Watch Live: Robert Roberson testifies before Texas lawmakers after his execution was halted
CBSN
Texas lawmakers are expected to hear testimony at the state Capitol on Monday from Robert Roberson, a death row inmate whose execution was temporarily called off last week.
Roberson, 57, had been scheduled to die by lethal injection Thursday for the killing of his 2-year-old daughter, Nikki Curtis, in 2002. But as scientific developments in recent years called into question fundamental aspects of his case and conviction, authorities started to question his guilt. Roberson was convicted of capital murder in his daughter's death from shaken baby syndrome, a condition once used as evidence of child abuse that experts now consider outdated and too vague to support a criminal charge.
Evolutions in how scientific and medical communities understand the syndrome and its symptoms have led to at least a dozen exonerations in the United States over the last couple of decades. But prosecutors and the courts argue there is evidence of Roberson's guilt outside of Curtis' diagnosis, even as the lead investigator who helped convict him of murder has openly proclaimed the man's innocence and acknowledged his office's own errors judging Roberson's behavior before learning of his autism.
