Overview

• The Alabama Department of Corrections announced on August 15 that the court-ordered psychiatric evaluation and its written report will not be ready in time, prompting a halt to all execution preparations.
• The evaluation will examine whether Roberts can understand the connection between his crime, the state's rationale for his punishment and the meaning of an execution.
• Defense attorneys have presented evidence of Roberts’s long-standing paranoid schizophrenia, recent auditory hallucinations, delusions and self-harm attempts as grounds for incompetence.
• Roberts was convicted in 1992 of killing Annetra Jones and was set to be executed by inhaling nitrogen gas at William C. Holman Correctional Facility.
• The judge directed that if Roberts is found incompetent to face execution, the written report must recommend appropriate treatment options and facilities for care.