The Supreme Court of Texas ruled Friday that a legislative subpoena cannot stop an execution and that while the legislature has investigatory power, it lacks "the authority to upend a final judgment of the judiciary."
Justice Evan Young wrote an opinion released Friday related to the scheduled execution of Texas death row inmate Robert Roberson.
Roberson was scheduled to be executed by lethal injection at about 6 p.m. on Oct. 17, 2024, for the 2002 death of his 2-year-old daughter. Roberson was convicted in 2003 of shaking his daughter, Nikki Curtis, to death in a diagnosis known as shaken baby syndrome. Roberson's attorneys said new evidence suggests that's not what killed the little girl and that his life should be spared.
Last month, a legislative committee of Texas House Republicans and Democrats issued a subpoena calling for Roberson's testimony after his scheduled execution date. The legal maneuver effectively halted Roberson's execution. Still, it also questioned whether the legislature violated the separation of powers by interfering with the executive branch's ability to fulfill its responsibility of carrying out the execution.
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In October, the Supreme Court of Texas temporarily ruled in Roberson's favor, granting a temporary restraining order to prevent the execution so that it could review whether the legislature had the right to compel the inmate’s attendance before the committee. Friday's decision said the legislature has no authority to disrupt the judiciary's judgment by scheduling a subpoena after an execution date but did not dispute the committee's authority to request testimony.
"We conclude that under these circumstances the committee’s authority to compel testimony does not include the power to override the scheduled legal process leading to an execution. We do not repudiate legislative investigatory power, but any testimony relevant to a legislative task here could have been obtained long before the death warrant was issued—or even afterwards, but before the execution," Young wrote.
Texas State Rep. Brian Harrison said Friday that the House Committee still expects to hear testimony from Roberson.
"The Texas Supreme Court agreed today that our subpoena was valid and lawful. My expectation is that we will now receive Roberson’s testimony, and it will be clear in time who was on the right side of history and who championed the execution of a potentially innocent person," Harrison said.
State Rep. Cody Harris (R-Palestine) spoke to NBC 5 following the ruling. He’s been in touch with Nikki Curtis’ family.
“The next step will be for the district attorney to issue a new execution warrant and then that starts the new 90-day clock,” Harris said. “So not really a sense of finality or closure yet, but hopefully this is the beginning of the end of the legislature trying to intervene into this court case.”
In October, NBC 5 went to Palestine to speak with Nikki’s older brother. Matthew Bowman was a child himself at the time of her death. He said the scrutiny and media attention had taken a toll.
“We never stopped living this. It’s been something that’s been brought up from 2002 all the way to now,” Bowman said.
Gretchen Sween, an attorney representing Roberson, said in a statement Friday that she hopes the executive branch considers the new evidence presented by the House committee and that the state refrains from setting a new execution date.
“We are grateful that the validity of the Committee's right to obtain Mr. Roberson’s testimony was recognized today by the Texas Supreme Court as well as an expectation that the executive branch work cooperatively to obtain that testimony," Sween said. "The ancillary benefit to Mr. Roberson of staying his execution hopefully gives time for those with power to address a grave wrong to see what is apparent to anyone who gives the medical evidence fair consideration: his daughter Nikki’s death was a tragedy, not a crime; Robert is innocent. Given the overwhelming new evidence of innocence, we ask the State of Texas to refrain from setting a new execution date."
If executed, Roberson would be the first person in the United States put to death for shaken baby syndrome.
