Texas Supreme Court declines to reverse delaying execution

DALLAS – The Dallas Morning News reports that the Texas Supreme Court declined a request Sunday from the state attorney general to reconsider its unprecedented order staying the execution of Robert Roberson III, ensuring the man on death row will testify before a House Committee on Monday. The Thursday stay, which was issued hours after Roberson was scheduled to be executed, came after the House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence issued a subpoena calling Roberson to testify about how the state’s 2013 “junk science” law allowing people to challenge convictions with new science was applied in his case. In the Sunday order, the state Supreme Court did not rule on a dispute between the attorney general’s office and lawmakers: whether Roberson will testify in person or via teleconference. Roberson’s attorneys argue that testifying virtually would “profoundly” limit the committee’s ability to assess his credibility, while the attorneys general’s office says bringing him to the Capitol in Austin presents “myriad security and logistical concerns.”

In a 24-page petition filed on behalf of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, the attorney general’s office had said the House committee’s subpoena was “defective on its face” and that the state Supreme Court — which handles civil matters — lacks jurisdiction in the case. The high court’s Thursday order “flouts” the separation of powers and pushed Texas to the “brink of a constitutional crisis,” an attorney with the attorney general’s office said in the filing. State Reps. Jeff Leach, R-Plano, and Joe Moody, D-El Paso, responded Sunday night on behalf of the House of Representatives. They argued the attorney general’s office already conceded the legitimacy of the subpoena in an earlier hearing and that this case highlights the “interdependence” of the branches of government, but does not breach their separate powers. During the Travis County hearing Thursday, Assistant Attorney General Ed Marshall said the case was not a “shaken baby” case and argued the Court of Criminal Appeals had exclusive jurisdiction.

Dallas Fed: Texas employment forecast strengthens

DALLAS—The Texas Employment Forecast released by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas indicates jobs will increase 2.5 percent in 2024, with an 80 percent confidence band of 2.3 to 2.7 percent.

This is an increase from the previous month’s forecast of 2.2 percent for 2024.        

The forecast is based on an average of four models that include projected national GDP, oil futures prices, and the Texas and U.S. leading indexes.

“Texas employment growth was strong again in September, adding 33,800 jobs. Employment growth has normalized to a rate more consistent with trend growth. This comes after a summer of volatile data characterized by storms that disrupted labor markets in large parts of the state,” said Jesus Cañas, Dallas Fed senior business economist. “Gains in September were led by construction, education and health services, and professional and business services. Employment fell in information, financial activities and government. Employment growth in the major metropolitan areas was led by Austin followed by Dallas and Houston.”

Additional key takeaways from the latest Dallas Fed report:       

The forecast suggests 348,900 jobs will be added in the state this year, and employment in December 2024 will be 14.4 million.    

Texas employment increased by an annualized 2.9 percent month over month in September, while the August growth was revised upward to 7.7 percent.  

The unemployment rate decreased in Dallas–Plano–Irving, Fort Worth–Arlington and San Antonio–New Braunfels, according to seasonally adjusted numbers from the Dallas Fed.    

The rate remained unchanged in Austin–Round Rock, in Brownsville–Harlingen, El Paso, and Houston–The Woodlands–Sugar Land.

The rate increased in Laredo.

The Texas statewide unemployment rate remained unchanged at 4.1 percent in September.     

Man arrested after threatening Trinity County law enforcement

Man arrested after threatening Trinity County law enforcementTRINITY COUNTY – Trinity County Sheriff Woody Wallace said that one man was arrested on Sunday after he reportedly said he was “going pig hunting” or planning to kill police officers.

According to our news partner KETK, Randall Konetzke was reportedly seen driving recklessly on FM 356, stopping in front of the Trinity Police Department and then speeding back onto FM 356 where he stopped. When officers responded Wallace said Konetzke was outside of his vehicle, which was parked on the side of the road, talking to another driver. When he saw the officers, he started to walk back to his vehicle and then the officers told him to stop but he continued to try and get into his truck.

A brief struggle ensued and Konetzke was arrested. He was charged with unlawful possesion of a firearm by a felon, terroristic threat to a public servant and resisting arrest, search or transportation.

Helicopter crashes into radio tower in Houston, killing 4

HOUSTON (AP) — Four people aboard a helicopter were killed when it crashed into a radio tower in Houston and burst into flames, officials said.

The helicopter went down just before 8 p.m. Sunday in a neighborhood east of downtown after taking off from Ellington Field, about 15 miles (24 kilometers) away, Mayor John Whitmire said at a news conference. He didn’t know the flight’s destination.

Officials said no one on the ground was injured, and no nearby homes were damaged, though some vehicles were. The crash sparked a fire that burned about 100 to 200 yards (91 to 183 meters) of grass, officials said.

Firefighters at a nearby station heard the crash and responded, Whitmire said. He said it was a “terrible accident scene” and that the tower and helicopter were destroyed. Some area residents lost power, Whitmire said.

“It is surrounded by residences and that’s where we were very fortunate — that it didn’t topple in one direction or another,” Whitmire said. “And the fireball pretty much was isolated.”

The National Transportation Safety Board said in a statement that it is investigating the crash of the Robinson R44 II helicopter, which preliminary information shows was operating as an air tour flight. The NTSB said the helicopter crashed into a radio tower “under unknown circumstances,” resulting in a fire.

Officials said the four people aboard the helicopter included a child but the identities of the victims and their ages have not yet been released.

Police and fire officials have urged residents near the crash site to call 911 if they find anything on their property that could help in their investigation.

Police officers on Monday were scouring an area of around 4 acres (1.6 hectares) for debris from the crash, said Lt. Jonathan French.

NTSB investigators, who arrived on site Monday, started collecting evidence and will return Tuesday to continue that work, said Brian Rutt, an air safety investigator for the agency. The Federal Aviation Administration is also investigating.

Texas man whose execution was halted by subpoena set to testify to lawmakers

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A Texas man whose execution was halted after a last-ditch maneuver by lawmakers who believe Robert Roberson did not kill his 2-year-old daughter was expected to testify before a state House panel on Monday, four days after he had been scheduled to die by lethal injection.

Roberson had been set to become the first person in the U.S. executed over a murder conviction connected to a diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome. His claims of innocence are backed by a group of Republican and Democratic legislators who say he was convicted based on outdated science.

Once Roberson testifies to lawmakers, prosecutors could seek a new execution date at any time, according to Gretchen Sween, one of his attorneys.

Lawmakers have sought to have Roberson transported from death row to appear in person, raising the possibility of an extraordinary scene in the Texas Capitol, but the state attorney general’s office told the committee he would appear virtually.

Rebuffed by the courts and Texas’ parole board in their efforts to spare Roberson’s life, legislators last Thursday subpoenaed Roberson to testify in an unusual tactic to buy him more time. Lawmakers on the House committee have expressed frustration with Texas’ junk science law, which they say has failed to work as intended, including in Roberson’s case.

The 2013 law allows a person convicted of a crime to seek relief if the evidence used against them is no longer credible. At the time, it was hailed by the Legislature as a uniquely future-proof solution to wrongful convictions based on faulty science. But Roberson’s supporters say his case points to faults in the judicial system where the law has been weakened by deliberate misinterpretation from the state’s highest criminal court.

In the last 10 years, 74 applications have been filed and ruled on under the junk science law. A third of applications were submitted by people facing the death penalty. All of them were unsuccessful.

Anderson County District Attorney Allyson Mitchell, whose office prosecuted Roberson, has previously told the committee that a court hearing was held in 2022 in which Roberson’s attorneys presented their new evidence to a judge, who rejected their claims.

Roberson was sentenced to death for the killing of his 2-year-old daughter, Nikki Curtis, in 2002. Prosecutors argued the infant’s death was caused by serious head trauma from being violently shaken back and forth. Roberson’s attorneys say that the bruising on Curtis’ body was likely due to complications with severe pneumonia and not child abuse.

Almost 90 lawmakers across party lines, medical experts and best-selling author John Grisham had called on Republican Gov. Greg Abbott to stay his execution. Abbott has not commented on Roberson’s case and the Texas parole board rejected pleas to grant clemency.

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Lathan is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

Man arrested after threatening Trinity County officers

TRINITY COUNTY – Trinity County Sheriff Woody Wallace said that one man was arrested on Sunday after he reportedly said he was “going pig hunting” or planning to kill police officers. According to our news partner KETK,the sheriff’s office was notified that a man had displayed a firearm and said he was going to drive around the town of Trinity and kill police officers.

Randall Konetzke was reportedly seen driving recklessly on FM 356, stopping in front of the Trinity Police Department and then speeding back onto FM 356 where he stopped. When officers responded Wallace said Konetzke was outside of his vehicle, which was parked on the side of the road, talking to another driver.

When he saw the officers, he started to walk back to his vehicle and then the officers told him to stop but he continued to try and get into his truck. A brief struggle ensued and Konetzke was arrested. He was charged with unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon, terroristic threat to a public servant and resisting arrest, search or transportation.

Update: Robert Roberson will not virtually testify before Texas House

Update: Robert Roberson will not virtually testify before Texas House UPDATE: Robert Roberson will not testify before a Texas House committee on Monday, despite a subpoena ordering his presence at the House for testimony.

Rep. Joe Moody from El Paso said they still have “an impressive slate of witnesses” on the list. He maintained that their subpoena is legitimate and was not meant to create separation of powers issues, a point for which Gov. Greg Abbott has argued.

Given that Roberson is a person with autism with communication challenges, and has spent the past 20 years incarcerated, video conference would be poorly suited to Roberson, Moody argued.
Continue reading Update: Robert Roberson will not virtually testify before Texas House

Rusk County motorcycle crash sends one to hospital by helicopter

Rusk County motorcycle crash sends one to hospital by helicopterRUSK COUNTY – The Crims Chapel Volunteer Fire Department said that a motorcycle crash in Rusk County sent one person to the hospital by helicopter on Sunday. The single vehicle crash happened near State Highway 322 and County Road 240 in northern Rusk County at around 11:30 a.m. on Sunday. EMS at the scene asked that a helicopter be brought in and the patient was sent to a hospital in Tyler to be treated. There was no word on the condition of the person injured.

Texas’ junk science law is getting another look over Robert Roberson’s case

AUSTIN (AP) — When Robert Roberson’s execution was abruptly halted in Texas, it was due to a subpoena ordering him to testify over a legal backstop that both Republicans and Democrats say should had saved him long ago: Texas’ junk science law.

The 2013 law allows a person convicted of a crime to seek relief if the evidence used against them is no longer credible. At the time, it was hailed by the Legislature as a uniquely future-proof solution to wrongful convictions based on faulty science. But Roberson’s supporters say his case points to faults in the judicial system where the law has been weakened by deliberate misinterpretation from the state’s highest criminal court.

On Monday, Roberson is scheduled to testify to members of a state House committee, four days after he had been scheduled to die by lethal injection.

“He’s seen how the prosecution has really stood in the way of bringing new science forward,” Democratic state Rep. John Bucy told The Associated Press. “I think his first hand account will be helpful for that.”

Roberson, 57, was convicted of murder the 2002 death of his 2-year-old daughter, Nikki Curtis, in Palestine, Texas. Prosecutors alleged that he violently shook his daughter back and forth, causing fatal head trauma. A bipartisan group of lawmakers, medical experts and the former lead prosecutor on the case have thrown their support behind Roberson, stating that his conviction is based on flawed science.

In his clemency petition to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, several medical professionals wrote that Roberson’s conviction is based on outdated scientific evidence and that Curtis likely died from complications with severe pneumonia.

Shaken baby syndrome — now referred to as abusive head trauma — was a popular misdiagnosis at the time that has largely been debunked, according to Roberson’s attorneys.

Courts have rejected numerous attempts by his attorneys to hear new evidence in the case, and Texas’ parole board voted to not recommend Roberson clemency, a necessary step for Abbott to stay the execution. The governor has not commented on Roberson’s case.

No one facing execution has had their sentence overturned since the junk science law was enacted in 2013, according to a report by civil rights group Texas Defender Service.

In the last 10 years, 74 applications have been filed and ruled on under the junk science law. A third of applications were submitted by people facing the death penalty. All of them were unsuccessful.

Of the applications that led to relief, nearly three-quarters were for convictions related to DNA evidence despite making up less than half of all applications.

Legal experts suggest the reason for this is the Texas Criminal Court of Appeals misinterpreting the law and assessing applicants based on their innocence rather than the evidence.

“In practice, the CCA is applying a much higher standard than what the legislators wrote,” said Burke Butler, executive director for Texas Defender Service. “It (proving innocence) is a virtually impossible bar for anyone to meet,” she said, adding that DNA claims are likely more successful because the court can point to another perpetrator.

A House committee is set to discuss how the junk science law has failed to work as intended. In their subpoena to block the court’s execution warrant, lawmakers argued that Roberson’s testimony is vital to understanding its ineffectiveness.

Prosecutors have stated that the evidence in Roberson’s case has not changed significantly since his conviction. The Anderson County District Attorney Office did not respond to phone calls and voice messages Friday from The Associated Press.

Texas’ junk science law was the first of its kind in 2013 and a model for other states across the country, according to legal experts. California, Connecticut, Michigan, Nevada and Wyoming have similar “junk science” statutes, but it has not been studied how successful they are at overturning death penalty convictions.

There are many instances when prosecutors rely on inconsistent or faulty evidence during trial, and junk science laws can be a necessary tool to combat wrongful convictions, according to University of Oklahoma law professor Jim Hilbert.

“The Roberson case is a classic case that the Texas law was meant to address,” Hilbert, who has written about discredited science used in criminal trials, said.

“It has had a positive impact, but in such a limited way. There is so much more it can do.”

UT Tyler hosts annual engineering competition

UT Tyler hosts annual engineering competitionTYLER – The University of Texas at Tyler held their third annual Ratliff Relays engineering competitions on Saturday. The relays consist of cardboard boat races, carbon dioxide rocketry, water rockets, robotic car races and the always popular drone races.

“They will learn the dynamics from the classroom and then they will apply the concepts to a real design and prototype. So from this competition, students will have a lot of fun and they will realize how to apply our knowledge to solve real world problems,” said associate professor of mechanical engineering at UT Tyler, Chung-Hyun Goh.

Two Texas cities represent a political divide

LEWISVILLE (AP) — Deep in the heart of Texas’ sprawl, the city of Lewisville embodies the Lone Star State.

Bisected by Interstate 35 and ribboned with six- and eight-lane thoroughfares lined with chain stores, Mexican restaurants and pawn shops, Lewisville, 23 miles north of Dallas, is a prototypical slice of the nation’s second-largest state. Its typical resident is about 36 years old, the same as in Texas. Similar to statewide, 6 out of 10 of its residents are not white, and two-thirds of its voters cast ballots in the 2020 presidential election.

Next door is the city of Flower Mound, a swath of subdivisions with names such as Teal Wood Oaks and Chaucer Estates. Flower Mound looks more like the electorate that has kept Texas dominated by Republicans for decades. It’s wealthier than Lewisville, more than two-thirds of its residents are white, and 78% of them voted in 2020.

That discrepancy between the diverse, potential electorate of Lewisville and the actual, heavily white electorate of Flower Mound has been the subtext for the past two decades of American politics.

For a long time, the presumption has been that closing that gap between Lewisville and Flower Mound — getting more people to vote, and the electorate to better represent the country’s actual population — would help Democrats and hurt Republicans. That’s because a bigger electorate would mean more minorities voting, and those groups historically lean Democratic.

That presumption helped spark the Great Replacement conspiracy theory among some conservatives, imagining a plot to import immigrants to substitute for more conservative white voters. It’s been part of the fuel behind Republican-led efforts to make it tougher to vote, especially in Texas, which has some of the strictest election laws in the country.

But this presidential election has flipped the script.

Republicans have invested in reaching what they believe is a vast population of infrequent, conservative-leaning voters. Former President Donald Trump’s campaign has been counting on support from younger, Latino and African-American voters who are less likely to go to the polls.

Meanwhile, Democrat Kamala Harris is relying on Black and Latino voters, but also on increasing her support among college-educated voters, a growing group that’s both highly likely to vote and helped put Democrat Joe Biden in the White House in 2020.

The contrast is clear in the neighboring cities in north Texas. In high-propensity Flower Mound, Republicans who used to dominate the suburb fear it’s trending Democratic. Meanwhile, in more diverse Lewisville, those who rarely vote or cannot are warming to Trump.

“I think Trump would make a difference,” said Brandon Taylor, 35, who cannot vote because of criminal convictions, but is trying to persuade his girlfriend, Whitney Black, to vote for Trump. “We need that extra vote,” he told Black as the two, now homeless, sat on a bench outside Lewisville’s public library.

Meanwhile, Martha McKenzie, a retired Naval officer in Flower Mound, is a former Republican who left the party over Trump.

“I just can’t get behind a lot of the BS behind Trump,” McKenzie said.

There are, of course, plenty of Harris supporters in Lewisville and numerous Trump voters in Flower Mound. The contrast between the towns goes more to an age-old adage voiced by Sally Ortega Putney on a recent night in a Flower Mound office park.

Putney, 59, recalled spending hours outside Lewisville’s Latino markets trying, unsuccessfully, to find new voters.

“We got our hearts broken trying all sorts of different outreach. The lower class, they don’t have the time, they’re too busy trying to feed their kids,” Putney said between calls that she and two other Democratic volunteers were making to voters.

She gestured around the room: “It’s the middle class that ends up running everything, because we have the time to do it.”

For decades in Texas, that has meant Republicans run things. The party has controlled the Legislature for more than 20 years and won every statewide race since 1994. As the state has steadily grown more diverse, the GOP has taken steps to protect its power.

Texas Republicans have drawn some of the most notorious gerrymanders in the country, reshuffling the lines of state legislative and congressional districts to protect GOP politicians and push the Democratic voters who could oust them into a few oddly shaped districts. That ensures Democrats remain the minority in the Legislature.

Lawmakers in 2021 tightened election laws in response to Trump’s false fraud claims. They banned election offices from holding 24-hour voting after it became popular in a major Democratic-leaning county and prohibited anyone from sending mail ballot applications to eligible voters.

Since then Texas Republicans have continued to push back against a perceived menace of improper voters.

Attorney General Ken Paxton sued two of the state’s largest and Democratic-leaning counties to stop their voter registration drives, and his office raided the homes of leaders of Latino civil rights groups in what it said was an investigation of possible election fraud.

“There’s no question that the design of a lot of Texas’ election laws, both old and new, is rooted in the idea of demographic change and that new voters won’t support the people in power,” said Michael Li, senior counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice.

Texas already has had recent experience with an upsurge in new voters, however, and it didn’t turn out as badly for Republicans as the party feared.

In 2018, Democrat Beto O’Rourke challenged Republican Sen. Ted Cruz. The little-known congressman became a national phenomenon for his populist message and get-out-the-vote pushes. He lost 51% to 48%.

Jim Henson, a political scientist at the University of Texas, said the new voters who turned out in 2018 were evenly split between Republicans and Democrats — only slightly more Democratic than the normally conservative-leaning Texas electorate.

“There are untapped voters for both parties,” he said.

___ The Associated Press receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Tyler celebrates 91st Texas Rose Festival Parade

Tyler celebrates 91st Texas Rose Festival ParadeTYLER – The community gathered together Saturday in Tyler to celebrate the 91st Texas Rose Festival Parade.

This years Texas Rose Festival theme is “Fanfare of Festivals,” celebrating festivals from various cultures. The parade featured Duchesses and Ladies in Waiting in dresses centered around those themes, and the Queen’s float was the grand finale.

Our news partner KETK has provided a link in which you can watch their coverage of the Texas Rose Festival Parade. The link for it is here.

Tyler State Park has new headquarters

Tyler State Park has new headquartersTYLER – The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and Tyler State Park announced the opening of a new headquarters for the park on Friday. According to our news partner KETK, the TPDW said in a release, the new headquarters is designed to make visitors check-in much faster and reduce traffic congestion.

Other features include, conference rooms, holding offices, a new radio tower, increased parking and an interpretive gallery that describes the history of Tyler State Park.

“It is exciting to see the hard work and dedication of so many colleagues, partners and supporters result in such a beautiful facility,” said Rodney Franklin, director of Texas State Parks. “I am happy that we are able to design and construct a park headquarters of which all of Texas can be proud. This new facility will help support staff, serve our visitors and tell the story of the park better than ever and is befitting of one our most popular Texas State Parks.”

One of the largest solar projects in US is in Texas

DALLAS (AP)- One of the largest solar projects in the U.S. opened in Texas on Friday, backed by what Google said is the largest solar electricity purchase it has ever made.

Google executive Ben Sloss said at the ribbon cutting, about two hours south of Dallas, that the corporation has a responsibility to bring renewable, carbon-free electricity online at the same time it opens operations that will use that power. Google expects to spend $16 billion through 2040 globally to purchase clean energy, he said.

U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, who attended, said the solar project is a posterchild for the administration’s efforts to incentivize manufacturers and developers to locate energy projects in the U.S.

“Sometimes when you are in the middle of history, it’s hard to tell, because you are in the middle of it,” she said. “But I’m telling you right now that we are in the middle of history being made.”

SB Energy built three solar farms side by side, the “Orion Solar Belt,” in Buckholts, Texas. Combined, they will be able to provide 875 megawatts of clean energy. That is nearly the size of a typical nuclear facility. In total, Google has contracted with clean energy developers to bring more than 2,800 megawatts of new wind and solar projects to the state, which it says exceeds the amount of power required for its operations there.

Google, Amazon and Microsoft have all recently announced investments in nuclear energy to power data centers, too, as the tech giants seek new sources of carbon-free electricity to meet surging demand from data centers and artificial intelligence. Google has a commitment to get all of its electricity without contributing to climate change, regardless of time of day or whether the sun is up, but neither it nor other large companies are meeting those commitments with the rise of artificial intelligence.

The International Energy Agency forecasts that data centers’ total electricity consumption could reach more than 1,000 terawatt-hours in 2026, more than doubling from 2022. Estimates suggest one terawatt-hour can power 70,000 homes for a year.

The demand for power is also growing globally as buildings and vehicles electrify. People used more electricity than ever last year, placing strain on electric grids around the world.

In August, Google said it planned to invest more than $1 billion in Texas this year to support its cloud and data center infrastructure.

Google will use about 85% of the project’s solar power for data centers in Ellis County and for cloud computing in the Dallas region. In Ellis County, Google operates a data center campus in Midlothian and is building out a new campus in Red Oak. The rest of the solar power will go to the state’s electrical grid. Thousands of sheep graze in the area, maintaining the vegetation around the solar arrays.

“This project was a spreadsheet and a set of emails that I had been exchanging and a bunch of approvals and so on. And then you come over the rise over there and you see it laid out in front of you and it kind of takes your breath away, right? Because there’s this enormous field of solar arrays,” Sloss said during the ceremony. “And we actually collectively have done this. That is amazing.”

SB Energy said most of the solar farm components are made in the United States, and that’s only possible because the climate law formally known as the Inflation Reduction Act spurred clean energy manufacturing. The company expects the projects to be the first to qualify for an extra tax credit the law affords for using domestic content.

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