{"id":1448030,"date":"2025-10-09T09:41:45","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T14:41:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/?p=1448030"},"modified":"2025-10-12T13:50:33","modified_gmt":"2025-10-12T18:50:33","slug":"appeals-court-again-pauses-execution-of-robert-roberson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/?p=1448030","title":{"rendered":"Appeals court pauses Roberson execution"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"LIVINGSTON (AP) \u2014 Texas\u2019 top criminal court on Thursday again paused the execution of Robert Roberson<\/a>, just days before he was set to become the first person in the U.S. put to death for a murder conviction tied to the diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This was the third execution date that Roberson\u2019s lawyers have been able to stay since 2016, including an attempt nearly a year ago that was stopped<\/a> by an unprecedented intervention<\/a> from a bipartisan group of Texas lawmakers who believe he is innocent.<\/p>\n

The latest execution stay was granted by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. Roberson had been scheduled to receive a lethal injection on Oct. 16<\/a>.\u00a0Since his first execution date more than nine years ago, Roberson\u2019s lawyers have filed multiple petitions with state and federal appeals courts, as well as with the U.S. Supreme Court, to try and stop his execution. Over the years, they have also asked the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and Gov. Greg Abbott to stop his lethal injection, as part of their efforts to get Roberson a new trial.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors at Roberson\u2019s 2003 trial argued that he hit his 2-year-old daughter Nikki Curtis and violently shook her, causing severe head trauma. They said she died from injuries related to shaken baby syndrome.<\/p>\n

Roberson has long proclaimed he is innocent, telling The Associated Press in an interview last week from death row in Livingston, Texas, that he never abused his daughter.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never shook her or hit her,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome refers to a serious brain injury caused when a child\u2019s head is hurt through shaking or some other violent impact, like being slammed against a wall or thrown on the floor.<\/p>\n

His lawyers and some medical experts say his daughter died not from abuse but from complications related to pneumonia. They say his conviction was based on flawed and now outdated scientific evidence.<\/p>\n

In their latest appeal with the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, Roberson\u2019s lawyers had included what they say are new legal and scientific developments and expert analyses that show Nikki\u2019s death was caused by illness and accident and not by abuse.<\/p>\n

Roberson\u2019s lawyers also included a joint statement from 10 independent pathologists who said the medical examiner\u2019s autopsy report, which concluded Nikki died from blunt force head injuries, was \u201cnot reliable.\u201d<\/p>\n

His attorneys have also claimed that new evidence shows judicial misconduct in Roberson\u2019s case. They allege the judge who presided over Roberson\u2019s trial never disclosed he was the one who authorized circumventing Roberson\u2019s parental rights and allowing Nikki\u2019s grandparents to remove her from life support.<\/p>\n

The office of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, as well as some medical experts and other family members of Nikki, maintain the girl died because of child abuse and that Roberson had a history of hitting his daughter.<\/p>\n

In a Sept. 26 op-ed in The Dallas Morning News<\/a>, three pediatricians, including two with the Yale School of Medicine, said they reviewed the case and \u201care convinced that Nikki was a victim of child abuse.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shaken baby syndrome has come under scrutiny in recent years as some lawyers and medical experts have argued the diagnosis has wrongly sent<\/a> people to prison<\/a>. Prosecutors and medical societies<\/a> say it remains valid.<\/p>\n

Roberson\u2019s supporters include both liberal and ultraconservative lawmakers<\/a>, Texas GOP megadonor and conservative activist Doug Deason, bestselling author John Grisham and Brian Wharton, the former police detective who helped put together the case against him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LIVINGSTON (AP) \u2014 Texas\u2019 top criminal court on Thursday again paused the execution of Robert Roberson, just days before he was set to become the first person in the U.S. put to death for a murder conviction tied to the diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome. This was the third execution date that Roberson\u2019s lawyers have … Continue reading Appeals court pauses Roberson execution<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":1448130,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2025\/10\/roberson-200x200.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1448030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news-archive-archives"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-06 17:14:47","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2025\/10\/roberson-200x200.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1448030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1448030"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1448030\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1448710,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1448030\/revisions\/1448710"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1448130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1448030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1448030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1448030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}