“Renewed give attention to Roberson case is newest in deluge of political strain geared toward Texas judiciary” was first revealed by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media group that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public coverage, politics, authorities and statewide points.
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Standing in entrance of the state Capitol Wednesday afternoon, Dallas businessman and GOP donor Doug Deason urged all 9 Republican judges of the state’s highest felony courtroom to grant loss of life row inmate Robert Roberson a brand new trial. In doing so, he supplied the elected judges slightly political reassurance.
“All we’re making an attempt to do is … attain the Courtroom of Legal Appeals on to them and say that, ‘Hey there, you’ve obtained a whole lot of cowl. There are a whole lot of Republicans on this state who imagine that Robert deserves one other trial,’” Deason mentioned at a press convention convened by a GOP state lawmaker.
Roberson, 58, is scheduled to be executed in two weeks for the loss of life of his 2-year-old daughter, Nikki Curtis, who he was convicted of killing in 2003. He has maintained his innocence for greater than twenty years. Earlier than her loss of life, the kid was recognized with shaken child syndrome, a critical mind damage that critics say has been too broadly utilized in opposition to mother and father wrongly accused of kid abuse.
Roberson’s attorneys say he deserves a brand new trial that will permit them to current proof reflecting scientific developments, which they are saying would present Nikki died of persistent sickness. These calls have been joined by a bipartisan cohort of state lawmakers who’ve used dramatic legislative maneuvers to delay Roberson’s execution, sparking a bitter political struggle with a dueling group of officers, together with Lawyer Basic Ken Paxton, who’re satisfied of Roberson’s guilt.
The Roberson dustup is just the most recent in a rare run of nakedly political authorized fights which have examined the Texas judiciary’s capability to remain above the partisan fray, even past the standard pressures dropped at bear on a system the place judges are elected by means of partisan elections. This summer time, Republican leaders requested the state’s highest courts to kick duly elected Democratic officers out of workplace and jail a former statewide Democratic candidate after shutting down his political group. These efforts adopted Paxton’s profitable campaign final 12 months to unseat three judges on the Courtroom of Legal Appeals who declined to provide his workplace unilateral energy to prosecute voter fraud.
Now the excessive felony courtroom is being urged to wade into Roberson’s politically charged case, with guarantees that sufficient Republicans are on board together with his exoneration to offer political cowl. On the similar time, Roberson’s attorneys aren’t taking any probabilities, asking a federal appeals courtroom this week to step in and pause his execution — an obvious present of no confidence within the state’s personal courts. Federal appeals courts are composed of lifetime appointees who’ve traditionally not been beholden to political and electoral pressures.
Fourteen days earlier than Roberson’s scheduled execution, the Courtroom of Legal Appeals had not but dominated on an attraction from Roberson that offered new proof obtained by his attorneys in June. Nor has the courtroom dominated on different pending motions, together with one to cease the execution, his attorneys mentioned.
Courtroom of Legal Appeals Presiding Decide David J. Schenck mentioned in an electronic mail the courtroom was giving Roberson’s case “the cautious consideration we’d give to any case coming earlier than us.”
“As I’m positive you’ll perceive, it will be improper for me to remark additional on this or some other pending case,” Schenck wrote.
Amid the swirl of political pressures, the all-Republican courts thus far have largely spurned efforts by GOP leaders to carry the hammer down on Democrats.
Additionally being examined is a brand new state appeals courtroom created by the Republican-controlled Legislature to listen to instances involving the state and the constitutionality of state legal guidelines. Beforehand filtered by means of appellate courts elected by Texas’ largest and bluest counties, these instances at the moment are taken up by an all-Republican fifteenth Courtroom of Appeals, stuffed by appointees of Gov. Greg Abbott. After these preliminary phrases finish, the bench will probably be stuffed through statewide elections, which Republicans have swept since 1994.
Final month, the courtroom dominated in opposition to Paxton in his quest to cease former Democratic congressman Beto O’Rourke’s fundraising, with the three Republican judges casting doubt on Paxton’s authorized arguments and going out of their option to word his political ambitions.
Paxton responded with an announcement blasting the choice and arguing that the courtroom “has put its finger on the scales in a blindly political try to assist fraudster Beto O’Rourke.” He added that he was interesting the ruling to the Texas Supreme Courtroom, which has confronted its personal heaping of political strain in current months.
In early August, the state’s excessive courtroom for civil instances was requested by Abbott and Paxton to oust some Democratic lawmakers within the Texas Home who left the state to protest passage of a brand new congressional map gerrymandered to web extra seats for Republicans. The request was particularly notable from Abbott, who had appointed six of the 9 justices on the time of his emergency submitting and employed two of them as his workplace’s common counsel.
Hours earlier than that courtroom launched a schedule in August for the case, and as many anticipated its response to the historic request to take away elected officers from workplace, GOP hardliner Michael Quinn Sullivan threw a warning shot on the justices, writing on X that they “ought to ask the previous members of the Texas Courtroom of Legal Appeals about how the GOP base responds to unpopular rulings.”
Nonetheless, the courtroom rejected Abbott’s request for a ruling inside 48 hours, giving each side weeks to file briefings below a timeline that ensured the case would run previous the tip of the continuing particular legislative session.
Sullivan was referring to the profitable retribution marketing campaign spearheaded by Paxton to unseat three Courtroom of Legal Appeals judges within the 2024 Republican major elections, after the courtroom dominated in opposition to him years prior.
In 2021, the courtroom discovered that Paxton lacked authority to prosecute election-related crimes with out an invite from a neighborhood prosecutor. Paxton requested for a reconsideration, and the CCA affirmed its ruling.
In response, Paxton backed major challengers to the three judges up for reelection who had dominated in opposition to him, whereas his allies arrange a political motion committee that spent a whole lot of hundreds of {dollars} to topple the trio of incumbents off the bench. Schenck, the courtroom’s present presiding choose, was one of many challengers boosted by Paxton, although he has mentioned he by no means requested Paxton or his affiliated political teams for assist.
Two different judges who sided in opposition to Paxton in 2021 and are up for reelection subsequent 12 months have determined in opposition to testing the lawyer common’s political machine.
Decide Bert Richardson has introduced a bid for chief justice of a decrease appeals courtroom, whereas Decide David Newell, in saying he wouldn’t search reelection, mentioned earlier this 12 months, “the courtroom system shouldn’t be the identical as once I went to legislation college and even once I took the bench.”
Some pushing for Roberson’s exoneration fear his execution would additional rework the judiciary. For years, Texas — below Republican management — has been a nationwide chief in legislative reforms that safeguard in opposition to wrongful convictions, mentioned Sandra Guerra Thompson, a felony legislation professor on the College of Houston Legislation Middle who was appointed by former Gov. Rick Perry to a wrongful conviction advisory panel.
“It’s shocking to me that we’re coping with this as a result of it’s not like we haven’t had wrongful convictions up to now,” Thompson mentioned of the Roberson case. “I’m slightly befuddled as to why this one has abruptly grow to be a trigger célèbre.”
Thompson speculated that it’s the law-and-order ethos of state GOP management that has motivated Texas’ robust protections in opposition to wrongful convictions, “as a result of if the general public loses confidence within the system, then juries will not be going to wish to sentence individuals.”
Past Roberson’s personal life, that public confidence within the courts may be at stake in his case, as sparring state lawmakers have positioned his guilt doubtful whereas they publicly battle one another on social media over differing approaches to felony justice.
“Placing all these protections in place, I believe, has been a method that we might really feel a lot better concerning the outcomes that we’re getting in courtroom,” Thompson mentioned. “Roberson actually is an innocence declare based mostly on these sorts of considerations about defective forensic science — which, once more, it’s ironic that that’s what we’re speaking about, as a result of that’s the world the place we’ve made probably the most progress.”
This text initially appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2025/10/03/texas-courts-political-pressure-robert-roberson-paxton/.
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