NewsTexas lawmakers, rather than Gov. Abbott, took lead in winning Roberson reprieve

Texas lawmakers, rather than Gov. Abbott, took lead in winning Roberson reprieve

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott was notable in his silence and lack of involvement during this week’s unprecedented bipartisan effort by Texas lawmakers to win an execution reprieve for death row inmate Robert Roberson, political analysts said. File Photo by Tannen Maury/UPI | License Photo

Oct. 19 (UPI) — A frantic and unprecedented rush by Texas lawmakers to successfully block the controversial execution of death row inmate Robert Roberson this week was notable for the absence of Gov. Greg Abbott, political analysts say.

In a state where the death penalty is as ingrained as cowboy boots and conservative politics, news of Roberson’s death sentence broke through in Texas after the rarest of phenoms: a noisy, bipartisan effort that bypassed the governor’s office to save a man from lethal injection.

For years, the appeals of Roberson’s capital murder conviction for the 2002 death of his chronically ill, 2-year-old daughter had lumbered through the courts, tracing a byzantine process that often fails to register with residents of the nation’s execution capital, where 591 inmates have been put to death in the state since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976.

But while lawmakers were making historic interventions, many Texans took note of the silence by the person traditionally empowered to step in at the last minute: the state’s governor.

“Abbott’s silence is deafening,” said Brandon Rottinghaus, a professor of political science at the University of Houston.

After all, Abbott had at his disposal the power to grant a 30-day reprieve for Roberson, whose lawyers claim was wrongfully convicted based on junk science. A U.S. Supreme Court Justice urged him to take that step. If Abbott had, there would have been no frenzied attempt by lawmakers to issue a subpoena of Roberson and then go to court to block the execution — first to a Travis County judge, then to Texas’ two high courts before Roberson’s execution was finally called off on Thursday.

There’s been no public statement from Abbott about Roberson’s case before or since. If the execution had gone forward, Roberson would have been the first person in the nation to be put to death in a shaken baby syndrome case, a diagnosis that has come into question in recent years. Multiple requests for comment to the governor’s office by The Texas Tribune went unanswered.

The silence “certainly signals his willingness to go his own way against the Legislature and also reflects that, like Gov. Perry before him, the realization that being tough on crime is an essential element of muscularity for national Republicans,” Rottinghaus said.

Silence on executions, not unusual

Unlike the Hollywood image of a governor making a frantic phone call to stop an execution, the reality, especially in Texas, is far less dramatic. Texas governors can only act on a recommendation of clemency from their own appointees to the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles. Or they can opt for the 30-day reprieve.

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