The Supreme Court of Texas ruled Friday that a legislative subpoena cannot stop an execution and that "the legislature 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.
Get top local stories in DFW delivered to you every morning. Sign up for NBC DFW's News Headlines newsletter.
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 doesn't have the authority to disrupt the judiciary's judgment by scheduling a subpoena after an execution date.
"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.
If executed, Roberson would be the first person in the United States put to death for shaken baby syndrome.
