The Texas Supreme Court cleared the way for an innocent Robert Roberson to be executed for a crime he didn’t believe existed. The ruling came after the state House Criminal Justice Committee issued a subpoena for Mr. Roberson’s testimony, and the state Supreme Court last month ordered Mr. Roberson’s request to be considered. Execution was temporarily suspended. Gretchen Sween, Roberson’s attorney, asked the state to refrain from setting a new execution date, citing “overwhelming new evidence of innocence.”
The first delay was announced at 11 o’clock on the night of October 17, literally an hour before the execution was scheduled.
Roberson is innocent of a crime that did not actually occur. He faces the death penalty for killing his 2-year-old daughter due to “shaken syndrome” (SBS). In fact, experts established that Roberson’s daughter, who had been admitted to the hospital more than 40 times before her death, actually died from undiagnosed pneumonia that progressed to sepsis. The pneumonia may have been exacerbated by the wrong medication prescribed in her final moments. A brain scan that was discovered in the basement of the ward office in 2018 revealed that SBS was not the cause of death. In any case, SBS itself as a legitimate cause of death was subsequently questioned by medical experts.
The state Supreme Court clearly ruled on the basis that it facilitated expedited execution, regardless of innocence, writing: It’s an execution. ”
In other words, the state’s right to execute people trumps any question of innocence or truth. The state asserts the right to commit murder with impunity, regardless of whether the person is innocent or guilty.
Those requesting a stay in the Texas House include bipartisan groups, some of whom are convinced of Roberson’s innocence. Republican state Rep. Brian Harrison voiced the most concern, saying that if the Texas House does not call for a halt, “it will call into question the integrity of our entire criminal justice system.” It will happen,” he said. In other words, there was a fear that one of the important pillars of the capitalist state would lose credibility.
Texas has executed 591 people since 1982, more than any other state. Until 2024, five people have been executed so far. Harris County in Houston, Texas, has accounted for the largest share of all executions since 1982, with 135 people sent to the death chamber. Four new death sentences have been handed down so far this year.
According to Amnesty International, 112 countries have abolished the death penalty for all crimes, yet the United States continues to use the barbaric death penalty. Since 1976, there have been 1,603 executions in the United States. Twenty-seven of the US states still implement the death penalty. The most recent federal executions took place in 2021.
Of course, the above figures do not include the much larger number of people summarily executed by the police. Police kill on average more than 1,000 people each year, the majority of them poor and working class. In the past 12 months, 1,164 people have been shot and killed by police.
Roberson was sentenced to death in 2003. Since that day, there have been numerous appeals, all of which have been dismissed. As the WSWS previously wrote, he “continued to have his appeals denied for more than 20 years.” The Texas Supreme Court is concerned that clarifying the facts will undermine efforts to make an example of Roberson.
Melissa Lucio, innocent of a similar crime that never occurred, was recently found not guilty by a Texas judge who recommended that her conviction and death sentence be vacated. Judge Arturo Nelson, who presided over the first murder trial, said: “The applicant is actually innocent. She did not kill her daughter.”
Lucio was originally convicted of killing his two-year-old daughter Mariah in 2007 and sentenced to death. Mariah had a physical disability that made her walk unsteady, which likely caused her to fall down the stairs and die in an accident. Nelson wrote that evidence that could prove Mariah’s injuries were accidental was improperly concealed from the defense team. This included testimony from children that Melissa was not abusive. Nelson also found that the state medical examiner’s testimony at trial, which concluded there was no other possible cause of death, was incorrect.
The case will be heard by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which will determine whether her sentence and conviction will be vacated.
“We hope she comes home soon,” said Melissa’s children John Alvarez, Michelle Lucio, and Bobby Alvarez.
Ms. Lucio’s first trial was a farce, and the main evidence used to convict her was coerced testimony extracted from her by the Texas Rangers, the equivalent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. This was after she had protested her innocence more than 100 times. Lucio’s history of domestic violence made him susceptible to false testimony, and psychologists and mitigation experts were barred from testifying to this fact in the trial court.
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