Roberson has maintained his innocence while being held on death row for more than 20 years. The Texas Court of Criminal Appealshis execution in 2016. But in 2023, the state’s highest criminal court decided that doubt over the cause of his daughter’s deathRoberson’s attorneys objected to the scheduling of an execution after Anderson County prosecutors requested on June 17 that a date be set.
Roberson’s attorneys, in their opposition to setting an execution date, cited “overwhelming new evidence” that Nikki died of “natural and accidental causes” — not due to head trauma. “It is irrefutable that Nikki’s medical records show that she was severely ill during the last week of her life,” Roberson’s attorneys wrote, noting that in the week before her death, Roberson had taken Nikki to the emergency room because she had been coughing, wheezing and struggling with diarrhea for several days, and to her pediatrician’s office, where her temperature came in at 104.5 degrees.
They have also argued that new scientific evidence suggests that it is impossible to shake a toddler to death without causing serious neck injuries, which Nikki did not have.in a similar case in Dallas County, in which a man was convicted of injuring a child. His conviction was based in part on now partially recanted testimony from a child abuse expert who provided similar testimony on shaken baby syndrome in Roberson’s case.