{"id":1363792,"date":"2024-10-21T20:00:41","date_gmt":"2024-10-22T01:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/?p=1363792"},"modified":"2024-10-23T15:56:46","modified_gmt":"2024-10-23T20:56:46","slug":"roberson-hearing-in-the-texas-house-without-robert-roberson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/?p=1363792","title":{"rendered":"Roberson hearing in the Texas House, without Robert Roberson"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\" AUSTIN \u00e2\u20ac\u201c It was a packed committee room Monday in the Texas House. According to our news partner KETK, legislators met with witnesses to listen to testimony in the case and conviction of Robert Roberson of Palestine. Roberson is on death row for a crime that is now being called into question. He was found guilty in 2003 of killing his 2-year-old daughter, a conviction for which he was set to be executed last Thursday. A ruling from the Texas Supreme Court spared him in the 11th hour, citing concerns about a last-minute subpoena ordering Roberson to be present for House testimony about his case on Monday.<\/p>\n

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice would only allow Roberson to attend the proceedings virtually, an accommodation which Roberson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s attorneys and the House committee alike argued would not be acceptable. Given that Roberson has been diagnosed with autism, and he has been in custody for more than two decades, his attorneys argue that his ability to effectively communicate would be severely impeded in a virtual setting. <\/p>\n

On Monday’s witness list was TV personality Dr. Phillip McGraw, Novelist John Grisham, Former judge on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, Elsa Alcala, Terry Compton, a juror from Roberson’s 2003 trial and Gretchen Sween, Roberson’s attorney.
\n
\nThe Texas House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence came together on Monday and started by reiterating that their job was not to determine guilt or innocence, but to analyze a junk science law they say has not been fairly applied to death penalty cases, including Roberson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not about guilt or innocence,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Rep. Drew Darby said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Guilt or innocence will be a byproduct of our hard work.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Judge Alcala was called after Compton, and she attended the hearing from another state via Zoom. She explained that she was a judge on the Texas Court Criminal Appeals when the junk science writ became law in Texas in 2013. She served on the CAA from 2011-2018. Alcala cited Justice Sonya Sotomayor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s opinion penned when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Roberson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s case, raising three of her main points and going on to state that the junk science legislation, in its current form, is problematic for the courts.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The court, in all respects, views legislation quite narrowly,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Alcala said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153So, for example, in this statute\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 it requires that, had the scientific evidence been available at trial on the preponderance of the evidence, the person would not have been convicted. Frankly, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s two parts of that that I think are problematic. One is the burden of proof of preponderance of the evidence, and the second is the language that the person \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcwould not have been convicted.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 I think the Court of Criminal Appeals is looking at both of those terms harsher than it should.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Preponderance of evidence, Alcala explained, means \u00e2\u20ac\u0153more likely than not\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00e2\u20ac\u201c and that is a high bar to clear for a new trial.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153So what the defense has to do to obtain relief over junk science, is to say that given the new science or what we now know about science, more likely than not, the person would not have been convicted,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Alcala explained.<\/p>\n

Rep. Drew Darby raised issues with those standards.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Is that bar too high?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Darby asked. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153They have to prove their innocence before you can even have the court consider a new trial.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Alcala went on to propose changes in language to the junk science law that could, in the future, make it more effective and applicable for difficult cases, including changing \u00e2\u20ac\u0153preponderance of evidence\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153probable cause.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d She also brought up a unique facet of Texas\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s highest courts\u00e2\u20ac\u201c a bifurcated system that separates civil issues from criminal issues. The Texas Supreme Court handles civil issues, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals handles criminal issues.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I believe the criminal specialization has turned the court into a body that has really lost its common sense,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Alcala said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s looking for all these technicalities, and the criminal law has become much more prosecution-favorable in Texas than in other states.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

The next witness was Donald Salzman, a lawyer who works as pro-bono council and has experience in the past working on several cases involving shaken baby syndrome, now known as abusive head trauma.<\/p>\n

Salzman testified that, as a lawyer covering these kinds of cases, he has seen the science and understanding of shaken baby syndrome shift first-hand. Previously it was diagnosed if medical providers noticed three specific trauma symptoms in a child. Now, it is only diagnosed in absence of other plausible medical causes. As former juror Terry Compton testified, the jury at the time was not given information about Roberson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s daughter\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s serious ailments, including severe pneumonia that turned into septic shock.<\/p>\n

Salzman talked about efforts to coordinate with Anderson County officials.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Innocence Project reached out to DA Allyson Mitchell when they got involved in the case and asked to meet with her. She was polite, but she did not openly discuss the case,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Salzman said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I had a chance to be in Palestine, Texas in April of this year. We were reviewing their records\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 and that was when I learned that they were planning to set Robert Roberson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s execution date. I asked Allyson Mitchell if she would meet with us to talk about the new evidence that we had discovered and developed, and she said she was not willing to do that.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Salzman also discussed rumblings of sexual abuse of Roberson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s daughter\u00e2\u20ac\u201c a claim which he and the committee said is unfounded.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Has there ever been a scintilla of substantiated evidence to support that [sexual abuse] claim?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Rep. Brian Harrison asked.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Absolutely not,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Salzman responded.<\/p>\n

Salzman said there was no suspicion of sexual abuse before Nikki\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sexual assault examination. Instead, nurses saw a child with trauma they felt were not adequately explained by the father, and investigated further. What exactly led to a suspicion of sexual abuse is unclear.<\/p>\n

The claim was brought about by a self-proclaimed Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner, who was later found to be lacking official SANE credentials.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153She testified on direct that she was a certified sexual assault nurse examiner, then she admitted on cross examination that she had never been certified,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Salzman said.<\/p>\n

The nurse performed an examination on Nikki in 2002 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153of her own volition,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d according to the committee, and told the 2003 jury that she found evidence of sexual assault on Nikki. The \u00e2\u20ac\u0153evidence\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of sexual assault was a single anal tear\u00e2\u20ac\u201c a physical ailment that a Dallas nurse said is not necessarily a sign of trauma, but more likely explained by Nikki\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s bout with diarrhea before her death.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Before the trial began, the trial judge overruled an objection from the defense about the admissibility of sexual assault evidence, but the trial judge said to the prosecution, and again I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m paraphrasing, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcYou need to treat carefully, because if you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t prove this allegation, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s grounds for a mistrial.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 But no mistrial was granted,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Salzman explained.<\/p>\n

Kate Judson, an attorney from Wisconsin who is also the Executive Director of the Center for Integrity in Forensic Sciences, offered context on Roberson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s case based on her work on shaken baby syndrome over the years.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153In SBS, trying to acknowledge some ambiguity does not resolve the fundamental problem, which is at its core that we do not know how accurate doctors are at looking at the findings associated with abuse and determining whether abuse occurred, but we know for sure that their error rate is not zero, and we know that for a few reasons,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Judson explained.<\/p>\n

She said there are 34 exonerees of people accused of crimes based on the shaken baby syndrome hypothesis\u00e2\u20ac\u201c 34 people who are now shown to be innocent. Additionally, she said the American Medical Association estimates the error rate of shaken baby syndrome to be from 10-20%. <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The error rate for diagnosing you with a broken arm or strep throat is pretty low, not zero, but pretty low. Those are straightforward tests that can be done to establish whether or not you have a condition. You might do a bacterial culture in one case, you might do an x-ray in one case, and those are straightforward diagnoses to make,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Judson said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153But, the error rate is higher when diagnoses are exclusionary, when they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not well established, and when they require high degrees of subjectivity, so that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s exactly this case.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Prosecutors now argue that the original prosecution didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t rely only on shaken baby syndrome, but that claim was refuted by several people including a juror on Roberson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s case. Judson said the tactic of changing the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153trial theory\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is an effort to avoid new problems with old science presented at trial.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The fact that they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re trying to change the theory now means the original was fatally flawed, and in the end there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s really no genuine doubt that this was an SBS case,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Judson said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Everything else is kind of cognitive gymnastics to try to make the now-discredited testimony fit with the new science. If prosecutors want to do that, they need to do it at a new trial.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Rep. Joe Moody said Judson has \u00e2\u20ac\u0153an enormous amount\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of credibility in SBS. When he asked her directly based on her background if the Texas courts should reopen Roberson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s case and give him a new trial, she replied, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Absolutely. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no question in my mind that he deserves a new trial.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AUSTIN \u00e2\u20ac\u201c It was a packed committee room Monday in the Texas House. According to our news partner KETK, legislators met with witnesses to listen to testimony in the case and conviction of Robert Roberson of Palestine. Roberson is on death row for a crime that is now being called into question. He was found … Continue reading Roberson hearing in the Texas House, without Robert Roberson<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":1363799,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2024\/10\/drphilaustin-ap-200x200.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1363792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news-archive-archives"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-10 11:38:31","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2024\/10\/drphilaustin-ap-200x200.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1363792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1363792"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1363792\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1363813,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1363792\/revisions\/1363813"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1363799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1363792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1363792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1363792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}