Robert Roberson’s supporters in the Texas House negotiated a plan with Gov. Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton to hear from the death row inmate at his prison in Huntsville last week, but the plan was blocked at the last minute, according to a new court filing from the lawmakers.
The new filing says that “representatives of the executive branch” ultimately nixed the plan. It doesn’t specify who they are, but Abbott heads up the state’s executive branch and Paxton is also a member of it. Both have fiercely opposed lawmakers’ efforts to stop Roberson’s execution or to hear out his innocence claims.
Roberson, convicted in 2003 of murdering his 2-year-old daughter Nikki, was originally set to testify in Austin shortly after his Oct. 17 execution was delayed by a last-minute subpoena from the Texas House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence…