Dying row prisoner Robert Roberson’s attorneys declare new judicial misconduct proof

Attorneys for Robert Roberson, the condemned man on Texas’ loss of life row who faces execution subsequent week, say the first episode of a “Dateline” podcast about his case incorporates “extremely related” proof that highlights judicial misconduct and helps their petition for a brand new trial.

The continuing declare earlier than the Texas Court docket of Felony Appeals seeks to halt Roberson’s Oct. 16 execution for the 2002 loss of life of his 2-year-old daughter, Nikki. If executed by deadly injection, Roberson, 58, could be the primary particular person put to loss of life in the US in a case of “shaken child syndrome.”

For extra on this case, hearken to episodes of the “Dateline” podcast “The Final Attraction”

In a submitting Monday, Roberson’s attorneys wrote that an interview with Nikki’s maternal grandfather performed by “Dateline” anchor Lester Holt is “straight related to the judicial misconduct declare,” which alleges a “critical violation of Mr. Roberson’s elementary proper to a trial earlier than an neutral tribunal — and earlier than a tribunal that seems neutral.”

“It’s surprising that we’re discovering the reality about this obvious, undisclosed proof of bias solely by probability, from a podcast, days earlier than Robert is scheduled to be executed for a tragedy that has been mislabeled as a criminal offense,” Gretchen Sween, a lawyer for Roberson, stated in an announcement.

In January 2002, Roberson and Nikki fell asleep of their East Texas dwelling and he later awoke, he stated, after he heard a sound and located Nikki had fallen away from bed, in keeping with courtroom paperwork.

Later that morning, when Roberson found his daughter was unconscious and her lips have been blue, he rushed her to an emergency room.

Inside three days, a detective arrested Roberson on a capital homicide cost.

For the preliminary episode of “The Final Attraction” podcast, which was launched Monday, Holt interviewed Larry Bowman, Nikki’s maternal grandfather.

Bowman recognized Anderson County Decide Bascom Bentley because the judiciary official who referred to as the hospital, directing them to contact the Bowmans for permission to authorize eradicating Nikki from life assist.

“Matter of truth, Decide Bentley advised ’em we have been the mother and father,” Bowman stated.

However Roberson’s attorneys say the Bowmans didn’t have that authority, and Roberson had custody of Nikki and was appointed her sole conservator in November 2001, about two months earlier than she died.

Roberson had been a single father caring for Nikki after her mom misplaced custody due to private points.

Along with Bentley offering false data to the hospital, which allowed Nikki to be faraway from life-sustaining care, in keeping with the most recent submitting, he was the choose who signed Roberson’s arrest warrant based mostly on the “shaken child syndrome” analysis after which presided over all however one continuing in Roberson’s prison trial.

Roberson’s attorneys say Bentley’s involvement within the early levels of Roberson’s case are materials to their bigger claims of judicial misconduct that they are saying tainted his trial.

“Any goal member of the general public, with information of the brand new details, would fairly imagine that Decide Bentley had prejudged Mr. Roberson’s guilt and, animated by that presumption of guilt, improperly circumvented the legislation governing parental rights and the ensures of due course of and thus ought to have recused himself from presiding over Mr. Roberson’s prison case to protect the looks of impartiality,” the courtroom submitting says. “Decide Bentley’s failure to take action induced structural error and requires a brand new trial.”

Bentley died in 2017. The Texas Lawyer Normal’s Workplace, which is now overseeing the prosecution in opposition to Roberson, didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark. The workplace of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott declined to be interviewed for the “Dateline” podcast.

Roberson was practically put to loss of life a yr in the past, however a bipartisan group of Texas lawmakers used their legislative energy to assist block his execution in a last-minute maneuver.

State Lawyer Normal Ken Paxton vowed to press forward with a execution date, and has beforehand stated Roberson murdered his daughter by “beating her so brutally that she finally died.”

In filings this yr, Roberson’s authorized workforce has argued that there’s new proof of his innocence and that the medical and scientific strategies used to convict him of so-called shaken child syndrome, wherein a baby is shaken so violently that the motion causes head trauma, have since been largely discredited.

His workforce additionally claims that judicial officers in Anderson County, the place a jury sentenced him to loss of life in 2003, violated Roberson’s constitutional rights.

Apart from the request in entrance of the Texas Court docket of Felony Appeals, Roberson filed a separate plea this month with the Fifth Circuit Court docket of Appeals for a keep of execution in order that he may file a brand new authorized problem claiming his imprisonment is prohibited due to “overwhelming proof that he was convicted utilizing discredited ‘science.’” That attraction can be ongoing.

Earlier makes an attempt to cease Roberson’s execution have been unsuccessful, together with because it pertains to a 2013 “junk science” legislation in Texas that enables prisoners to probably problem convictions based mostly on advances in forensic science.

Whereas medical doctors and legislation enforcement concluded that Nikki suffered blunt-force trauma and was shaken, Roberson’s protection workforce says a brand new understanding of “shaken child syndrome” reveals that different medical situations might be components in a baby’s loss of life, because it believes was the case with Nikki.