A bipartisan majority of the Texas House of Representatives is calling for clemency for Robert Roberson III, who is scheduled to be executed on October 17. If the execution moves forward, Roberson will be the first person in the United States put to death based on the controversial “shaken baby syndrome” hypothesis (SBS).
On Tuesday, his legal team submitted a clemency application to the Board of Pardons and Paroles and to Governor Greg Abbott, along with letters from a bipartisan group of more than 85 state legislators (and counting) and a slew of medical and legal professionals in a last-ditch effort to halt the execution after the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals struck down Roberson’s appeals last week.
The strong showing of support from both sides of the aisle for a condemned person is unusual in Texas, which has executed more people than any other state since the death penalty was reinstated in the 1970s. But legislators also recently rallied behind Texas death row prisoners Rodney Reed—whose request for a hearing in front of the U.S. Supreme Court was denied in July—and Melissa Lucio, whose execution was halted in 2022 but whose case remains pending after a trial judge recommended her conviction be overturned in April. Reed and Lucio both have innocence claims and, in Lucio’s case, as in Roberson’s, her lawyers argue that no crime occurred and that her daughter’s death was accidental.
