An American, suffering from autism and convicted for the death of his daughter in 2002, obtained a last-minute reprieve from the Texas Supreme Court on Thursday evening. Another convict was, however, executed in Alabama.
The first was convicted for the death of his daughter in 2002, attributed to ‘shaken baby’ syndrome despite serious doubts that have since arisen about this diagnosis.
At the end of an evening of suspense, the Texas Supreme Court granted a request from members of a parliamentary committee which summoned Robert Roberson for a hearing on October 21, in a final attempt to obtain a stay of the execution of this 57-year-old man, which was scheduled for Thursday evening.
A trial judge had previously issued an order at the request of these parliamentarians prohibiting the Texas authorities from executing Robert Roberson before he could testify before this commission. But an appeals court, seized by the state prosecutor, overturned this decision.
The conservative-majority United States Supreme Court had previously rejected the request for a stay.
Autism diagnosed late
Robert Roberson’s defenders argue that the diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome, made in 2002 at the hospital where he brought his daughter Nikki to the emergency room in critical condition, was incorrect. In addition, his autism, finally officially diagnosed in 2018 and interpreted as indifference to the situation, weighed heavily in his conviction, according to them.
‘There was no crime, only the tragic death of a little girl from natural causes,’ her lawyers stressed in their appeal to the supreme court. They are based in particular on recent medical analyzes attributing Nikki’s death to serious pneumonia, undetected at the time, aggravated by the prescription of unsuitable medications, as attested in a letter by 34 doctors.
The request for clemency in favor of Robert Roberson is supported by 86 elected representatives of the Texas House of Representatives, more than a third of whom are Republicans. But the Texas Pardon Board on Wednesday unanimously rejected requests to commute his sentence and stay his execution for 180 days.
The other convict, Derrick Dearman, 36, convicted of killing five people with an ax and bullets in 2016, was executed in the evening at the Atmore penitentiary, in Alabama, the authorities announced. authorities of this other southern state.
Twenty executions have been carried out in the United States since the start of the year, all by lethal injection except two in Alabama by nitrogen inhalation, a method that the UN has compared to a form of ‘torture’ .
/ATS
