Texas attorney general's statement rejects supporters of death row inmate's appeal

The Texas attorney general is refuting claims by critics who say a death row inmate was unjustifiably convicted in the death of his toddler child.

In the Wednesday night statement posted online from his office, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said he released the original autopsy report and other records about the case of Robert Roberson to rebut the "lies" from state Reps. Jeff Leach and Joe Moody.

Paxton is a Republican, while Leach is also a Republican and Moody is a Democrat.

Roberson was convicted for the 2002 death of his 2-year-old daughter, Nikki Curtis. He has maintained his innocence since his trial. Prosecutors argued at the trial that the child's death was caused by head trauma from being violently shaken. Roberson's attorneys, however, maintain that the bruising on the girl's body was likely due to pneumonia, not child abuse.

It was eventually revealed that the child had pneumonia at the time of her death, and now state legislators and activists are claiming the accusation that she died from being shaken is “junk science.”

Roberson was scheduled for lethal injection last Thursday, but the procedure was postponed in the minutes leading up to the execution after the Texas House issued a subpoena for Roberson to testify in court.

Critics of Roberson's conviction say Texas Senate Bill 344, which states that convictions can be challenged if they were reached due to incomplete science, was not properly applied in Roberson’s case.

Paxton called the defense's “eleventh-hour, one-sided, extrajudicial stunts that attempt to obscure the facts and rewrite his past.”

In the statement that was also released on X, Paxton's office provided the original autopsy report and a 2016 letter from the medical examiner who conducted the autopsy. Both documents say the child died from blunt force head injuries.

Paxton said Roberson had a history of sexually and physically abusing Curtis and her mother. She was sent to the hospital in 2002 with a handprint on her face and bruises on her shoulder, face, ears and the back of her head, he said.

The Dallas Morning News, however, cited one of Roberson's attorneys in rejecting Paxton's claims. "Tonight, a profoundly disturbing thing happened: The chief law enforcement office of the State of Texas, the OAG, issued a stunningly misleading statement designed to quash a bipartisan group of lawmakers in their truth-seeking mission, which has riveted the world," said Gretchen Sween in the Morning News' report.

Roberson’s legal team is fighting with Paxton about whether Roberson will be able to testify in person or virtually. House committee members argue that Roberson’s autism and the decades he spent in solitary confinement would make online communication difficult for Roberson. But Paxton says it is dangerous to let Roberson in the state capitol building.

“A few legislators have grossly interfered with the justice system by disregarding the separation of powers outlined in the State Constitution,” Paxton’s office said. “They have created a Constitutional crisis on behalf of a man who beat his two-year-old daughter to death.”