The execution of a Texas man has been stayed. Now Ken Paxton wants to silence him.

October 21 Robert Roberson he was about to do something no death row inmate had ever done. He was scheduled to testify before a committee of the Texas Legislature that is investigating his case.

This would be an extraordinary moment in the history of the death penalty. This would give hope to Roberson himself. It would also be a moment when the humanity of a person convicted of a capital offense was recognized by treating him or her as a credible witness in public proceedings.

This explains why officials in Texas, led by Governor Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton, To have stepped in to prevent Roberson from testifying. As Paxton he said on Wednesday: “Several legislators have grossly interfered with the administration of justice by disregarding the separation of powers as outlined in the State Constitution. They created a constitutional crisis in the name of a man who beat his two-year-old daughter to death.”

Abbott, Paxton and their allies are determined to execute Roberson and silence his voice. They cannot be allowed to get away with this and carry out their plan.

They should obey the law and honor a subpoena as the Supreme Court of Texas he did last week. Texas citizens, regardless of their views on the death penalty, should demand that Roberson be allowed to tell his story to the state legislature. Death row inmates, including Roberson, he sometimes gave interviews to journalists. However, it is completely different when one of them is asked to speak during an official hearing of an urgent matter of public policy.

Even before this month’s events, Roberson’s case was unprecedented in many respects. In 2002, Roberson he was found guilty and sentenced to death for killing his daughter Nikki. The key evidence against him was provided by an expert who testified that Nikki died of “shaken baby syndrome“

If Roberson is executed, that’s him he would be the first person in the United States sentenced to death based on the diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome. But since Roberson was convicted, shaken baby syndrome has occurred has fallen out of favor with many members of the medical community. Doubts this has been raised by judges and legislators in several states.

Long before the Roberson case gained public attention, similar concerns arose in Texas. In 2013, the state passed a law commonly referred to as “junk science.” Like the Associated Press says, the law “allows a person convicted of a crime to seek relief if the evidence used against him or her is no longer credible.” “At the time, the Legislature hailed it as an exceptionally forward-looking solution to misconceptions based on faulty science.”

Texas, which is not a paradigm of liberalism in criminal justice, became the first state in the nation to adopt such a law, which “clarified that judges may consider changes in the scientific value of already available evidence as a basis for awarding post-conviction relief, even after exhausting all direct remedies.” “

Nevertheless, courts repeatedly refused to allow Roberson, who maintained his innocence, to exercise this right through protests by his supporters to talk means “deliberate misinterpretation.”

Roberson, who was scheduled to be executed on Oct. 17, was saved when a group of Texas lawmakers stepped up ingenious use of ordinary legislative power: the power to summon a witness to appear before legislative committees. That was all I had called “legislative postponement.”

For a death row inmate to testify before a legislative committee would mark a sharp break with a long history in which such testimony was not considered credible. As Robert Popper, former New York State Attorney, stated, wrote, “For at least three hundred years, between the 16th and 19th centuries, even a criminal defendant was not allowed to testify on his own behalf.”

The same prohibition applied to people convicted of a crime. The famous legal commentator William Blackstone put it this wayAll witnesses, regardless of religion or country, who use reason must be received and examined, except those who are infamous or have an interest in the proceedings.

In this country there are prisoners and people sentenced to death were among such “infamous” people. Throughout the 19th century, American courts made this clear.

In the 1871 case of Ruffin v. Commonwealth, a Virginia judge let’s put it succinctly“As a result of his crime, he lost not only his freedom, but all his personal rights, except those that the law grants him in his humanity. For now, he is a slave of the state. He is a civilian mortuus; and his estate, if he has any at all, is administered as the estate of a deceased person.”

The judge further explained: “The Bill of Rights is a declaration of the general principles governing a society of free men, not convicted criminals and civil dead. Such people (…) are slaves of the state, punishable for terrible crimes committed against the laws of the country.”

Courts no longer call prisoners or death row inmates slaves of the state or civil death. Now they can testify in court. In many criminal cases, prisoners are often offered incentives to testify against co-defendants. But it’s no coincidence that prison guards refers to a person awaiting execution as a “walking dead”.

In Roberson’s case, his testimony before the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee would help legislators examine whether the state’s courts properly enforce “junk science” laws. State Representative Joe Moody, chairman of the committee, explained that the committee issued a subpoena for Roberson to “tell his story, what his life was like before, and what the investigation was like through his lens.”(…)The Legislature can use this information to make decisions that we need to make as we move forward in the policymaking process.” .

Regardless of the legislative purpose, Roberson’s appearance before the committee could also bring even more public attention to his case and prevent his execution. Whether this happens or not, it serves as a reminder that death row prisoners are still people with the right to be treated with dignity and have a voice in public proceedings.

This is exactly the kind of reminder that the death penalty’s most ardent supporters, like Abbott and Paxton, can’t stand.

Regardless of the outcome of the efforts to stop Roberson from telling his story, legislatures in other states should follow Texas lawmakers’ actions and provide death row inmates with a place to testify when legislatures consider death penalty bills. They and other Americans need to hear the voices of those we sentence to death, voices that are too often silenced until they are allowed to speak their final words.