October 9, 2025 UPDATE: On October 9, 2025, just a week before his scheduled execution, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) granted Robert Roberson a stay of execution and remanded his case to the district court for further consideration of his request for relief based upon relief offered in a similar case, Ex parte Roark. Like Mr. Roberson’s case, Ex parte Roark, also involved a conviction based the now discredited “Shaken Baby Syndrome Hypothesis” (SBS) and the CCA granted relief to Mr. Roark based on conclusions that the science behind SBS is no longer sound.
Mr. Roberson requested relief under Texas’ junk science statute, which allows prisoners to challenge their convictions if the evidence used against them relied on now outdated and/or debunked science. Since the law’s creation, no death row prisoner in the state has successfully secured a new trial or form of relief.
Statement from Mr. Roberson’s counsel, Gretchen Sween: “We are relieved and grateful that members of the CCA appreciate the parallels between Andrew Roark’s case and Robert Roberson’s, and the case is being sent back to the district court for further proceedings. The issue will be whether the decision granting relief to the now-exonerated Andrew Roark requires relief for Robert as well. Deciding that issue will, of necessity, require considering the mountain of medical records, scientific studies, expert opinions, and other evidence that proves his very ill little girl died from natural and accidental causes, not shaking or other abuse. Robert adored Nikki, whose death was a tragedy, a horror compounded by Robert’s wrongful conviction that devastated his whole family. We are confident that an objective review of the science and medical evidence will show there was no crime.”
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.
