Criminal Justice

C.J. Ciaramella | 10.9.2025 12:58 PM

Texas' highest criminal court has stayed the execution of Robert Roberson, a death row inmate who was—for the second time in two years—less than a week away from becoming the first person in the country to be executed based on evidence of what used to be called "shaken baby syndrome."

In a two-page order, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) on Thursday granted Roberson's last-ditch request for a stay under a 2013 Texas law, known as the "junk science" writ, which allows new court proceedings for defendants to challenge convictions that relied on now-discredited forensic science. The CCA remanded Roberson's case to a lower trial court and cited an overturned conviction in another "shaken baby" case that featured testimony from one of the same expert witnesses as in Roberson's original trial.

The reprieve is the latest twist in a long-running death penalty case that has drawn national attention, and it's the third time Roberson has avoided the execution chamber since being sentenced to death in 2003, after a jury convicted him of murdering his 2-year-old........

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