Death Row Inmate in Shaken Baby Case Set to Testify in Texas House

Robert Roberson, the Texas death row inmate whose execution in a strongly disputed shaken baby murder case was postponed last week, had been scheduled to testify on Monday before a committee of the State House, but whether he would do so remained uncertain.

A subpoena for his testimony, issued in a novel last-minute legal maneuver, halted his execution just before it was set to be carried out Thursday evening. The Texas Supreme Court ruled that by issuing the subpoena, a bipartisan group of Texas House members had raised legal questions about the separation of powers that needed to be resolved.

But there was a wave of last-minute scrambling as the hearing was set to begin, with Gov. Greg Abbott filing a brief with the Texas Supreme Court arguing that the Legislature, with its subpoena, had improperly intruded into what ought to be the governor’s authority to postpone executions.

And after the office of the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, declared over the weekend that, “in the interest of public safety,” Mr. Roberson would be made available only by video conference from prison, Mr. Roberson’s lawyers objected.

They have argued that his autism, which was diagnosed after the murder conviction, would make any attempt to judge his credibility by video conference “profoundly limited.” And they said that having him appear remotely without his lawyers by his side would deprive Mr. Roberson of access to counsel during the questioning.

One of his lawyers, Gretchen Sween, said that officials from the state prison systems with whom she had spoken last week had appeared open to allowing Mr. Roberson to travel to Austin to testify. “The last I heard was that it was no problem,” she said. “They were helping him get street clothes” so that he would not have to appear in his prison uniform, she added.