New Evidence Revealed in ​“Dateline” Podcast Points to Judicial Misconduct in Robert Roberson’s Case Just Days Ahead of Execution

Attorneys for Robert Roberson filed a Notice of New Evidence with the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on October 6, 2025, bring­ing to light new evi­dence uncov­ered by NBC’s ​“Dateline” pod­cast, released on the same day as the fil­ing, that they say sub­stan­ti­ates a pend­ing judi­cial mis­con­duct claim in his case. This fil­ing comes just nine days before Mr. Roberson’s sched­uled exe­cu­tion on October 16, 2025. According to the fil­ings, Larry Bowman, the mater­nal grand­fa­ther of Mr. Roberson’s deceased daugh­ter Nikki, told pod­cast­ers that Anderson County Judge Bascom Bentley, the same judge who presided over Mr. Roberson’s 2003 cap­i­tal mur­der tri­al, also autho­rized the Bowmans to remove Nikki from life sup­port. Under Texas law, only Mr. Roberson, Nikki’s sole man­ag­ing con­ser­va­tor — not the Bowmans — had legal author­i­ty to make that deci­sion. Counsel for Mr. Roberson argue Judge Bentley’s fail­ure to recuse him­self from Mr. Roberson’s cap­i­tal tri­al con­sti­tutes ​“struc­tur­al error” requir­ing a new trial. 

Mr. Roberson’s attor­neys ini­tial­ly filed a judi­cial mis­con­duct claim in August 2025 after Texas State Representative Lacey Hull learned from Children’s Medical Center of Dallas that hos­pi­tal staff had sought con­fir­ma­tion from an Anderson County judi­cial offi­cial before remov­ing Nikki from life sup­port. The hos­pi­tal indi­cat­ed they need­ed to ver­i­fy the mater­nal grand­par­ents had legal author­i­ty to make the deci­sion. The NBC pod­cast, ​“The Last Appeal,” was released on October 6, 2025, and accord­ing to Mr. Roberson’s attor­neys, this is the first time they learned the offi­cial in ques­tion was Judge Bentley. 

“It is now indis­putable that Robert’s case was infect­ed by egre­gious judi­cial mis­con­duct from the out­set,” said Gretchen Sween, one of Mr. Roberson’s attor­neys. ​“That the Anderson County judge who presided over Robert’s tri­al nev­er dis­closed that he is the one who autho­rized cir­cum­vent­ing Robert’s parental rights and vio­lat­ing Texas law so that Nikki’s removal from life sup­port could be has­tened — and then her father charged with cap­i­tal mur­der — is very disturbing.” 

Mr. Roberson was con­vict­ed of cap­i­tal mur­der in the 2002 death of his two-year-old daugh­ter Nikki. Medical pro­fes­sion­als diag­nosed the death as result­ing from Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS), a diag­no­sis that has since become con­tro­ver­sial in the med­ical and legal com­mu­ni­ties. According to court doc­u­ments, Nikki had been ill with a high fever and what was lat­er deter­mined to be undi­ag­nosed dou­ble (bac­te­r­i­al and viral) pneu­mo­nia. She had been pre­scribed Phenergan and Codeine; med­ica­tions that are no longer rec­om­mend­ed for young chil­dren due to poten­tial res­pi­ra­to­ry com­pli­ca­tions. After a fall from bed, Mr. Roberson took Nikki to the emer­gency room, where she was lat­er removed from life sup­port by the Bowmans, with autho­riza­tion from Judge Bentley. 

Mr. Roberson’s case has drawn atten­tion from var­i­ous groups and notable indi­vid­u­als, includ­ing Brian Wharton, the for­mer lead detec­tive in the inves­ti­ga­tion who now says he believes Mr. Roberson is inno­cent, med­ical experts, autism advo­ca­cy groups, and bipar­ti­san Texas law­mak­ers. More than 200,000 peo­ple have signed peti­tions ask­ing Texas offi­cials to halt his exe­cu­tion. Author John Grisham announced in September 2025 that his next book, ​“Shaken: The Rush to Execute an Innocent Man,” will focus on Mr. Roberson’s case, sched­uled for pub­li­ca­tion in June 2026. In announc­ing the book, Mr. Grisham said: ​“The wrong­ful con­vic­tion of Robert Roberson has been an ongo­ing tragedy for over twen­ty years. If it now becomes a wrong­ful exe­cu­tion, it will live in infamy. We don’t know its final chap­ter, but I’ll be there to record the outcome.” 

At an October 4 ral­ly attend­ed by more than 100 sup­port­ers, Texas State Representative Brian Harrison stat­ed: ​“It is actu­al­ly because of my sup­port for the death penal­ty that I have been com­pelled to speak out in the Robert Roberson case. I believe it is most incum­bent on those of us who sup­port the death penal­ty to be most vig­i­lant in ensur­ing poten­tial­ly inno­cent peo­ple are nev­er sub­ject­ed to it. Executing a poten­tial­ly inno­cent per­son who has nev­er had due process, and who has not had a fair tri­al, is the oppo­site of jus­tice!” State Representative John Bucy III also expressed con­cern that ​“Texas is about to make a hor­ri­ble mis­take.” He urged Governor Greg Abbott to inter­vene, say­ing, “[t]here is a moun­tain of evi­dence before the courts prov­ing that Robert Roberson is inno­cent and Governor Abbott can ensure they have time to review it by grant­i­ng a 30-day reprieve. 

According to the National Registry of Exonerations, at least 41 peo­ple have been exon­er­at­ed in the U.S. after being wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed based on the SBS hypoth­e­sis. If Mr. Roberson’s exe­cu­tion pro­ceeds, he would be the first per­son in the United States to be exe­cut­ed for a con­vic­tion based on Shaken Baby Syndrome.