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HOUSTON (AP) — A Texas man this week could become the first person executed in the U.S. for a murder conviction tied to the diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome.

The Texas Board of Parole on Wednesday voted 6-0 against recommending clemency for Robert Roberson, who is scheduled to receive a lethal injection on Thursday. The board also denied him a 180-day reprieve.

Republican Gov. Greg Abbott can only grant clemency after receiving a recommendation from the board, which had come under public bipartisan pressure in recent weeks to spare Roberson’s life.

Roberson, 57, is set to be executed for the 2002 killing of his 2-year-old daughter, Nikki Curtis. His attorneys have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stay the execution.

Roberson has long proclaimed his innocence. His lawyers as well as a bipartisan group of Texas lawmakers, medical experts and others don’t deny that head and other injuries from child abuse are real. But they argue his conviction was based on faulty and now outdated scientific evidence and say new evidence has shown Curtis died from complications related to severe pneumonia.

But prosecutors maintain Roberson’s new evidence does not disprove their case that Curtis died from injuries inflicted by her father.

Roberson’s scheduled execution renewed debate over shaken baby syndrome. On one side of the debate are lawyers and some in the medical and scientific communities who argue the shaken baby diagnosis is flawed and has led to wrongful convictions. On the other side are prosecutors and medical societies from the U.S. and around the world who say the diagnosis is valid, has been scientifically proven and is the leading cause of fatal head injuries in children younger than 2 years of age.

Here’s what to know about the highly scrutinized diagnosis ahead of Roberson’s scheduled execution:
What is shaken baby syndrome?
The diagnosis refers to a serious brain injury caused when a child’s head is injured through shaking or some other violent impact, like being slammed against a wall or thrown on the floor, usually by an adult caregiver, said Dr. Suzanne Haney, a child abuse pediatrician and member of the American Academy of Pediatrics Council on Child Abuse and Neglect.

The term was changed in 2009 to abusive head trauma, a more inclusive diagnosis, Haney said.

There are about 1,300 reported cases of shaken baby syndrome/abusive head trauma in the U.S. each year, according to the National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome.

What is the debate over shaken baby syndrome?
Critics allege doctors have been focused on concluding child abuse due to shaken baby syndrome whenever a triad of symptoms — bleeding around the brain, brain swelling and bleeding in the eyes — was found. Critics say doctors have not considered that things like short falls with head impact and naturally occurring illnesses like pneumonia, could mimic an inflicted head injury.

Roberson’s attorneys and other supporters are not saying that child abuse doesn’t exist or that shaking a baby is safe, said Kate Judson, executive director of the Center for Integrity in Forensic Sciences, a Wisconsin-based nonprofit that seeks to improve the reliability of forensic science evidence.

“This is a case about whether someone was misdiagnosed and justice wasn’t served,” Judson said.

While Haney declined to comment on Roberson’s case, she said there is no disagreement within a vast majority of the medical community about the validity and science behind the diagnosis.

Haney said doctors are not just focused on a triad of symptoms to determine child abuse, but instead look at all possible things, including any illnesses, that could have caused the injuries.

“I worry the pushback against abusive head trauma as a diagnosis is going to interfere with the prevention efforts that are out there and therefore allow more children to get harmed,” Haney said.

Judson said she believes that doctors in Roberson’s case did not consider all possible causes, including illness, to explain what happened to his daughter and used the triad of symptoms to only focus on child abuse.

What are the concerns Roberson’s supporters are raising?
Roberson’s attorneys say he was wrongly arrested and later convicted after taking his daughter to a hospital. She had fallen out of bed in their home in the East Texas city of Palestine after being seriously ill for a week.

New evidence gathered since his 2003 trial shows his daughter died from undiagnosed pneumonia that progressed to sepsis and was likely accelerated by medications that should not have been prescribed to her and made it harder for her to breathe, said Gretchen Sween, Roberson’s attorney.

The Anderson County District Attorney’s Office, which prosecuted Roberson, has said in court documents that after a 2022 hearing to consider the new evidence, a judge rejected the theories that pneumonia and other diseases caused Curtis’ death.

What have courts said about shaken baby syndrome?
In recent years, courts around the country have overturned convictions or dropped charges centered on shaken baby syndrome, including in California, Ohio, Massachusetts and Michigan.

In a ruling last week in a different shaken baby syndrome case out of Dallas County, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ordered a new trial after finding scientific advancements related to the diagnosis would now likely result in an acquittal in that case.

But the appeals court has repeatedly denied Roberson’s request to stay his execution, most recently on Friday.

In the U.S., at least eight individuals have been sentenced to death because of shaken baby syndrome, said Robin Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. Two of these eight have been exonerated and Roberson is the only one to have received execution dates.

“According to the National Registry of Exonerations, at least 30 people across the country have been exonerated based on this discredited scientific theory,” Maher said.

But Danielle Vazquez, executive director of the Utah-based National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome, said a 2021 research article found that 97% of more than 1,400 convictions related to shaken baby syndrome/abusive head trauma from 2008 to 2018 were upheld and that such convictions were rarely overturned on the grounds of medical evidence.

Vazquez said her organization is worried that doubts that have been raised about the diagnosis could cause some parents or caregivers to wrongly think that shaking a baby is not harmful.

EL PASO -KETK News partner reports that Police in Juarez, Mexico, say they have arrested a man and a woman in possession of 14 kilograms of fentanyl pills, powder and precursor chemicals in a neighborhood just south of the U.S. border wall.

Chihuahua state police arrested Juan Carlos T. P., 37, and Maria Concepcion L. L., 58, on Oct. 9 as the pair rode in a black 2013 GMC Terrain in the Anapra neighborhood of northwest Juarez.
The SUV was carrying two large plastic bags with 130,000 fentanyl pills, a kilo of fentanyl powder, 5 kilos of a chemical used to process fentanyl, a 9mm gun, a .38-caliber gun and 61 bullets, the state police said in a statement Thursday.

The arrests, drug and weapons seizures came about after intelligence reports on fentanyl trafficking in the area led to the suspects, the state police said.

Officials did not say where the pair was taking the seized blue pills stamped with the characters “M30.” The statement says they came from a clandestine lab in Anapra that has been “dismantled.” The state police said it will turn over the suspects to Mexican federal authorities in charge of prosecuting drug trafficking and illegal firearm possession.

TARRANT – NBC news reports that a Texas county that for years gave unclaimed bodies to a local medical school without families’ consent will now cremate or bury those people instead — but only after officials document that they have done all they can to contact relatives. The revamped rules, approved unanimously Tuesday by the Tarrant County Commissioners Court, are the latest change prompted by an NBC News investigation that revealed how the University of North Texas Health Science Center in Fort Worth cut up and leased out the remains of hundreds of unclaimed people to other schools, medical technology companies and the Army. The vast majority of the unclaimed bodies — people whose families could not afford funeral arrangements or could not be found — came from Tarrant and Dallas counties, which each saved half a million dollars a year in burial and cremation costs. “The county is now in a position to do things ethically, as opposed to before, when we counted on the University of North Texas Health Science Center to handle our business,” Commissioner Alisa Simmons said after Tuesday’s vote.

Tarrant County had delegated the work of contacting dead people’s families and cremating their remains to the Health Science Center. The new policy brings that responsibility back to the county — at an estimated cost of $675,000 a year. Officials in Tarrant and Dallas counties had justified sending unclaimed bodies to the Health Science Center by saying their use for training and research would help improve medical care for the living. NBC News found repeated failures to contact relatives who were reachable before the bodies were declared unclaimed. The Commissioners Court did not publicly discuss the details of the new policy — or its costs — before it voted unanimously to adopt it. Commissioners Court records indicate that the county has $57,760 in a burials account and will have to find additional money to cover the cost of the new policy. A spokesperson for Judge Tim O’Hare, Tarrant County’s top elected official, said in a statement that Tuesday’s vote was important “to honor the dignity and memory of deceased individuals the County is responsible for handling after they pass away.”

DALLAS – The Dallas Morning News reports work has begun on legislation to change state impeachment proceedings, a Texas Senate committee was told Tuesday. After the Senate voted last year to acquit Attorney General Ken Paxton of impeachment charges, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick criticized the process as rushed, secretive and unfair to the accused. Patrick followed by directing the Senate State Affairs Committee to study and propose changes to the impeachment process when the Legislature meets next year. During a State Affairs meeting at the Capitol on Tuesday, state Sen. Brian Birdwell, R-Granbury, said he has been drafting laws to address what he saw as flaws in the process.

Birdwell’s input is notable. The six-term senator chaired the committee that drafted the rules governing Paxton’s trial in the Senate. Birdwell was not at the Capitol Tuesday due to a COVID-19 illness, according to Sen. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, who read aloud a letter from Birdwell. Last year, Patrick, who presided over Paxton’s trial, criticized the impeachment as “rammed through” the House without due process. The House voted 121-23 to impeach Paxton two days after its General Investigating Committee unveiled 20 articles of impeachment accusing the attorney general of corruption and misusing his office. Patrick has called for the Texas Constitution to be amended to require evidentiary hearings and a slower House impeachment process. “This is not a partisan issue,” Patrick said at the end of Paxton’s trial. “We owe it to future legislatures to make these changes so no future official impeached by the House, whether Republican, Democrat or independent, is subject to the way this impeachment process occurred in the House this year.”

HOUSTON – The Houston Chronicle reports a GOP megadonor and close ally of Gov. Greg Abbott is working with an unusual bipartisan coalition to call for clemency in the case of Robert Roberson, who is scheduled to be executed on Thursday in the death of his 2-year-old daughter. “I felt like God was pushing me and telling me that I needed to get involved in this case,” said Doug Deason, who advised the Trump administration on criminal justice issues and has been a crucial voice among Texas Republicans who oppose the death penalty and support other reform measures. “I’ve taken it very very seriously, I’ve done everything that I possibly can.” Texas lawmakers will also be holding a hearing at the Capitol on Wednesday to highlight Roberson’s case and other issues related to convictions based on“junk science.” That term is often used to refer to the diagnosis of “shaken baby syndrome” that was the basis for Roberson’s capital murder conviction in Anderson County back in 2002.

“This was a pretty clear case where Robert Roberson did not have due process,” said Lacey Hull, a Republican state representative from Houston, during an appearance on CNN this morning. “Texans deserve to know that our justice system is fair … and we cannot say that right now.” Abbott did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A slew of new scientific evidence and medical experts say that Roberson is not responsible for his daughter’s death. Similar claims of “shaken baby syndrome” made by prosecutors in child death cases have been discredited across the country. But Texas judges have so far denied all of Roberson’s legal appeals, and since he is set to die in just two days, a pardon or a commutation of his sentence by Abbott is his best chance. In an interview, Deason told the Chronicle he has been talking directly with Abbott’s general counsel, James Sullivan, and two other Abbott staff members in recent weeks. The bestselling author John Grisham, who has written about the Roberson case, is also a part of those conversations along with Roberson’s legal team, Deason said.

DALLAS (AP) — Republican Sen. Ted Cruz and Democratic Rep. Colin Allred met for their only debate Tuesday night, trading attacks over abortion and immigration in a closely watched race that could help determine which party wins control of the U.S. Senate.

Nationally, Democrats view Texas as one of their few potential pickup chances in the Senate this year, while Cruz has urged Republicans to take Texas seriously amid signs that the former 2016 presidential contender is in another competitive race to keep his seat.

From start to finish in the hourlong debate, Cruz sought to link Allred to Vice President Kamala Harris at nearly every opportunity and painted the three-term Dallas congressman as out of step in a state where voters have not elected a Democrat to a statewide office in 30 years.

Allred, who would become Texas’ first Black senator if elected, hammered Cruz over the state’s abortion ban that is one of the most restrictive in the nation and does not allow exceptions in cases of rape or incest. The issue is central to Allred’s underdog campaign and his supporters include Texas women who had serious pregnancy complications after the state’s ban took effect.

Pressed on whether he supports Texas’ law, Cruz said the specifics of abortion law have been and should be decided by the Texas Legislature.

“I don’t serve in the state Legislature. I’m not the governor,” he said.

Cruz later blasted Allred over his support of transgender rights and immigration polices of President Joe Biden and Harris, accusing him of shifting his views on border security from the positions he took when he was first elected to Congress in 2018.

“What I always said is that we have to make sure that as we’re talking about border security, that we don’t fall into demonizing,” Allred said.

Allred accused the two-term U.S. senator of mischaracterizing his record and repeatedly jabbed Cruz for his family vacation to Mexico during a deadly winter storm in 2021 that crippled the state’s power grid.

The two candidates closed the debate by attacking each other, with Cruz painting an Allred victory as a threat to Republicans’ grip on Texas.

“Congressman Allred and Kamala Harris are both running on the same radical agenda,” Cruz said.

Allred, meanwhile, cast himself as a moderate and accused Cruz of engaging in what he described as “anger-tainment, where you just leave people upset and you podcast about it and you write a book about it and you make some money on it, but you’re not actually there when people need you.”

The last time Cruz was on the ballot in 2018, he only narrowly won reelection over challenger Beto O’Rourke.

The debate offered Allred, a former NFL linebacker, a chance to boost his name identification to a broad Texas audience. Allred has made protecting abortion rights a centerpiece of his campaign and has been sharply critical of the state’s abortion ban. The issue has been a winning one for Democrats, even in red states like Kentucky and Kansas, ever since the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in 2022 to strip away constitutional protections for abortion.

Cruz, who fast made a name for himself in the Senate as an uncompromising conservative, has refashioned his campaign to focus on his legislative record.

Allred has meanwhile sought to flash moderate credentials and has the endorsement of former Republican U.S. Reps. Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney.

The two candidates alone have raised close to $100 million, according to the most recent reports from the Federal Election Commission. Tens of millions more dollars have been spent by outside groups, making it one of the most expensive races in the country.

Despite Texas’ reputation as a deep-red state and the Democrats’ 30-year statewide drought, the party has grown increasingly optimistic in recent years that they can win here.

Since former President Barack Obama lost Texas by more than 15 percentage points in 2012, the margins have steadily declined. Former President Donald Trump won by 9 percentage points in 2016, and four years later, won by less than 6. That was the narrowest victory for a Republican presidential candidate in Texas since 1996.

“Texas is a red state,” said Mark Jones, a political science professor at Rice University in Houston. “But it’s not a ruby-red state.”