autism affects how he expresses emotion — a concern that was also presented against him in his arrest, according to his legal team.