Texas Man is Granted a Temporary Delay of His Execution Minutes Before it Happens

In a historic decision, a judge in Austin granted a stay delaying the execution of Texas death row inmate Robert Roberson to allow him to testify about his case next week. Roberson, who has been on death row for more than 20 years, was convicted in 2003 of killing his two-year-old daughter, Nikki Curtis, a conviction based on a syndrome that has since come under scientific scrutiny.

The order and the subpoena from lawmakers was an extraordinary and last-ditch effort to give Roberson's case more time, claiming the conviction was based on "junk science."

Roberson was scheduled to be executed on Oct. 17 at around 6 p.m., but Travis County 200th District Court Judge Jessica Mangrum issued a temporary measure that stayed Roberson's execution on the grounds of the subpoena for Roberson that was issued by the Texas House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence late Wednesday night.

But as reported by the Houston Chronicle, a lawyer with the Texas Attorney General's Office indicated that the agency, which opposes the delay, would immediately appeal the decision.

The hearing that stayed Roberson's execution took place about 90 minutes before he was set to be executed. He will now be asked to testify Oct. 21 before a Texas House Committee to decide the next steps in his case.

The committee held a hearing on Oct. 16 to review new medical evidence surrounding Roberson's case. Brian Wharton, the lead detective whose testimony helped convict Roberson, told the committee he believed Roberson was innocent. Wharton said the case was completely based on the now-discredited Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS) theory.

"I am ashamed that I was so focused on finding an offender and convicting someone," Wharton told the committee. "He is an innocent man, and we are very close to killing him for something he did not do."

But doctors that testified during the initial trial said Nikki's death was consistent with shaken baby syndrome, in which an infant is severely injured from being shaken violently back and forth.

According to the Innocence Project, Roberson's case was "riddled with unscientific evidence, inaccurate and misleading medical testimony, and prejudicial treatment." New evidence presented by Roberson's attorneys in 2021 argued that Nikki died from "severe undiagnosed pneumonia that caused her to cease breathing, collapse, and turn blue before she was discovered unconscious."

But despite Roberson's petition for a new trial in 2023, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied his request, arguing that the science around SBS had not changed as much as his defense attorneys had claimed, and decided that doubt over the cause of his daughter's death was not enough to overturn his death sentence.

Since 1982, the state of Texas has executed 589 people,279 of those occurring during the administration of Gov. Rick Perry (2001-14), more than any governor in U.S. history. In 2024, a total of 19 prisoners have been executed in eight states across the U.S., with Texas leading the way with five executions.