Conservatives, death penalty supporters call for a new trial for Robert Roberson

Among the people who spoke at a Wednesday news conference in front of the Texas Capitol was a man who was exonerated in a “shaken baby syndrome” case in 2024.

Aarón Torres and Jamie Landers, October 1, 2025

Death penalty supporters, along with conservative supporters and two Republican lawmakers held a news conference Wednesday afternoon at the state Capitol urging for Robert Roberson to have a new trial ahead of his scheduled execution in a little over two weeks.

Roberson, 58, was convicted of capital murder in 2003 for reportedly shaking his 2-year-old daughter, Nikki, to death. His prosecution relied, in part, on proving Nikki showed a triad of symptoms associated with “shaken baby syndrome” — also known as abusive head trauma.

The theory has come under intense scrutiny by scientists and doctors who say it is not grounds to presume abuse.

One of the men who spoke Wednesday was Joshua Burns, a Michigan man who was exonerated after being convicted in 2014 of second-degree child abuse of his infant toddler, Naomi. Burns’ conviction came after a doctor concluded his daughter had been a victim of shaken baby syndrome. Burns’ case was vacated last year.

Burns, who moved to Texas three years ago, said Wednesday there are many questions that need to be answered in Roberson’s case and only a new trial can find the answers.

“This man was convicted using science and methods that no longer stand under the scrutiny of truth and justice, and I stand here today as living proof of that,” Burns said. “Robert’s life hangs in the balance.”

If his execution proceeds, lawmakers have said Roberson will be the first person in the country to be put to death in a shaken baby case. According to the National Registry of Exonerations, more than 30 people who served time in prison after convictions involving the diagnosis have been declared innocent.

Roberson’s case gained national attention last year when, the day before he was scheduled to be executed, state lawmakers issued a subpoena for Roberson to testify before a legislative committee, stalling the execution while the state’s highest appellate court weighed constitutional questions.

Ultimately, the Texas Supreme Court ruled the subpoena was valid, but said legislators couldn’t use the maneuver to stall executions. Roberson never testified before the committee.

Another man who spoke Wednesday was Doug Deason, a Republican donor who is a strong supporter of the death penalty when there is “absolute proof” that a heinous crime has occurred, he said.

“Obviously, this case does not fit that description,” Deason said.

State lawmakers, advocates call for new trial ahead of Robert Roberson’s execution based on discredited science

Roberson’s lawyers say their own scientific experts believe that his daughter died of pneumonia, and changed science warrants a new trial.

Daniel Perreault, October 1, 2025

Just over two weeks before he is set to be executed, a coalition of state lawmakers and pro-life and parents’ rights advocates held a press conference on Wednesday about the case of death row inmate Robert Roberson.

Roberson, who was convicted of killing his 2-year-old daughter in 2003, is scheduled to be executed on Oct. 16.

The press conference on the South Steps of the Texas Capitol featured State Rep. Lacey Hull (R-Houston), Texas Right to Life, Family Freedom Project, family members wrongly accused of child abuse and Crime Stoppers. They spoke about false allegations of child abuse by medical practitioners and the importance of due process in protecting parental and patients’ rights in end-of-life decisions.

“What’s happening here in Robertson’s case is not an isolated tragedy. It’s a systemic failure,” said Brad Scalise, an attorney who represents parents who have been falsely accused of shaken baby syndrome. “Child abuse pediatricians and children’s hospitals all over the state and the country are still using shaken baby syndrome. They’re still using it to destroy families.”

In Roberson’s case, his daughter was removed from life-sustaining treatment without her father’s knowledge or consent, which Robertson’s attorneys say violated his rights.

“He was immediately suspected of child abuse, with no alternative explanations investigated, and it was determined that his rights didn’t matter, but that is not how due process or our legal system are supposed to work,” Hull said.

Last year, the Texas Supreme Court halted his execution shortly before it was set to take place after a bipartisan group of state lawmakers issued a subpoena for him to testify in front of them after his execution date. The last-ditch effort to buy him more time set off a last-minute back-and-forth battle of subpoenas and hearings and a bitter political battle between state lawmakers and Attorney General Ken Paxton, which halted the process and kept Roberson alive.

Paxton said at the time that those lawmakers “created a Constitutional crisis on behalf of a man who beat his 2-year-old daughter to death.”

“The simple fact is that Robert did not get a fair trial,” Scalise said. “Not on the facts, not on the law and not on the science.”

On Wednesday, Roberson’s attorneys filed motions asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit to stay his execution and authorize him to file a new writ of habeas corpus petition in federal court. Roberson asserts he has a due process claim based on the overwhelming evidence that he was convicted using discredited “science” and proving his innocence.

With the looming executive date, Roberson is asking the federal court to intervene because the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has not yet acted on a habeas application he filed earlier this year.

“This case presents that rare circumstance when the law allows a litigant to return to federal court and ask that the constitutional right to due process be vindicated,” Roberson’s attorney Gretchen Sween said. “The overwhelming evidence demonstrating that no crime occurred and that Robert’s daughter died, tragically, from a pneumonia that her doctors missed, has taken years of fighting to amass. We can prove that Robert is innocent, and no reasonable jury would find otherwise if presented with all relevant medical evidence.”

In 2003, Roberson was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of his 2-year-old daughter, Nikki. During Roberson’s trial, the medical examiner and a pediatrician claimed Nikki’s death was due to the “shaken baby hypothesis,” which has to do with severe brain injury caused by shaking or violent impact on a child’s head.

The science behind shaken baby syndrome diagnosis has undergone substantial changes in recent years. In 2013, Texas became the first state to pass a “Junk Science Law,” which allows prisoners to challenge possible wrongful convictions in cases involving flawed scientific evidence, like cases that involved infant trauma.

“As we stand here today, Texas is close to executing a man on a theory that is at best as shaky as it gets, and at worst, complete and total nonsense,” Attorney Shelly Troberman said.

While prosecutors believe that Roberson killed his daughter by shaking her violently, Roberson’s lawyers argue that the child likely died from complications related to pneumonia.

Since Roberson’s conviction, medical experts have found that in the days before her death, Nikki had severe, undiagnosed pneumonia, for which they went to the hospital several times to get treated. Each time they were there, doctors prescribed respiratory-suppressing medications like codeine and Phenergan, which made her condition worse. On the night of her death, Nikki fell out of her bed. Roberson found her unconscious and turning blue.

Detectives on Roberson’s case perceived his lack of emotion at the hospital as a lack of care or empathy. It wasn’t until after he was convicted that a late diagnosis of autism was found to be the reason for his behavior.

Since the trial, Roberson’s attorneys claim new evidence has come to light that was never considered, like Nikki’s medical history, but she will not revisit her decision. But it seems those admissions are not enough to pardon Roberson.

In the federal court filing, Roberson’s attorneys say Nikki’s severe pneumonia devolved to the point of sepsis, and her history of unresolved infections caused a bleeding disorder known as DIC, which made her more susceptible to internal bleeding and bruises.

The filing includes analysis by Dr. Michael Laposata, a nationally recognized pathologist, who found “the most plausible explanation for Nikki Curtis’ bleeding and bruising is the development of DIC starting months before the event which took her life.”

The motion also includes a joint statement from ten independent pathologists who reviewed the case and rebuked the medical examiner’s methodology, while pointing out that pneumonia, sepsis, and DIC are “medical diseases which can mimic” internal head conditions associated with accidental or inflicted head trauma.

“Nothing about the CAT scans has been discussed yet in this case, not at trial, not in any court decision,” Sween said. “This is exculpatory evidence because it counters this whole narrative that there was some beating.”

Standing on the steps of the Capitol on Wednesday, Sween fought back tears.

“This was a gift not just to Robert. It was a gift to the state of Texas and the integrity of our judicial system that these brave conservatives had been willing to look past a lot of misinformation that’s out there and study this case and use reason, because it is extremely hard when you’re talking about the death of a beautiful young child,” she said.

Roberson’s attorney said he will not seek clemency before his execution. Instead, they are focusing on obtaining a new trial, arguing that new evidence could lead to his exoneration. Last year, Roberson appealed for and was denied clemency by the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles ahead of his planned execution. His attorney now says clemency is a “grossly inadequate remedy” for what they believe is his wrongful conviction.

“A commutation of sentence is not justice for an innocent man who was wrongfully convicted of a crime that never occurred,” she said. “Relief for Mr. Roberson must come from the courts.”

In August, Roberson and his team filed a new appeal, saying new evidence shows the judge in Anderson County acted unconstitutionally multiple times in his case.

The petition claims that Nikki was taken off life support at the direction of her grandparents, even though Roberson was her sole conservator. The petition says representatives of the Anderson County Judiciary lied and told hospital staff that the couple was Nikki’s legal conservators.

It also argues that then-Third District Court Judge Jerry Calhoon was improperly involved in the case and signed off on an order to provide Roberson’s legal counsel despite his son being a prosecutor in Roberson’s trial.

Seven months ago, Roberson filed an appeal in Texas’s highest criminal court, the Court of Criminal Appeals. The petition presents more opinions from experts who doubt the shaken baby diagnosis and the ruling of Nikki’s death as a homicide in the autopsy. Roberson’s attorneys highlighted how a different October 2024 decision from the same court overturned the shaken baby conviction of a Dallas man.

“What is the harm in giving him a new trial? Because if you’re right about Robert, if you’re right about the medical evidence, and you’re right about the medical science, then what is the harm in giving him a new trial?” Scalise said. “The only harm I see is not giving him due process and not giving him a new trial.”

Throughout his previous appeals, the state has maintained the evidence behind his conviction still stands. However, prosecutors have tried to downplay the centrality of Nikki’s shaken baby diagnosis in his trial.

As Roberson’s legal team waits for answers, the two-decade-long fight to save him from the execution chamber could be in its final days.

“If we kill this man in the face of this medical evidence and in the face of the medical science, it’ll be a stain on our state that will never go away,” Scalise said. “If we kill this man with what we know today, right now, it’ll mark the end of modern times in Texas, not because the world stopped spinning. Because we turned our backs on science, on due process, on justice, on the values that we hold or that we claim to hold. It’s a democracy as a civil society.”

In 2016, Roberson was set to be executed. He began writing letters to the court, pleading with them to appoint new counsel to investigate his innocence.

This was also a few years after Texas lawmakers passed a law that has come to be known as the “Junk Science law,” which allows new trials in cases where it has been shown that forensic evidence was flawed.

It was at that time that Roberson’s new counsel had the resources to start investigating Nikki’s death further. But even with all the new medical discoveries and debunking of the shaken baby hypothesis, Roberson has remained on death row.

“Robertson’s case is the clearest test of whether that law actually protects people convicted on outdated science,” Andy Kahn, the Director of Victim Services at Crimestoppers Houston, said. “If Texas executes him with basically our undoing, our own progress, and we’re showing the entire world that our reforms are hollow, this undermines Nikki’s legacy because victims deserve a justice system that truly learns and improves.”

If Texas goes through with the execution, Roberson will become the first person in the United States to be put to death based on a shaken baby syndrome diagnosis.

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