Today is
Saturday November 23, 2024
RUSK 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.
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.â€
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 Greg Abbott, several medical professionals wrote that Roberson’s conviction is based on outdated scientific evidence and that Curtis likely died from complications with severe pneumonia.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.â€
TYLER – 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.
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.â€
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 – 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 – 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.â€
HOUSTON (AP) — Robert Roberson, set to be the first person in the U.S. to be put to death for a murder conviction tied to a diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome, was nearly out of options to stop his execution in Texas.
A state parole board, multiple lower courts and the U.S. Supreme Court had all rejected his requests to delay his lethal injection on Thursday evening for the killing of his 2-year-old daughter in 2002. And it seemed unlikely that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott would use his power to grant a one-time 30-day reprieve as he had only stopped one imminent execution in his nearly 10 years in office.
Roberson’s final hope rested with a bipartisan group of Texas lawmakers who believe he is innocent and their extraordinary and unprecedented strategy to delay his execution: issuing a subpoena for him to testify before a House committee next week, which would be days after he was scheduled to die.
After several hours of legal debate Thursday evening among three different state courts, the Texas Supreme Court sided with the lawmakers and upheld a temporary restraining order that stayed the execution.
The unconventional method of using a subpoena to stop Roberson’s execution was punctuated by the delay coming from the Texas Supreme Court, the state’s highest civil court and which rarely gets involved in criminal matters.
“It really is highly dramatic and something I certainly have never seen,†said Sandra Guerra Thompson, a law professor at the University of Houston Law Center.
Roberson is now set to speak before the Texas House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee on Monday. But beyond that, it is unclear what will happen in his case. A new execution date could be set. Roberson’s attorneys say they will use the extra time he has to fight for a new trial.
Here’s what to know about Roberson’s case and how his execution was delayed:
What was Roberson convicted of doing?
Roberson, 57, was convicted of killing of his daughter, Nikki Curtis, in the East Texas city of Palestine. Authorities say Curtis died from injuries related to shaken baby syndrome. Roberson’s lawyers and some medical experts say his daughter died not from abuse but from complications related to pneumonia. They say his conviction was based on flawed and now outdated scientific evidence.
The diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome refers to a serious brain injury caused when a child’s head is hurt through shaking or some other violent impact, like being slammed against a wall or thrown on the floor.
Roberson’s supporters don’t deny head and other injuries from child abuse are real. But they say doctors misdiagnosed Curtis’ injuries as being related to shaken baby syndrome and that new evidence has shown the girl died from complications related to severe pneumonia.
Anderson County District Attorney Allyson Mitchell has said the prosecution’s case showed the girl had been abused by her father.
How did Texas House committee try to stop the execution?
Texas House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee late Wednesday decided to issue a subpoena for Roberson as a way of delaying his execution.
“This was the one of the few avenues open to them was the subpoena power that that they have,†Thompson said.
The committee’s members argued before on judge in Austin on Thursday, less than two hours before Roberson’s scheduled execution, that they needed to hear from Roberson about whether a 2013 law created to allow prisoners to challenge their convictions based on new scientific evidence was ignored in his case.
The judge sided with the lawmakers and issued a temporary restraining order that would essentially delay the execution. The order came as the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Roberson’s request to stay his execution.
The judge’s order was appealed by the state to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the state’s top criminal court, which overturned it. The lawmakers had one final move: an appeal to the Texas Supreme Court.
Thompson said the lawmakers were able to ask the Texas Supreme Court to step in because laws regarding subpoenas are civil in nature.
“I think it’s extremely unusual, but not likely to become a regular occurrence,†Thompson said.
In its ruling, the Texas Supreme Court said while it has no authority over criminal cases, the questions being raised over whether the Legislature can use its authority to compel a witness to testify and as a result block the enforcement of a death sentence is a matter civil law that will have to be decided.
“While the news from the Supreme Court is encouraging, we cannot stop advocating for Robert because of this temporary win. Despite the extraordinary efforts of our elected officials, his attorneys, medical experts and the hundreds of thousands of people who spoke out for Robert, his fate is far from certain,†the Innocence Project, which is working with Roberson’s legal team, said in a statement.
What happens next?
Roberson is scheduled to testify before the Texas House committee Monday. Once he appears before the committee, that fulfills the subpoena and there is nothing to prevent the setting of another execution date, Thompson said.
Gretchen Sween, one of Roberson’s attorneys, said Friday that Mitchell, the district attorney in Anderson County, could seek a new execution date at any time after Monday’s hearing.
But under Texas law, a new execution could not take place until about 90 days after a judge sets a new date. The earliest a new execution could be set would be in 2025, Sween said.
“We will continue to seek out avenues to get relief for Robert in the form of a new trial. But the only obvious way that can happen at this time is through the (Texas Court of Criminal Appeals), which has not yet been inclined to look at the new evidence,†Sween said in an email.
DETROIT (AP) — The U.S. government’s road safety agency is investigating Tesla’s “Full Self-Driving†system after getting reports of crashes in low-visibility conditions, including one that killed a pedestrian.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says in documents that it opened the probe on Thursday after the company reported four crashes when Teslas encountered sun glare, fog and airborne dust.
In addition to the pedestrian’s death, another crash involved an injury, the agency said.
Investigators will look into the ability of “Full Self-Driving†to “detect and respond appropriately to reduced roadway visibility conditions, and if so, the contributing circumstances for these crashes.â€
The investigation covers roughly 2.4 million Teslas from the 2016 through 2024 model years.
A message was left early Friday seeking comment from Tesla, which has repeatedly said the system cannot drive itself and human drivers must be ready to intervene at all times.
Last week Tesla held an event at a Hollywood studio to unveil a fully autonomous robotaxi without a steering wheel or pedals. Musk, who has promised autonomous vehicles before, said the company plans to have autonomous Models Y and 3 running without human drivers next year. Robotaxis without steering wheels would be available in 2026 starting in California and Texas, he said.
The investigation’s impact on Tesla’s self-driving ambitions isn’t clear. NHTSA would have to approve any robotaxi without pedals or a steering wheel, and it’s unlikely that would happen while the investigation is in progress. But if the company tries to deploy autonomous vehicles in its existing models, that likely would fall to state regulations. There are no federal regulations specifically focused on autonomous vehicles, although they must meet broader safety rules.
NHTSA also said it would look into whether any other similar crashes involving “Full Self-Driving†have happened in low visibility conditions, and it will seek information from the company on whether any updates affected the system’s performance in those conditions.
“In particular, this review will assess the timing, purpose and capabilities of any such updates, as well as Telsa’s assessment of their safety impact,†the documents said.
Tesla reported the four crashes to NHTSA under an order from the agency covering all automakers. An agency database says the pedestrian was killed in Rimrock, Arizona, in November of 2023 after being hit by a 2021 Tesla Model Y. Rimrock is about 100 miles (161 kilometers) north of Phoenix.
The Arizona Department of Public Safety said in a statement that the crash happened just after 5 p.m. Nov. 27 on Interstate 17. Two vehicles collided on the freeway, blocking the left lane. A Toyota 4Runner stopped, and two people got out to help with traffic control. A red Tesla Model Y then hit the 4Runner and one of the people who exited from it. A 71-year-old woman from Mesa, Arizona was pronounced dead at the scene. Further details weren’t immediately available.
Tesla has twice recalled “Full Self-Driving†under pressure from NHTSA, which in July sought information from law enforcement and the company after a Tesla using the system struck and killed a motorcyclist near Seattle.
The recalls were issued because the system was programmed to run stop signs at slow speeds and because the system disobeyed other traffic laws. Both problems were to be fixed with online software updates.
Critics have said that Tesla’s system, which uses only cameras to spot hazards, doesn’t have proper sensors to be fully self driving. Nearly all other companies working on autonomous vehicles use radar and laser sensors in addition to cameras to see better in the dark or poor visibility conditions.
Musk has said that humans drive with only eyesight, so cars should be able to drive with just cameras. He has called lidar (light detection and ranging), which uses lasers to detect objects, a “fool’s errand.â€
The “Full Self-Driving†recalls arrived after a three-year investigation into Tesla’s less-sophisticated Autopilot system crashing into emergency and other vehicles parked on highways, many with warning lights flashing.
That investigation was closed last April after the agency pressured Tesla into recalling its vehicles to bolster a weak system that made sure drivers are paying attention. A few weeks after the recall, NHTSA began investigating whether the recall was working.
NHTSA began its Autopilot crash investigation in 2021, after receiving 11 reports that Teslas that were using Autopilot struck parked emergency vehicles. In documents explaining why the investigation was ended, NHTSA said it ultimately found 467 crashes involving Autopilot resulting in 54 injuries and 14 deaths. Autopilot is a fancy version of cruise control, while “Full Self-Driving†has been billed by Musk as capable of driving without human intervention.
The investigation that was opened Thursday enters new territory for NHTSA, which previously had viewed Tesla’s systems as assisting drivers rather than driving themselves. With the new probe, the agency is focusing on the capabilities of “Full Self-Driving” rather than simply making sure drivers are paying attention.
Michael Brooks, executive director of the nonprofit Center for Auto Safety, said the previous investigation of Autopilot didn’t look at why the Teslas weren’t seeing and stopping for emergency vehicles.
“Before they were kind of putting the onus on the driver rather than the car,†he said. “Here they’re saying these systems are not capable of appropriately detecting safety hazards whether the drivers are paying attention or not.â€
MIDLOTHIAN (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.â€
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.â€
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.
SMITH COUNTY – Smith County residents began casting their ballots October 21 during two weeks of early voting for the November 5, 2024, Presidential Election. Now through November 1, registered voters can cast their ballots at any of the eight early voting locations, which include:
First Christian Church – Christian Life Center Room 5: 4202 S. Broadway Ave, Tyler
Heritage Building: 1900 Bellwood Road, Tyler
The Hub: 304 E. Ferguson Street, Tyler
Kinzie Community Center: 912 Mt. Sylvan St., Lindale
Noonday Community Center: 16662 CR 196, Tyler
Starrville Church of the Living God, 18396 Highway 271, Winona
Whitehouse Methodist Church: 405 W. Main Street, Whitehouse
Green Acres Baptist Church – Flint Campus, at 1010 CR 137, Flint
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HUNTSVILLE (AP) — The Texas Supreme Court halted Thursday night’s scheduled execution of a man who would have become the first person in the U.S. put to death for a murder conviction tied to a diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome.
The late-night ruling to spare for now the life of Robert Roberson, who was convicted of killing his 2-year-old daughter in 2002, capped a flurry of last-ditch legal challenges and weeks of public pressure from both Republican and Democratic lawmakers who say he is innocent and was sent to death row based on flawed science.
In the hours leading up to the ruling, Roberson had been confined to a prison holding cell a few feet from America’s busiest death chamber at the Walls Unit in Hunstville, waiting for certainty over whether he would be taken to die by lethal injection.
“He was shocked, to say the least,†said Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesperson Amanda Hernandez, who spoke with Roberson after the court stayed his execution. “He praised God and he thanked his supporters. And that’s pretty much what he had to say.”
She said Roberson would be returned to the Polunsky Unit, about 45 miles (72 kilometers) to the east, where the state’s male death row is located.
Roberson, 57, was convicted of killing of his daughter, Nikki Curtis, in the East Texas city of Palestine. His lawyers and some medical experts say his daughter died not from abuse but from complications related to pneumonia.
Order capped a night of last-minute maneuvers
It is rare for the Texas Supreme Court — the state’s highest civil court — to get involved in a criminal matter.
But how the all-Republican court wound up stopping Roberson’s execution in the final hours underlined the extraordinary maneuvers used by a bipartisan coalition of state House lawmakers who have come to his defense.
Rejected by courts and Texas’ parole board in their efforts to spare Roberson’s life, legislators on Wednesday tried a different route: issuing a subpoena for Roberson to testify before a House committee next week, which would be days after he was scheduled to die. The unusual plan to buy time, some of them conceded, had never been tried before.
They argued that executing Roberson before he could offer subpoenaed testimony would violate the Legislature’s constitutional authority. Less than two hours before Roberson’s execution, a judge in Austin sided with lawmakers and paused the execution, but that was then reversed by an appeals panel. The Texas Supreme Court then weighed in with its order, ending a night of uncertainty.
Roberson is scheduled to testify before the committee Monday.
“This is an innocent man. And there’s too much shadow of a doubt in this case,” said Democratic state Rep. John Bucy. “I agree this is a unique decision today. We know this is not a done deal. He has a unique experience to tell and we need to hear that testimony in committee on Monday.â€
Governor and US Supreme Court did not move to halt execution
Gov. Greg Abbott had authority to delay Roberson’s punishment for 30 days. Abbott has halted only one imminent execution in nearly a decade as governor and has not spoken publicly about the case.
Earlier Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to halt the execution, although Justice Sonia Sotomayor — in a 10-page statement about the case — urged Abbott to grant a 30-day delay.
Roberson’s lawyers had waited to see if Abbott would grant Roberson the one-time reprieve. It would have been the only action Abbott could take in the case as the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles on Wednesday denied Roberson’s clemency petition.
The board voted unanimously, 6-0, to not recommend that Roberson’s death sentence be commuted to life in prison or that his execution be delayed. All board members are appointed by the governor. The parole board has recommended clemency in a death row case only six times since the state resumed executions in 1982.
The one time Abbott halted an imminent execution was when he spared the life of Thomas Whitaker in 2018.
Lawmakers invoke Texas’ law on scientific evidence
The House committee on Wednesday held an all-day meeting on Roberson’s case. In a surprise move at the end of the hearing, the committee issued the subpoena for Roberson to testify next week.
During its meeting in Austin, the committee heard testimony about Roberson’s case and whether a 2013 law created to allow people in prison to challenge their convictions based on new scientific evidence was ignored in Roberson’s case.
Anderson County District Attorney Allyson Mitchell, whose office prosecuted Roberson, told the committee a court hearing was held in 2022 in which Roberson’s attorneys presented their new evidence to a judge, who rejected their claims.
“Based on the totality of the evidence, a murder took place here. Mr. Roberson took the life of his almost 3-year-old daughter,†Mitchell said.
Most of the members of the House committee are part of a bipartisan group of more than 80 state lawmakers, including at least 30 Republicans, who had asked the parole board and Abbott to stop the execution.
Case puts spotlight on shaken baby syndrome
Roberson’s case has renewed debate over shaken baby syndrome, known in the medical community as abusive head trauma.
His lawyers as well as the Texas lawmakers, medical experts and others including bestselling author John Grisham say his conviction was based on faulty and now outdated scientific evidence. The diagnosis refers to a serious brain injury caused when a child’s head is hurt through shaking or some other violent impact, like being slammed against a wall or thrown on the floor.
Roberson’s supporters don’t deny head and other injuries from child abuse are real. But they say doctors misdiagnosed Curtis’ injuries as being related to shaken baby syndrome and that new evidence has shown the girl died from complications related to severe pneumonia.
Roberson’s attorneys say his daughter had fallen out of bed in Roberson’s home after being seriously ill for a week.
Roberson’s lawyers also suggested his autism, then undiagnosed at the time of his daughter’s death, was used against him as authorities became suspicious of him because of his lack of emotion over her death. Autism affects how people communicate and interact with others.
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — The biggest source of new residents to Florida and Texas, the two U.S. states with the largest number of new residents last year, was other countries.
A little over 45% of the almost 634,000 residents in Florida who said that they had lived in a different state or abroad the previous year came from a foreign country, according to migration data released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau.
Florida, with 23 million residents, had more people who said they had lived in a different place the previous year than any other state, though Texas wasn’t far behind. Of the almost 612,000 Texas residents who had lived elsewhere in the previous year, 43% were from another country. Texas has 30.5 million residents.
The migration figures don’t show from which countries the new residents arrived.
Priscila Coronado moved last year to Miami from Guatemala, looking for a better future.
“I am happy. My dream is to study, learn English and graduate with a nursing degree,†Coronado said. “There is no crime here, and that is an achievement.”
Among U.S. states, New York was the top producer of new Floridians, and more recently minted Texans had lived in California the year before than any other state.
But Florida and Texas didn’t just gain residents; some also moved out. Georgia gained the most former Floridians last year, and California had the most ex-Texans.
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HOUSTON (AP) — A Texas man this week could become the first person executed in the U.S. for a murder conviction tied to the diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome.
The Texas Board of Parole on Wednesday voted 6-0 against recommending clemency for Robert Roberson, who is scheduled to receive a lethal injection on Thursday. The board also denied him a 180-day reprieve.
Republican Gov. Greg Abbott can only grant clemency after receiving a recommendation from the board, which had come under public bipartisan pressure in recent weeks to spare Roberson’s life.
Roberson, 57, is set to be executed for the 2002 killing of his 2-year-old daughter, Nikki Curtis. His attorneys have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stay the execution.
Roberson has long proclaimed his innocence. His lawyers as well as a bipartisan group of Texas lawmakers, medical experts and others don’t deny that head and other injuries from child abuse are real. But they argue his conviction was based on faulty and now outdated scientific evidence and say new evidence has shown Curtis died from complications related to severe pneumonia.
But prosecutors maintain Roberson’s new evidence does not disprove their case that Curtis died from injuries inflicted by her father.
Roberson’s scheduled execution renewed debate over shaken baby syndrome. On one side of the debate are lawyers and some in the medical and scientific communities who argue the shaken baby diagnosis is flawed and has led to wrongful convictions. On the other side are prosecutors and medical societies from the U.S. and around the world who say the diagnosis is valid, has been scientifically proven and is the leading cause of fatal head injuries in children younger than 2 years of age.
Here’s what to know about the highly scrutinized diagnosis ahead of Roberson’s scheduled execution:
What is shaken baby syndrome?
The diagnosis refers to a serious brain injury caused when a child’s head is injured through shaking or some other violent impact, like being slammed against a wall or thrown on the floor, usually by an adult caregiver, said Dr. Suzanne Haney, a child abuse pediatrician and member of the American Academy of Pediatrics Council on Child Abuse and Neglect.
The term was changed in 2009 to abusive head trauma, a more inclusive diagnosis, Haney said.
There are about 1,300 reported cases of shaken baby syndrome/abusive head trauma in the U.S. each year, according to the National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome.
What is the debate over shaken baby syndrome?
Critics allege doctors have been focused on concluding child abuse due to shaken baby syndrome whenever a triad of symptoms — bleeding around the brain, brain swelling and bleeding in the eyes — was found. Critics say doctors have not considered that things like short falls with head impact and naturally occurring illnesses like pneumonia, could mimic an inflicted head injury.
Roberson’s attorneys and other supporters are not saying that child abuse doesn’t exist or that shaking a baby is safe, said Kate Judson, executive director of the Center for Integrity in Forensic Sciences, a Wisconsin-based nonprofit that seeks to improve the reliability of forensic science evidence.
“This is a case about whether someone was misdiagnosed and justice wasn’t served,†Judson said.
While Haney declined to comment on Roberson’s case, she said there is no disagreement within a vast majority of the medical community about the validity and science behind the diagnosis.
Haney said doctors are not just focused on a triad of symptoms to determine child abuse, but instead look at all possible things, including any illnesses, that could have caused the injuries.
“I worry the pushback against abusive head trauma as a diagnosis is going to interfere with the prevention efforts that are out there and therefore allow more children to get harmed,†Haney said.
Judson said she believes that doctors in Roberson’s case did not consider all possible causes, including illness, to explain what happened to his daughter and used the triad of symptoms to only focus on child abuse.
What are the concerns Roberson’s supporters are raising?
Roberson’s attorneys say he was wrongly arrested and later convicted after taking his daughter to a hospital. She had fallen out of bed in their home in the East Texas city of Palestine after being seriously ill for a week.
New evidence gathered since his 2003 trial shows his daughter died from undiagnosed pneumonia that progressed to sepsis and was likely accelerated by medications that should not have been prescribed to her and made it harder for her to breathe, said Gretchen Sween, Roberson’s attorney.
The Anderson County District Attorney’s Office, which prosecuted Roberson, has said in court documents that after a 2022 hearing to consider the new evidence, a judge rejected the theories that pneumonia and other diseases caused Curtis’ death.
What have courts said about shaken baby syndrome?
In recent years, courts around the country have overturned convictions or dropped charges centered on shaken baby syndrome, including in California, Ohio, Massachusetts and Michigan.
In a ruling last week in a different shaken baby syndrome case out of Dallas County, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ordered a new trial after finding scientific advancements related to the diagnosis would now likely result in an acquittal in that case.
But the appeals court has repeatedly denied Roberson’s request to stay his execution, most recently on Friday.
In the U.S., at least eight individuals have been sentenced to death because of shaken baby syndrome, said Robin Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. Two of these eight have been exonerated and Roberson is the only one to have received execution dates.
“According to the National Registry of Exonerations, at least 30 people across the country have been exonerated based on this discredited scientific theory,†Maher said.
But Danielle Vazquez, executive director of the Utah-based National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome, said a 2021 research article found that 97% of more than 1,400 convictions related to shaken baby syndrome/abusive head trauma from 2008 to 2018 were upheld and that such convictions were rarely overturned on the grounds of medical evidence.
Vazquez said her organization is worried that doubts that have been raised about the diagnosis could cause some parents or caregivers to wrongly think that shaking a baby is not harmful.