District Judge Sets ​“Unfortunate” New Execution Date for Texas Prisoner Robert Roberson, Despite Pending Petition in Support of His Innocence Claim

On July 16, 2025, Smith County District Judge Austin Reeve Jackson set an exe­cu­tion date of October 16, 2025 for Robert Roberson, a man with a strong inno­cence claim who has a habeas cor­pus peti­tion pend­ing at the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA). Judge Jackson, after hear­ing argu­ments from both defense coun­sel for Mr. Roberson and attor­neys from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office, ruled that there was no legal basis for not sign­ing an exe­cu­tion order. ​“It doesn’t seem like any­thing is going to get resolved with­out a date,” said Judge Jackson, who called this deci­sion ​“unfor­tu­nate.” Counsel for Mr. Roberson object­ed to AG Paxton’s ​“unusu­al” request to set an exe­cu­tion date, not­ing the court should not set a date as long as Mr. Roberson’s appeal remains pend­ing in front of the TCCA. Judge Jackson not­ed the motion has remained pend­ing in front of the TCCA for more than five months. 

In June 2025, AG Paxton filed a motion in the Anderson County District Court request­ing a new exe­cu­tion date for Mr. Roberson. 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 Anderson County District Attorney Allyson Mitchell but has not pub­licly stat­ed the rea­son for doing so. Mr. Roberson was ini­tial­ly sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed in October 2024; how­ev­er, the Texas Supreme Court ulti­mate­ly stayed the exe­cu­tion after state law­mak­ers sub­poe­naed Mr. Roberson to tes­ti­fy on a date after his sched­uled exe­cu­tion. Just a week after the Court stayed Mr. Roberson’s exe­cu­tion, AG Paxton’s office issued a press state­ment, the orig­i­nal autop­sy report, and oth­er records to ​“set the record straight” and ​“cor­rect false­hoods” that he accused state law­mak­ers of mak­ing about Mr. Roberson. In response to the claims from AG Paxton, a bipar­ti­san group of leg­is­la­tors released their own report and char­ac­ter­ized the AG’s report as ​“mis­lead­ing and in large part sim­ply untrue.” Mr. Roberson was not able to tes­ti­fy in front of law­mak­ers, as the Office of the Attorney General inter­vened to pre­vent the Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s com­pli­ance with the subpoena. 

In February 2025, coun­sel for Mr. Roberson filed a suc­ces­sive habeas appli­ca­tion with the TCCA, argu­ing that relief is required because new expert opin­ions and sci­en­tif­ic advance­ments have emerged since October 2024, when the TCCA acknowl­edged in a sim­i­lar case that the sci­en­tif­ic foun­da­tion for ​“Shaken Baby Syndrome” (SBS) con­vic­tions lack reli­a­bil­i­ty. Filings indi­cate this new evi­dence serves two-fold: 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 point­ed to the TCCA’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. 

Mr. Roberson was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in 2003 for 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. 

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. If Mr. Roberson’s exe­cu­tion date goes for­ward, he would be the first per­son exe­cut­ed based on a ​“Shaken Baby” conviction.