(Reuters) -A Texas state choose on Thursday briefly blocked the execution of a person who had been scheduled to turn out to be the primary individual executed in america for homicide attributed to shaken child syndrome, the courtroom stated.
Travis County two hundredth Civil District Court docket Choose Jessica Mangrum issued the non permanent restraining order simply hours earlier than Robert Roberson was to have been put to demise, in accordance with Mangrum’s workplace.
The U.S. Supreme Court docket earlier on Thursday had denied Roberson’s request for a keep of his execution, which had been scheduled to happen at 6 p.m. native time.
The Texas Lawyer Normal’s Workplace and the Texas Division of Prison Justice, which carries out executions, didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.
Roberson, 56, was convicted of killing his 2-year-old daughter, Nikki, in 2002. The prosecution stated he took her to hospital the place scans confirmed she had inside mind trauma of the kind that on the time was thought to point a child had been violently shaken by somebody.
Within the days earlier than her demise, a physician had identified Nikki as having a viral an infection and a fever, and Roberson has lengthy stated that on the morning of her demise he discovered she had fallen off the bed.
Many lawmakers within the Republican-controlled Texas Home of Representatives have questioned his conviction, and a Home committee tried to purchase Roberson time by issuing a subpoena for him to testify earlier than them subsequent week.
The lead detective who helped safe Roberson’s conviction has since stated he believes Roberson is harmless.
The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles denied Roberson’s bid for clemency on Wednesday.
In a response to Roberson’s Supreme Court docket petition to remain his execution, the Texas Lawyer Normal’s Workplace stated Roberson had didn’t show his “precise innocence,” and that the Texas Court docket of Prison Appeals had dominated that Nikki’s accidents had been “inconsistent with a brief fall from a mattress or issues from a virus.”
Roberson’s attorneys advised the Supreme Court docket that the medical idea used to convict Roberson in 2003 “has since been fully discredited.”
“Not solely was abuse presumed in 2003,” his attorneys wrote, “however Roberson’s blunted have an effect on and aloof mannerisms, manifestations of his Autism Spectrum Dysfunction mistaken for an absence of care, led medical workers and regulation enforcement alike to presume culpability.”