Introduction to the Case
The decision by Texas’ highest criminal court to halt the execution of Robert Roberson III has drawn swift celebration from a bipartisan group of state lawmakers who have pleaded for a reexamination of his capital murder conviction. In 2003, an Anderson County jury convicted Roberson in the death of his 2-year-old daughter, Nikki, the year before. The Palestine father, who has maintained his innocence for more than 22 years on death row, was scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection on Oct. 16 in Huntsville — his third execution date set after his dates in 2016 and last year were stayed.
Reaction from Lawmakers
“Truth and justice win the day,” state Rep. Jeff Leach, R-Allen, wrote in a post on X. Last year, Leach and state Rep. Joe Moody, D-El Paso, used their positions on the Texas House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence to intervene in a bid for more time in Roberson’s case, resulting in the Texas Supreme Court halting his second execution date. “If so many people are still wrestling [with] whether a crime even happened all these years later, then Robert shouldn’t have an execution date hanging over him in the first place,” Moody wrote on X. “I believe in his innocence and applaud the court for taking a breath rather than taking a life.”
Political Points
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State Reps. Jeff Leach (left) and Joe Moody have worked for five years to bring bipartisan criminal justice reform to Texas. Leach and Moody chat in Leach’s office at the Texas State Capitol in Austin on Thursday, Dec. 5, 2024.
Juan Figueroa / Staff Photographer
Texas Attorney General’s Argument
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, whose office sought the third execution date, had argued that courts had long affirmed the integrity of Roberson’s conviction and the death sentence should be carried out. Like Roberson’s supporters, Paxton’s office has worked to sway public opinion on the case. Last year, his office resurfaced a sexual abuse allegation against Roberson that Anderson County prosecutors had not presented to the jury at his capital murder trial in 2003.
New Evidence
In the years since his conviction, Roberson and his attorneys say new evidence surfaced by modern technology proves Nikki died of accidental and natural causes, including severe, undiagnosed pneumonia and a fall from bed.
Robert Roberson, the Palestine man facing execution for the death of his 2-year-old daughter, listens as his attorney Gretchen Sween speaks during a hearing to set his execution date at the Anderson County Courthouse in Palestine, Texas on Wednesday, July 16, 2025.
Juan Figueroa / Staff Photographer
Court’s Decision
Thursday’s order from the Court of Criminal Appeals referenced an earlier case out of Dallas County — a 2024 decision involving Andrew Wayne Roark, who had been sentenced to 35 years in prison for injuring a child. In that case, the court vacated Roark’s conviction and granted him a new trial, noting that scientific understanding of shaken baby syndrome had evolved since his conviction and that expert witnesses, if testifying today, would likely have offered different conclusions.
Reactions to the Court’s Decision
State Rep. Mitch Little, R-Lewisville, has argued Roberson’s conviction stood on solid footing. On Thursday, in posts on X, he spotlighted parts of opinions written by three of the Court of Criminal Appeals judges. Little pointed to a passage in Judge Mary Lou Keel’s dissent, in which she characterized the court’s ruling as a “reward” for Roberson’s attorneys — a decision she said grants “an unmerited and pointless remand” of what she called his “perennial challenge” to testimony offered at trial. Little also highlighted an opinion by Judge Gina Parker, which questioned whether Roberson’s case is truly a shaken baby case — an argument raised by lawmakers opposing appeals in his case.
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