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. Amy Starnes, a court spokesperson, said the Texas Supreme Court's chief justice wasn't aware of another execution that had been stopped by the court.
