Texas Judge Sets 16 Oct 2025 Execution Date for Shaken-Baby Case Inmate

A Texas trial court on Wednesday scheduled death-row inmate Robert Roberson to be executed on 16 October 2025, nearly a year after the state’s highest criminal court halted his previously planned lethal injection at the last minute. State District Judge Austin Reeve Jackson granted the request from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office during a hearing in Palestine. Roberson’s lawyers opposed the order, noting that an appeal before the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals is still pending and includes what they call “powerful new evidence” challenging his conviction. Roberson, 58, was convicted in 2003 of capital murder in the 2002 death of his two-year-old daughter, Nikki Curtis. Prosecutors argued he violently shook the child, causing fatal head injuries consistent with what was then diagnosed as shaken baby syndrome. Defense attorneys and several medical experts now contend the girl died from complications of pneumonia and that testimony about shaken baby syndrome relied on outdated science. If carried out, Roberson’s execution would be the first in the United States based on a shaken baby syndrome diagnosis. He came within hours of execution on 17 October 2024 before the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals granted an emergency stay after bipartisan lawmakers subpoenaed him to testify about the case. The court later ruled the subpoena could not override an execution date, but the new scientific arguments remain under review.