Gretchen Swinn

The week after I met him, we aired a story about his case.

For the first time, Robert's story would be national news.

Robert Robertson has spent more than two decades on Texas' death row, convicted of fatally shaking his two-year-old daughter Nikki in 2002.

Awareness was growing, now in an unexpected place, the state capitol.

86 Texas lawmakers, Democrats, and even pro-death penalty Republicans joined together to ask for mercy from the governor or the Board of Pardons and Paroles.

Some of the lawmakers went to visit Robert on death row in the weeks before his scheduled death and prayed with him.

Pressure was building in Austin.

Inside the state capitol, two Texas lawmakers decided to act.

Jeff Leach, a Republican, and Joe Moody, a Democrat, members of the Texas House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee, led an emergency hearing.

It focused on that so-called junk science law, which enabled people to request a new day in court if their conviction had been based on outdated or discredited science.

That was the law that won Robert a stay years earlier.

The legislators wanted to understand why the junk science law hadn't won Robert a new trial.

I spoke with Representatives Moody and Leach.

The new science evidence matters.

On October 16th, 2024, with Robert about 30 hours away from death, Representative Moody called the hearing to order.

They called eight people to testify, including one of Gretchen's experts.

Brian Wharton testified, too.

The committee also heard from Anderson County District Attorney Allison Mitchell.

She wasn't the prosecutor at Robert's trial, but she'd overseen his case for the past decade.

Mitchell said her experts disagreed with Gretchen's theory that Nikki's death was a result of natural causes.