Overview

• Judge Austin Reeve Jackson granted the Texas Attorney General’s request to schedule Roberson’s execution for Oct. 16, 2025.
• Roberson was sentenced to death in 2003 after being convicted of killing his daughter Nikki under a shaken baby syndrome diagnosis now disputed as “junk science.”
• His legal team has a habeas petition pending before the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals that they say presents powerful new evidence of his innocence.
• A bipartisan group of state lawmakers and expert witnesses intervened last year to secure a last-minute stay of his prior Oct. 17, 2024 execution date.
• If carried out, his case would mark the first U.S. execution based on a shaken baby syndrome conviction, renewing debate over forensic reliability in capital trials.