In Unusual Move, Texas Attorney General 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.”

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. 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.

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.