https:\/\/www.vox.com\/criminal-justice\/378717\/robert-roberson-execution-death-penalty-texas-supreme-court<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What’s wrong with Greg Abbott? <\/p>\n
“the Texas Supreme Court handed down an extraordinary order saving Robert Roberson from execution \u2014 but potentially not for very long.
\nRoberson was convicted in 2003 of murdering his daughter on the theory that she died of \u201cshaken baby syndrome.\u201d However, in an extraordinary turn of events, it now appears likely that Roberson is innocent. Not only that, but it is far from clear that his daughter was even a victim of murder in the first place.<\/p>\n
One reason to doubt the conviction is that modern science looks at shaken baby syndrome with increasing skepticism. More importantly, however, the evidence in Roberson\u2019s case suggests that his poor girl actually died from a combination of pneumonia and medications that should never have been prescribed to such a young patient, and that the injuries that a 2003 jury attributed to child abuse may have resulted from a surgery.<\/p>\n
Another reason why the order in In re Texas House of Representatives is so extraordinary is that it involves what may be an unprecedented conflict between the state\u2019s legislature and its governor. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has the power to issue a 30-day pause on Roberson\u2019s execution (although not to grant him permanent clemency) but has thus far refused to do so”<\/p>\n
…<\/p>\n
“a bipartisan group of state lawmakers issued a subpoena seeking Roberson\u2019s testimony before a committee of the state\u2019s House of Representatives. This hearing isn\u2019t scheduled until Monday, and Roberson obviously could not comply with this subpoena if he had been killed Thursday night.<\/p>\n
So Roberson\u2019s case raises what may be a unique separation of powers issue under the Texas Constitution: Can Texas\u2019s executive branch of government carry out an otherwise lawful execution if doing so would prevent its legislative branch from hearing testimony from a witness it has already subpoenaed?”<\/p>\n
…<\/p>\n
“The striking thing about this case, however, is that virtually everyone who has touched it wants Roberson to live except for the few people in Texas\u2019s government (the Court of Criminal Appeals, the pardon board, and Abbott) who actually have the power to save him.”<\/p>\n
https:\/\/www.vox.com\/criminal-justice\/378717\/robert-roberson-execution-death-penalty-texas-supreme-court<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[790,1061,544,653,1326,1213,200,125,972,1255,1053,21],"class_list":["post-15187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-courts","tag-death-penalty","tag-execution","tag-governors","tag-greg-abbott","tag-judiciary","tag-law","tag-legal","tag-murder","tag-separation-of-powers","tag-state-legislatures","tag-texas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15187"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15187\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15188,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15187\/revisions\/15188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}