In a Palestine court today, 114th District Judge Austin Reeve Jackson said the court had “no legal basis” to not set an execution date as requested recently by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
Roberson was previously scheduled to be executed Oct. 17, 2024, for the 2003 murder conviction in the death of his 2-year-old daughter Nikki Curtis. The case has attracted national attention as efforts to stay the execution and to possibly exonerate Roberson gained traction last fall. Supporters say that Roberson was wrongly convicted by the court relying on “shaken baby syndrome,” a hypothesis that, while considered sound in 2003, has since been deemed unreliable by many legal experts. Additionally, Roberson’s defense maintains that Curtis died from pneumonia and complications resulting from falling out of her bed.
Robert Roberson saying 'I love you' as he leaves the Anderson County courtroom after a judge sets his execution date for Oct. 16, 2025 at 6 p.m. pic.twitter.com/YRLNeQ5itG
— KETK NEWS (@KETK) July 16, 2025
Roberson dramatically avoided execution in 2024 via an unprecedented House subpoena issued hours before he was scheduled to die in Huntsville. While Roberson’s execution was stayed, the Texas Supreme Court later ruled the House did not have the power to alter an execution date by way of subpoena.
Reporters on the scene said that before the hearing began on Wednesday morning, “a scuffle” of sorts broke out between involved family members outside of the courtroom, near the security checkpoint, with at least one person shouting “he killed my sister.”
Roberson's attorney, Gretchen Sween, told the judge that Roberson has a pending application for writ of habeas corpus in the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, and added that an execution date should not be set because of that.
Jackson explained his ruling by noting that he wasn’t convinced of the reason the date needed to be set today, but his hands were legally tied in the matter and that this represented the ”reality of where we are.”
