Kayla Guo
speaker
59 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Feb 2025
last heard Feb 2025
Kayla Guo’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
The hearing room was really tense. You know, I didn't even want to type for fear of, you know, making too much noise and sort of interrupting the moment.
But he said that in the years after, he had always had this nagging feeling that this wasn't a slam dunk, and if you're going to send someone to death, it better be a slam dunk. It better be, you know, completely clear, no doubts whatsoever.
I had not been prepared for this hearing to last so long. Again, going into the hearing, it had felt remarkable because it was the legislature making some really loud noise about this case that was not really within their jurisdiction. The statehouse doesn't get to say what happens in a criminal case. And so I'd gone in not thinking it would last this long. Don't think I had a laptop charger.
One of my coworkers had to bring me a granola bar at one point. So it was running on very little by the end of this hearing. It had mostly emptied. I was one of the few reporters who was still in there. I had already messaged my editor saying I was about to file the story I had written for the night and that the hearing was wrapping up.
Absolutely. I think there was... I mean, the lawmakers really got creative in issuing this, and it had never been pulled before, so no one could say what it meant or what it would do. The governor, the attorney general, they all saw it as a massive overreach by this committee to try to do this.
By the time we wrapped up all of our coverage and the story that I had written for that night and the other story I had written for the morning, I probably went to sleep around 1 a.m. and woke up not really knowing what to expect. And we wanted to be prepared for whatever may happen. So I actually spent the day of his execution writing up his obituary.
I mean, throughout the day, it was such a roller coaster. And when the clock struck 6 p.m., we knew that he could be executed at any moment. And, you know, it was never clear whether or not that would happen that night.
All the preparations are moving forward. Two Texas lawmakers went to where Texas executes its prisoners. They went to that prison and were ready to be there in the room watching if or when this execution moved forward. They had prepped Robert Robertson for it. There were people outside the prison, protesters. Everyone was set up, believing this could very well happen that night.
I see it first on X because they tweet out their opinions or announcements like that.
The Texas Supreme Court said they're doing another unprecedented thing, which was the Texas Supreme Court is issuing the stay of Roberts' execution to give it time to consider the separation of powers issue that the subpoena had caused. And so there was just this big sense of relief in that moment, but also this sense of, okay, what comes next? Did Robert Robertson start preparing to testify?
There were plans in place for him to go testify on that Monday. The committee wanted to have him come testify in person. And later on, his attorney said that the, you know, some high ranking officials at the criminal justice department had called her in.
said they were committed to doing everything they could to take him to the state capitol, which is about a two or three hour drive from death row.
He, according to his lawyer, ended up replying that he didn't know what his favorite color was because he had been in his death row all-white uniform for the past 20 years. But there was this flurry of activity to get organized and get the logistics straight so that he could be brought to the Capitol on Monday, four days later, to testify.
But over the weekend, at some point, the state attorney general's office intervened. They said he would only be allowed to testify over video. They cited video. quote unquote, public safety reasons. And this would be too big of a lift for the criminal justice department to carry out. So they essentially said it's either over video or nothing.
The committee and Robert's lawyers opposed that because they said, this is a man with autism, which has been part of his problem from the beginning, that there's a miscommunication that happens between what he says and how he emotes with the people with authority listening to him. And also, he hasn't had experience with technology.
And they said a virtual testimony would be totally ineffective and would be a detriment to him.
So what happens now? Your guess is as good as mine. What happens now, he is still sentenced to death. The district attorney has not requested a new execution date yet. I don't know why not. She hasn't responded to my request to know why. It's unclear what legal pathways and legal argument he can make for himself at this point.
One thing of note is that, you know, since his last appeal was denied by the state's highest criminal court, elections have taken place and replaced three of the judges on the bench. And so there's a new slate of judges who would be considering his appeals if his lawyers filed a new one. So it's unclear. Maybe they would have a different opinion. Somebody might have a different opinion.
But, I mean, unless the court decides grants a new appeal from him or the district attorney agrees to take a second look, at the end of the day, he's still sentenced to death and could be executed within a matter of months.
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