Texas AG Requests Execution Date for Robert Roberson Before a Court Has Heard New Evidence of His Actual Innocence

On June 16, 2025, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a motion in the Anderson County District Court request­ing a new exe­cu­tion date for Robert Roberson, despite the fact that a motion from defense coun­sel with new evi­dence in sup­port of Mr. Roberson’s actu­al inno­cence remains pend­ing.

As the Dallas Morning Editorial Board notes, it is ​“unusu­al” that “[AG] Paxton’s office is involved” in request­ing the exe­cu­tion date. AG Paxton has active­ly sought Mr. Roberson’s exe­cu­tion and has pub­licly dis­put­ed his claims of inno­cence; his office recent­ly took over Mr. Roberson’s case from the district attorney.

Mr. Roberson was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in 2003 for caus­ing the death of his daugh­ter Nikki, who med­ical experts have since deter­mined died from severe viral and bac­te­r­i­al pneu­mo­nia that doc­tors failed to diag­nose, not from abuse or ​“Shaken Baby Syndrome” (SBS) as tri­al pros­e­cu­tors alleged. 

A day after AG Paxton’s motion was filed, coun­sel for Mr. Roberson filed an objec­tion, point­ing out that the law allows the ​“dis­trict court the dis­cre­tion not (empha­sis in orig­i­nal) to set an exe­cu­tion date under the cir­cum­stances pre­sent­ed,” as Mr. Roberson’s pend­ing peti­tion remains in front of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA). According to attor­ney Gretchen Sween, Mr. Roberson is inno­cent, and ​“the AG’s unjus­ti­fied rush to seek an exe­cu­tion date while that new evi­dence of inno­cence is before the court is outrageous.”

There is no jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for the Attorney General’s relent­less effort to kill an inno­cent human being — and no state law or moral law that autho­rizes seek­ing an exe­cu­tion date under these circumstances.

Gretchen Sween, attor­ney for Robert Roberson

In February 2025, coun­sel for Mr. Roberson filed a habeas appli­ca­tion with the CCA, argu­ing that relief is required because new expert opin­ions and sci­en­tif­ic advance­ments have emerged since October 2024, when the CCA acknowl­edged in a sim­i­lar case that the sci­en­tif­ic foun­da­tion for SBS con­vic­tions lacks reli­a­bil­i­ty.

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According to Mr. Roberson’s fil­ing, this new evi­dence demon­strates two crit­i­cal points: ratio­nal jurors would not find Mr. Roberson guilty of cap­i­tal mur­der today, and his con­vic­tion was mate­ri­al­ly influ­enced by sci­en­tif­ic and med­ical evi­dence now con­sid­ered out­dat­ed and unre­li­able. 

Counsel for Mr. Roberson point­ed to the CCA’s deci­sion in Ex Parte Roark, where the court over­turned a mur­der con­vic­tion based on the SBS tes­ti­mo­ny of the same expert who tes­ti­fied against Mr. Roberson.

We find that sci­en­tif­ic knowl­edge has evolved regard­ing SBS and its appli­ca­tion in Applicant’s case. In addi­tion, we find that giv­en fur­ther study, the experts would have giv­en a dif­fer­ent opin­ion on sev­er­al issues at tri­al today — some already have. The admis­si­ble sci­en­tif­ic tes­ti­mo­ny at tri­al today would like­ly jus­ti­fy an acquittal.

Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in Ex Parte Roark.

Counsel also includ­ed a new affi­davit for Dr. Michael Laposata, a pathol­o­gist with more than four decades of exper­tise in coag­u­la­tion and bleed­ing dis­or­ders, who deter­mined that Nikki suf­fered from Disseminated Intravascular Coagulation (DIC), a blood clot­ting dis­or­der that is known to be com­mon­ly caused by seri­ous ill­ness­es, such as pneu­mo­nia. Dr. Laposata explained the bleed­ing in Nikki’s brain that the med­ical exam­in­er attrib­uted to ​“mul­ti­ple impact” sites, was because of DIC: ​“The most plau­si­ble expla­na­tion for Nikki Curtis’ bleed­ing and bruis­ing is the devel­op­ment of DIC start­ing months before the events which took her life.”

Mr. Roberson faced an October 2024 exe­cu­tion date, but with the inter­ven­tion of state law­mak­ers, a leg­isla­tive sub­poe­na to tes­ti­fy on a date after the sched­uled exe­cu­tion result­ed in a tem­po­rary injunc­tion pre­vent­ing his exe­cu­tion. Mr. Roberson was ulti­mate­ly unable to tes­ti­fy because AG Paxton’s office inter­vened. 

Without hear­ing direct­ly from Mr. Roberson, the House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence released an inter­im report, which was includ­ed in Mr. Roberson’s February 2025 motion at the CCA. The Committee found that Mr. Roberson’s case ​“high­light­ed not just an indi­vid­ual injus­tice, but the unful­filled promise of what was intend­ed to be a pio­neer­ing Texas law.”

During Texas’ 2025 leg­isla­tive ses­sion, law­mak­ers attempt­ed to pass amend­ments to strength­en the state’s junk sci­ence law. The leg­is­la­tion gained broad sup­port in the state House, but ulti­mate­ly failed to move in the Senate. 

The orig­i­nal junk sci­ence law passed in 2013 and is meant to pro­vide relief in crim­i­nal cas­es whose con­vic­tions were based on sci­ence that has since evolved. State Representative Joe Moody, who led the leg­isla­tive com­mit­tee that secured a sub­poe­na for Mr. Roberson in 2024, told The Texas Tribune that many state law­mak­ers believe in Mr. Roberson’s inno­cence. ​“What I know is that we’re no clos­er to truth or fair­ness today than we were one year ago — all we’ve added to this is pol­i­tics, which should nev­er have any role in our jus­tice sys­tem,” said Rep. Moody.

According to the National Registry of Exonerations, at least 41 par­ents and care­givers across 21 states and the mil­i­tary have been exon­er­at­ed since 1992 after being wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed based on the ​“Shaken Baby” hypothesis.

Source: Death Penalty Information Center, Hayley Bedard, June 23, 2025

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."

— Oscar Wilde