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WASHINGTON – The Dallas Morning News reports that when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to stop Texas from executing death row inmate Robert Roberson III, the Thursday evening ruling included sharp words from Justice Sonia Sotomayor. It was not the first time Sotomayor criticized the way Texas and the courts have handled death penalty cases. Roberson was convicted of capital murder in 2003 after his daughter died of what medical experts believed to be a case of shaken baby syndrome. Defense lawyers, backed by a bipartisan group of state lawmakers, pressed to delay the execution, arguing Roberson’s conviction was based on debunked theories of shaken baby syndrome and that he is likely innocent. When the Supreme Court rejected Roberson’s request for a stay of execution, Sotomayor cited a precedent establishing that the justices have “no power to tell state courts how they must write their opinions.”

“Nevertheless, it is notable that the [Texas Court of Criminal Appeals] decisions in this case do not address the whole of Roberson’s evidence of actual innocence,” she wrote. Sotomayor also criticized the Texas appeals court for inconsistent rulings on cases involving shaken baby syndrome. “The TCCA just this week granted a new trial to Andrew Wayne Roark, a non-capital defendant whose child-abuse conviction rested on the same shaken-baby-syndrome testimony, from the same expert witness, that led to Roberson’s conviction,” she wrote. “When Roberson sought a stay of execution based on the argument the TCCA credited in Roark, the TCCA summarily denied relief.” Roberson filed his fourth post-conviction appeal after the Roark ruling, Sotomayor wrote, “illustrating in detail that the testimony as to shaken-baby syndrome in Roark had been nearly indistinguishable from the testimony in his case.” Even so, she wrote, the Court of Criminal Appeals voted 5-4 to deny relief. Sotomayor acknowledged Roberson’s request for a stay lacked a “cognizable federal claim” for the court to act upon but said “few cases more urgently call for such a remedy than one where the accused has made a serious showing of actual innocence, as Roberson has here.”

DALLAS – WFAA reports that the Texas Department of Agriculture has authorized an executive order allowing farmers to tap the Rio Grande for irrigation. On Thursday, TDOA Commissioner Sid Miller issued the order following heavy rainfall in Mexico. According to a release from the TDOA, that deluge has caused significant runoff causing large amounts of freshwater to flow into the bay—wasting it. Rather than letting that water go to waste, Miller’s executive order allows farmers in the Rio Grande Valley to use it for watering their crops. Though Miller deemed the action justified in his statement, it comes in conflict with an 80-year-old agreement between the U.S. and Mexico—the 1944 Water Treaty. The treaty operates on a five-year cycle, where the U.S. delivers water to Mexico in the West via the Colorado River and Mexico delivers the U.S. water in the East via the Rio Grande. We’re in the fourth year of that cycle, and Mexico will likely be at a deficit with the water it owes the U.S.

Historically, Mexico has not held up its end of the deal, underdelivering on its annual obligation of 350,000 acre-feet of water. According to the U.S. Section of the IBWC, Mexico has fallen behind on its payments to the tune of 750,000 acre-feet of water. That has put farmers in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley operating with a limited water supply. “Enough is enough,” said Commissioner Miller in a release. “We’re done sitting around waiting for someone else to act. There is no reason the water overflow south of the Amistad and Falcon international reservoirs should go down the Rio San Juan to the Rio Grande and be wasted. The water belongs in the hands of those who need it most, not lost to the bay.” Miller’s order has no expiration, which could lead to further water disputes between the U.S. and Mexico in the future.

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — An Afghan man who is accused of plotting an Election Day attack in the U.S. was ordered Thursday to remain in custody as officials disclosed that he had previously worked as a security guard for an American military installation in Afghanistan.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Suzanne Mitchell in Oklahoma City issued her ruling after hearing testimony from an FBI special agent that Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, 27, of Oklahoma City, and his brother-in-law, a juvenile, took steps to obtain AK-47 rifles and ammunition and planned to carry out an attack targeting large crowds on Election Day next month. Mitchell also determined there was probable cause to bind Tawhedi over for trial.

FBI agent Derek Wiley testified that Tawhedi also is linked to an investigation in France that led to the arrests this month of three people, including two of Tawhedi’s brothers, who authorities say were plotting a terrorist attack in that country. One of those arrested in France, a 22-year-old Afghan who had residency papers in France, was being investigated for a suspected plan to attack people in a soccer stadium or shopping center.

Authorities say both Tawhedi and those arrested in France were inspired by Islamic State ideology.

The Justice Department said earlier that Tahwedi had entered the U.S. on a special immigrant visa in September 2021 shortly after Afghanistan’s capital city of Kabul was captured by the Taliban, and had been on parole pending a determination of his immigration status. In court Thursday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Dillon told the judge that Tawhedi had been temporarily allowed into the U.S. while he had a pending application for resident status, but that his parole status has since been revoked.

“Were he to be released today, he would be unlawfully in the United States,” Dillon said.

Tawhedi, bearded and with dark tousled hair, was led into the courtroom with his hands shackled around his waist and flanked by two U.S. marshals. Both he and his attorney, Craig Hoehns, wore a headset to communicate, and a Dari language interpreter was provided by the court.

Wiley testified that Tawhedi had been under observation by federal agents for more than 40 days before his arrest on Oct. 7. He said Tawhedi subsequently admitted to investigators that he and his co-conspirator planned their attack to coincide with Election Day next month and that they expected to die as martyrs in the attack.

Wiley said Tawhedi had used the online messaging application Telegram to communicate with an account associated with the Islamic State militant organization that was directing his actions, and that Tawhedi had sworn allegiance to the group and “would do whatever they told him to.”

In arguing for home detention while awaiting trial, Hoehns suggested that the only weapon Tawhedi ever handled in the U.S. was given to him by a government informant and that Tawhedi had never been arrested or even received a traffic citation in three years in the U.S.

Hoehns said Tawhedi had worked previously as a rideshare driver in Dallas and at several oil change locations in Oklahoma City.

France’s national anti-terrorism prosecution office has previously said that its probe leading to the Afghan’s arrest was launched Sept. 27, prior to Tawhedi’s arrest in the U.S.

In a statement Wednesday, the FBI said the arrests in both countries “demonstrate the importance of partnerships to detect and disrupt potential terrorist attacks.”

“The coordination between the United States and French law enforcement contributed to these outcomes,” the FBI said.

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Associated Press writer John Leicester in Paris contributed to this report.

DALLAS (AP) — Texas has sued a Dallas doctor over accusations of providing gender-affirming care to youths, marking one of the first times a state has sought to enforce recent bans driven by Republicans.

The lawsuit announced by Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Thursday alleges that Dr. May Lau, a physician in the Dallas area, provided hormones to over 20 minors in violation of a Texas ban that took effect last year.

It is the first time Texas has tried to enforce the law, said Harper Seldin, a staff attorney for the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Project. He also said he was not aware of other states that have tried to enforce similar bans.

“Today, enforcement begins against those who have violated the law,” Paxton’s office said in the lawsuit, which was filed in suburban Collin County.

The Texas law prevents transgender people under 18 from accessing hormone therapies, puberty blockers and transition surgeries, though surgical procedures are rarely performed on children.

Seldin said that while he couldn’t comment on the facts of this case, he said the lawsuit is the “predictable and terrifying result” of the law, which his organization tried to prevent by challenging it.

“Doctors should not have to fear being targeted by the government when using their best medical judgment and politicians like Ken Paxton should not be putting themselves between families and their doctors,” Seldin said.

Lau is an associate professor in the pediatrics department at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, according to the UT Southwestern website. The lawsuit said she has hospital privileges at two area Children’s Health hospitals.

The lawsuit accuses her of “falsifying medical records, prescriptions, and billing records to represent that her testosterone prescriptions are for something other than transitioning a child’s biological sex or affirming a child’s belief that their gender identity is inconsistent with their biological sex.”

Paxton is asking the court for an injunction against Lau and for her to be fined as much as $10,000 per violation.

Lau nor UT Southwestern immediately replied to requests for comment on Thursday. Children’s Health said in a statement that it “follows and adheres to all state health care laws.”

At least 26 states have adopted laws restricting or banning gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors, and most of those states face lawsuits. Federal judges have struck down the bans in Arkansas and Florida as unconstitutional, though a federal appeals court has stayed the Florida ruling. A judge’s orders are in place to temporarily block enforcement of the ban in Montana. New Hampshire restrictions are to take effect in January.

The lawsuit comes just weeks before an election in which Republicans have used support of gender-affirming health care as a way to attack their opponents. Republican Sen. Ted Cruz has repeatedly blasted his Democratic challenger, U.S. Rep. Colin Allred, for his support of transgender rights.

The Texas ban was signed into law by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who was the first governor to order the investigation of families of transgender minors who receive gender-affirming care.

HUNTSVILLE (AP) — The Texas Supreme Court halted Thursday night’s scheduled execution of a man who would have become the first person in the U.S. put to death for a murder conviction tied to a diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome.

The late-night ruling to spare for now the life of Robert Roberson, who was convicted of killing his 2-year-old daughter in 2002, capped a flurry of last-ditch legal challenges and weeks of public pressure from both Republican and Democratic lawmakers who say he is innocent and was sent to death row based on flawed science.

In the hours leading up to the ruling, Roberson had been confined to a prison holding cell a few feet from America’s busiest death chamber at the Walls Unit in Hunstville, waiting for certainty over whether he would be taken to die by lethal injection.

“He was shocked, to say the least,” said Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesperson Amanda Hernandez, who spoke with Roberson after the court stayed his execution. “He praised God and he thanked his supporters. And that’s pretty much what he had to say.”

She said Roberson would be returned to the Polunsky Unit, about 45 miles (72 kilometers) to the east, where the state’s male death row is located.

Roberson, 57, was convicted of killing of his daughter, Nikki Curtis, in the East Texas city of Palestine. His lawyers and some medical experts say his daughter died not from abuse but from complications related to pneumonia.

Order capped a night of last-minute maneuvers
It is rare for the Texas Supreme Court — the state’s highest civil court — to get involved in a criminal matter.

But how the all-Republican court wound up stopping Roberson’s execution in the final hours underlined the extraordinary maneuvers used by a bipartisan coalition of state House lawmakers who have come to his defense.

Rejected by courts and Texas’ parole board in their efforts to spare Roberson’s life, legislators on Wednesday tried a different route: issuing a subpoena for Roberson to testify before a House committee next week, which would be days after he was scheduled to die. The unusual plan to buy time, some of them conceded, had never been tried before.

They argued that executing Roberson before he could offer subpoenaed testimony would violate the Legislature’s constitutional authority. Less than two hours before Roberson’s execution, a judge in Austin sided with lawmakers and paused the execution, but that was then reversed by an appeals panel. The Texas Supreme Court then weighed in with its order, ending a night of uncertainty.

Roberson is scheduled to testify before the committee Monday.

“This is an innocent man. And there’s too much shadow of a doubt in this case,” said Democratic state Rep. John Bucy. “I agree this is a unique decision today. We know this is not a done deal. He has a unique experience to tell and we need to hear that testimony in committee on Monday.”
Governor and US Supreme Court did not move to halt execution

Gov. Greg Abbott had authority to delay Roberson’s punishment for 30 days. Abbott has halted only one imminent execution in nearly a decade as governor and has not spoken publicly about the case.

Earlier Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to halt the execution, although Justice Sonia Sotomayor — in a 10-page statement about the case — urged Abbott to grant a 30-day delay.

Roberson’s lawyers had waited to see if Abbott would grant Roberson the one-time reprieve. It would have been the only action Abbott could take in the case as the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles on Wednesday denied Roberson’s clemency petition.

The board voted unanimously, 6-0, to not recommend that Roberson’s death sentence be commuted to life in prison or that his execution be delayed. All board members are appointed by the governor. The parole board has recommended clemency in a death row case only six times since the state resumed executions in 1982.

The one time Abbott halted an imminent execution was when he spared the life of Thomas Whitaker in 2018.
Lawmakers invoke Texas’ law on scientific evidence

The House committee on Wednesday held an all-day meeting on Roberson’s case. In a surprise move at the end of the hearing, the committee issued the subpoena for Roberson to testify next week.

During its meeting in Austin, the committee heard testimony about Roberson’s case and whether a 2013 law created to allow people in prison to challenge their convictions based on new scientific evidence was ignored in Roberson’s case.

Anderson County District Attorney Allyson Mitchell, whose office prosecuted Roberson, told the committee a court hearing was held in 2022 in which Roberson’s attorneys presented their new evidence to a judge, who rejected their claims.

“Based on the totality of the evidence, a murder took place here. Mr. Roberson took the life of his almost 3-year-old daughter,” Mitchell said.

Most of the members of the House committee are part of a bipartisan group of more than 80 state lawmakers, including at least 30 Republicans, who had asked the parole board and Abbott to stop the execution.

Case puts spotlight on shaken baby syndrome
Roberson’s case has renewed debate over shaken baby syndrome, known in the medical community as abusive head trauma.

His lawyers as well as the Texas lawmakers, medical experts and others including bestselling author John Grisham say his conviction was based on faulty and now outdated scientific evidence. The diagnosis refers to a serious brain injury caused when a child’s head is hurt through shaking or some other violent impact, like being slammed against a wall or thrown on the floor.

Roberson’s supporters don’t deny head and other injuries from child abuse are real. But they say doctors misdiagnosed Curtis’ injuries as being related to shaken baby syndrome and that new evidence has shown the girl died from complications related to severe pneumonia.

Roberson’s attorneys say his daughter had fallen out of bed in Roberson’s home after being seriously ill for a week.

Roberson’s lawyers also suggested his autism, then undiagnosed at the time of his daughter’s death, was used against him as authorities became suspicious of him because of his lack of emotion over her death. Autism affects how people communicate and interact with others.

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — The biggest source of new residents to Florida and Texas, the two U.S. states with the largest number of new residents last year, was other countries.

A little over 45% of the almost 634,000 residents in Florida who said that they had lived in a different state or abroad the previous year came from a foreign country, according to migration data released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Florida, with 23 million residents, had more people who said they had lived in a different place the previous year than any other state, though Texas wasn’t far behind. Of the almost 612,000 Texas residents who had lived elsewhere in the previous year, 43% were from another country. Texas has 30.5 million residents.

The migration figures don’t show from which countries the new residents arrived.

Priscila Coronado moved last year to Miami from Guatemala, looking for a better future.

“I am happy. My dream is to study, learn English and graduate with a nursing degree,” Coronado said. “There is no crime here, and that is an achievement.”

Among U.S. states, New York was the top producer of new Floridians, and more recently minted Texans had lived in California the year before than any other state.

But Florida and Texas didn’t just gain residents; some also moved out. Georgia gained the most former Floridians last year, and California had the most ex-Texans.

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.”

HOUSTON (AP) — A Texas man who could be the first person in the U.S. executed for a murder conviction tied to a diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome is facing a lethal injection Thursday evening amid assertions by his attorneys and a diverse coalition of supporters who say he’s innocent and was convicted on faulty scientific evidence.

Robert Roberson waited to hear whether his execution might be stopped by either Gov. Greg Abbott or the U.S. Supreme Court — his last two avenues for a stay. He is scheduled to receive a lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville.

Roberson, 57, was condemned for the 2002 killing of his 2-year-old daughter, Nikki Curtis, in the East Texas city of Palestine. Roberson has long proclaimed his innocence, backed by some notable Republican lawmakers and the lead detective on the case.

“He’s an innocent man and we’re very close to killing him for something he did not do,” said Brian Wharton, the lead detective with Palestine police who investigated Curtis’ death.

Roberson’s lawyers waited to see if Abbott would grant Roberson a one-time 30-day reprieve. It’s the only action Abbott can take in the case as the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles on Wednesday denied Roberson’s clemency petition.

The board voted unanimously, 6-0, to not recommend that Roberson’s death sentence be commuted to life in prison or that his execution be delayed. All members of the board are appointed by the governor. The parole board has recommended clemency in a death row case only six times since the state resumed executions in 1982.

In his nearly 10 years as governor, Abbott has halted only one imminent execution, in 2018 when he spared the life of Thomas Whitaker, whose father had asked that his son not be put to death. The father had survived a shooting that Whitaker had masterminded.

“We pray that Governor Abbott does everything in his power to prevent the tragic, irreversible mistake of executing an innocent man,” Gretchen Sween, one of Roberson’s attorneys, said in a statement.

A spokesperson for Abbott did not immediately reply to an email seeking comment.

Roberson’s lawyers also have a stay request pending before the Supreme Court. The nation’s highest court has rarely granted 11th-hour reprieves to people on death row.

Late Wednesday, a Texas House committee that held an all-day meeting on Roberson’s case, issued a subpoena for him to testify at a hearing next week. It was not immediately known if the committee’s request could delay Thursday’s execution. A spokesperson for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice didn’t immediately reply to an email.

One of those who has been pushing to stop Roberson’s execution is Texas GOP megadonor and conservative activist Doug Deason, who has been speaking with Abbott’s staff.

“I believe he is innocent,” Deason wrote in a post on X on Tuesday.

During its meeting in Austin, the Texas House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee heard testimony about Roberson’s case and whether a 2013 law created to allow people in prison to challenge their convictions based on new scientific evidence was ignored in Roberson’s case.

Anderson County District Attorney Allyson Mitchell, whose office prosecuted Roberson, told the committee a court hearing was held in 2022 in which Roberson’s attorneys presented their new evidence to a judge, who rejected their claims. Mitchell said the prosecution’s case showed Curtis had been abused by her father.

“Based on the totality of the evidence, a murder took place here. Mr. Roberson took the life of his almost 3-year-old daughter,” Mitchell said.

Most of the members of the committee are part of a bipartisan group of more than 80 state lawmakers, including at least 30 Republicans, who had asked the parole board and Abbott to stop the execution.

Roberson’s scheduled execution has renewed debate over shaken baby syndrome, known in the medical community as abusive head trauma.

His lawyers as well as the Texas lawmakers, medical experts and others, including bestselling author John Grisham, say his conviction was based on faulty and now outdated scientific evidence. The diagnosis refers to a serious brain injury caused when a child’s head is hurt through shaking or some other violent impact, like being slammed against a wall or thrown on the floor.

Roberson’s supporters don’t deny head and other injuries from child abuse are real. But they say doctors misdiagnosed Curtis’ injuries as being related to shaken baby syndrome and that new evidence has shown the girl died from complications related to severe pneumonia.

Roberson’s attorneys say he was wrongly arrested and later convicted after taking his daughter to a hospital. They say she had fallen out of bed in Roberson’s home after being seriously ill for a week.

Roberson’s lawyers have also suggested his autism, which was undiagnosed at the time of his daughter’s death, was used against him as authorities became suspicious of him because of his lack of emotion over what had happened to her. Autism impacts how people communicate and interact with others.

The American Academy of Pediatrics, other medical organizations and prosecutors say the diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome is valid and that doctors look at all possible things, including any illnesses, when determining if injuries were attributable to it.

Roberson’s scheduled execution would come less than a month after Missouri put to death Marcellus Williams amid lingering questions about his guilt and whether his death sentence should have instead been commuted to life in prison. Williams was convicted in the 1998 killing of Lisha Gayle, a social worker and former St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter.

Roberson’s execution is scheduled to take place on the same day Alabama is set to execute Derrick Dearman, condemned for killing five people with an ax and gun during a 2016 drug-fueled rampage.

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Follow Juan A. Lozano: https://twitter.com/juanlozano70

DALLAS (AP) — The federal judge considering Boeing’s plea deal with prosecutors wants to know how the Justice Department’s diversity, equity and inclusion policies would affect the selection of an independent monitor to oversee the aerospace company during a three-year probation period.

U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor, a conservative nominated to the federal bench in Fort Worth, Texas, by President George W. Bush in 2007, ordered the Justice Department to explain how it will pick the monitor and whether DEI considerations would — or should — influence the choice.

The judge asked Boeing whether it would follow its own DEI policy to block a proposed monitor.

The appointment of an independent monitor to make sure Boeing follows compliance and safety rules is a key component of the deal in which Boeing agreed to plead guilty to a felony charge of conspiring to defraud the U.S. government.

O’Connor has long been a favorite of conservative lawyers looking for a court to hear their lawsuits against policies issued by Democratic presidents. In 2018, the judge issued a ruling striking down President Barack Obama’s hallmark Affordable Care Act, although the U.S. Supreme Court overturned that decision. He also has sought to toss out expanded rights for transgender people.

Attacks against diversity, equity and inclusion have become a staple among conservative Republican politicians. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis built a campaign for the GOP nomination for president against “woke” liberal policies, although his candidacy failed. A dozen states, including Texas, have new laws limiting or banning DEI policies at their public universities.

Conservatives argue that DEI lets less qualified people win admission to college or land important jobs that have a bearing on public safety. Some conservatives on social media blamed Boeing’s DEI policy after a door plug blew off one of its airliners during an Alaska Airlines flight in January.

Boeing struck a deal with the Justice Department in July in which the company agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud for misleading federal regulators who approved pilot-training requirements for the 737 Max, the newest version of Boeing’s venerable 737 airliner.

As a result, airlines and pilots did not know about a new flight-control system called MCAS until it played a role in a deadly crash in Indonesia in October 2018. MCAS was implicated again in a second fatal Max crash that occurred in March 2019 in Ethiopia. In all, 346 people died.

The plea agreement would require Boeing to pay a $243.6 million fine, spend at least $455 million on compliance and safety programs and accept the independent monitor’s oversight.

Boeing and the Justice Department want O’Connor to approve the deal, which would essentially replace a 2021 settlement that allowed Boeing to avoid prosecution but did little to stem concerns about the company’s commitment to safety and quality.

The Federal Aviation Administration increased its oversight of Boeing after the door-plug incident in January, and whistleblowers have alleged that the company cut corners on safety.

Relatives of passengers who died in the crashes want O’Connor to reject the plea agreement, which they call a sweetheart deal. They want Boeing to go on trial and face tougher punishment. They specifically oppose the section on the monitor because they want the judge — and not the government and Boeing — to pick the monitor.

Nadia Milleron, a Massachusetts woman whose daughter, Samya Stumo, died in the Ethiopia crash, said Wednesday that she did not know what to make of the judge’s line of questions about choosing the monitor.

“It seems irrelevant to me,” Milleron said. “The bottom line is safety, and if the judge is going after safety, great. I don’t understand his agenda with DEI.”

Experts on corporate behavior say the monitor could do more to improve safety than the 2021 settlement did so long as the person is truly independent and can report any concerns directly to the court without going through the Justice Department. The monitor would oversee Boeing’s compliance with safety protocols and its actions to prevent future acts of fraud.

During a hearing last week, O’Connor asked lawyers for the government and Boeing about the monitor and how DEI policies could affect the choice. The plea deal states that the Justice Department would select the person with “input” from Boeing.

A Justice Department lawyer said the provision doesn’t mean that a less-qualified person would be picked, only that the government will consider all candidates. Boeing lawyers did not object to the monitor-selection process outlined in the plea agreement.

In an order Tuesday, the judge wrote that it is important to know if DEI considerations would promote Boeing’s safety and compliance efforts. He asked the Justice Department and Boeing to respond in writing by Oct. 25.

“Both the DOJ and Boeing have publicly acknowledged their commitment to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion (‘DEI’),” including a government plan to use diversity and equity in hiring federal workers, O’Connor wrote.

Boeing’s website, he added, “touts its commitment ‘to creating a culture of inclusion’ and ‘set of aspirations’ it will strive to achieve by 2025 to advance equity and diversity and build a culture of inclusion,” including racial quotas and hiring more Black workers.

In considering whether to accept the plea deal, O’Connor wrote, “it is important to know: how the provision promotes safety and compliance efforts” at Boeing and whether the company would strike an applicant based on its own DEI commitment.

It is not clear whether the judge is making a statement about DEI policies or whether he would seize on the issue to throw out the plea agreement.

“I do not see this as a strategic move, but as a detour motivated by the court’s skepticism of DEI,” said John Coffee, a law professor at Columbia University who studies corporate governance and white-collar crime and has followed the Boeing case. “He is a conservative. Possibly he wants to delay the decision, but that is an unsupported hunch.”

The Justice Department and Boeing said they would comply with the judge’s order and declined to comment further.