Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a motion in district court Thursday evening to block death row inmate Robert Roberson from testifying at the Capitol on Friday, continuing a power struggle between the parties that began when a Texas House committee in October successfully fought to have the man’s execution postponed.
Paxton’s motion comes two days after the House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence again subpoenaed Roberson to appear at a hearing at noon Friday, with chairman Rep. Joe Moody, D-El Paso, and state Rep. Jeff Leach say the man could provide valuable insight into a Texas law on “junk science.”
The motion could once again jeopardize lawmakers’ plan in the House of Representatives to hear from the man, after the attorney general stepped in to block the committee’s first attempt two months ago.
Roberson, of East Texas, would be the first man in the country to be executed for a conviction of shaken baby syndrome, and his attorneys and a bipartisan group of lawmakers have argued that new scientific evidence casts doubt on the diagnosis of shaken baby who was a A jury was empaneled before Roberson was convicted of the 2003 murder of his two-year-old daughter Nikki.
Several prominent Texas Republicans, including Paxton, Gov. Greg Abbott and some House lawmakers, have not supported Roberson’s innocence claim. Abbott refused to grant the convicted man a reprieve in October.
This time, Paxton filed a last-minute protective order against the new subpoena on behalf of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, which oversees the state prison system. Texas law allows “any…person affected by a subpoena” to apply for a protective order, and this automatically exempts them from complying with the subpoena until and unless a court tells them to do so.
Although Paxton does not represent Roberson, he argues that TDCJ is affected by the subpoena because Roberson is in the custody of the prison system. The motion was filed in state court in Polk County, where the men’s death row is located.
Paxton’s office also argued in the filing Thursday that the new subpoena is invalid.
“The subpoena not only poses serious security risks, but is also procedurally deficient and therefore invalid because it was issued in violation of the House Rules, the Texas Constitution, and other applicable laws,” reads a news release from Paxton’s office.
Paxton said the subpoena violates House rules because a quorum of committee members did not vote to approve the subpoena, even though the Jurisprudence Committee voted to allow Moody to subpoena Roberson indefinitely.
“In addition to violating the House Rules, any purported delegation of the Legislature’s future subpoena power to a single legislator violates the Texas Government Code and the Texas Constitution,” Paxton’s filing reads.
The state’s top attorney also requested that a hearing on the motion not take place until Jan. 13 — the day before the House of Representatives committee that Roberson summoned disbands as the 89th legislative session begins. The lawmakers’ subpoena would no longer be valid when the Legislature reconvenes on Jan. 14.
Both Moody and Leach declined to comment on the new development Thursday evening. However, several weeks ago, Leach said he had a feeling Paxton would try to run out the clock.
“What the attorney general’s office, in my opinion, is doing right now is trying to delay as much as possible and not cooperate with us,” Leach told The Texas Tribune on Dec. 6. “They are essentially ignoring the Supreme Court’s rulings. knowing that in about a month, when the new legislative session convenes, our committee will be leaving.”
In the Supreme Court decision Leach referenced, all nine Republican justices ruled that a subpoena could not delay a future execution or hinder the “prerogatives” of another branch, but affirmed the power of the legislature to otherwise to enforce.
Roberson’s attorney, Gretchen Sween, claimed she believed the subpoena was valid and suggested Paxton had ulterior motives for trying to keep the convicted man from speaking about his conviction. She said the motion was filed “apparently without legal basis.”
“The real ‘fear’ at play here seems to be that seeing and hearing Robert will make it clear to the public that there is an innocent man on death row, who is also a gentle soul with a pronounced disability,” Sween wrote in an e-mail. to the American statesman. “Texans deserve better.”
As of 9 p.m. Thursday, the committee hearing was still scheduled for Friday afternoon at the Capitol.
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas AG Ken Paxton seeks to block Robert Roberson from testifying
