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Texas death row inmate's lawyer says 'there was no crime' as she makes last-ditch effort to save his life
EXCLUSIVE: A Texas death row inmate is scheduled to be executed next week for his conviction of killing his 2-year-old daughter in 2002, but his lawyer argues that not only is her client innocent, nobody is responsible for the little girl’s death.
Robert Roberson is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Oct. 17. Prosecutors said his daughter, Nikki Curtis, was killed after sustaining injuries caused by being violently shaken, known as shaken baby syndrome. Roberson would be the first person in the U.S. to be executed based on shaken baby syndrome.
More than 80 Texas state lawmakers, as well as the detective who helped the prosecution, medical experts, parental rights groups, human rights groups, bestselling novelist John Grisham and other advocates have called for the state to grant Roberson clemency over the belief that he is innocent. A group of state lawmakers even visited him in prison to encourage him.
In an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital, his longtime lawyer, Gretchen Sween, says shaken baby syndrome has been debunked and that Nikki’s actual cause of death has been revealed to be from other health issues such as pneumonia, which is a lung infection.
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Robert Roberson is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Oct. 17. (Roberson Family)
Roberson, who has maintained his innocence, took his daughter to the hospital in 2002 after he woke up and found her unconscious with blue lips. Doctors at the time were skeptical of Roberson’s claim that his daughter had fallen off the bed while they were sleeping, with some testifying at trial that her symptoms were consistent with the signs of shaken baby syndrome.
“I believe he is innocent for two distinct reasons,” Sween told Fox News Digital. “The theory that there was a crime that was used to convict him, which was then known as the shaken baby syndrome hypothesis, has been thoroughly discredited. There is no one now who would say the version of that hypothesis that was put before his jury as if it were scientific fact is legitimate.”
“Also, I know from the experts that had dug into his daughter’s medical records and examined the evidence that this exceedingly ill child died from undiagnosed pneumonia that was [ravaging] her lungs, combined with very dangerous prescription medications she was given in the last few days of her life,” she continued. “And it’s not to suggest that doctors did this intentionally. It’s just they didn’t know about the pneumonia.”
The doctors, she says, observed Nikki’s symptoms and believed they suggested a cold or flu, and they gave her an antihistamine and codeine, medications that suppress breathing.
“Pneumonia is a disease of the lungs,” Sween said. “You have this child struggling to breathe given these medications, and she collapses and ceases breathing in the night. We now know what happened to this child, and we know what the state said happened 20-something years ago is just not true.”
Many medical professionals, including those from Stanford University Medical Center, University of Pennsylvania and Children’s Minnesota Hospital, now say that doctors diagnose shaken baby syndrome too soon before taking into account a child’s medical history.
Sween said it is “maddening” that there is what she believes is “overwhelming” and “compelling” evidence that the courts have yet to examine.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals previously halted his execution in 2016. However, last year the court allowed the case to resume, and a new date was set to carry out Roberson’s death.
On Monday, Roberson’s lawyers asked a Texas court to stay his execution and reconsider his innocence based on new scientific evidence. His lawyers also urged the court to reconsider its previous denial of habeas relief based on new evidence that further shows how a groundbreaking state law designed to prevent wrongful convictions was not applied as intended in his case.
Sween says she will make every appeal she knows to make to help spare her client’s life, up to and including the U.S. Supreme Court.
Texas law allows the governor to grant a one-time, 30-day reprieve from execution. But full clemency requires a recommendation from the majority of the Board of Pardons and Paroles, which is appointed by the governor.
Robert Roberson III was convicted of killing his 2-year-old daughter in 2002. (Texas Department of Criminal Justice via AP)
Since GOP Gov. Greg Abbott was sworn into office in 2015, he has granted clemency in only one death row case, when he commuted Thomas Whitaker’s death sentence to life in prison an hour before his scheduled execution in 2018. Whitaker had been convicted of arranging a plot that left his mother and brother fatally shot and his father wounded.
But Sween says Roberson’s case is different from previous death penalty cases because it is an “actual innocence case,” where not only was Roberson wrongly accused, but there was no crime at all.
“If that doesn’t merit a use of executive power, I don’t know what does,” Sween said.
Abbott’s office and the Board of Pardons and Paroles did not respond to Fox News Digitals’ requests for comment.
Prosecutors maintain that the evidence against Roberson remains sound and that the science of shaken baby syndrome has not changed as much as his defense argues.
“That’s just not defensible,” Sween said of prosecutors’ claims the science has not changed. She also noted that the American Academy for Pediatrics, which she says is responsible for the shaken baby syndrome becoming widely known, states in its current consensus statement that abuse must not be diagnosed until every other possible cause of the same conditions is eliminated.
She also said there is no proof that shaking caused Nikki’s symptoms and cited multiple studies showing that there are several other possible explanations for the child’s death. She also pointed to studies showing that there has never been a case where shaking can cause internal bleeding outside the brain or a brain injury.
Sween also pointed out that Nikki, at2-years-old, was not a baby and the anatomy of a 2-year-old is different from that of a baby.
Shaken baby syndrome was theorized years ago as a possible explanation for mysterious deaths of infants who suffered internal head conditions, subdural bleeding, brain swelling and sometimes retinal hemorrhages. But Sween says the theory was never tested and was still treated as established fact.
“Now we know all these medical conditions can cause the same symptoms,” she said. “So how can you say abuse can be diagnosed when something like pneumonia can cause the same internal condition? So, I think respectfully, the state is simply wrong in this.”
Sween also cited a similar case in a different part of Texas that was tried a couple of years before Roberson’s. In that case in Dallas, which featured the same child abuse expert that was used in Roberson’s case in Palestine, Texas, prosecutors representing the state conceded the science has changed and agreed that that man deserves a new trial.
Roberson’s attorneys have also argued that his demeanor was wrongfully used against him, as he is autistic. He did not seem like a distraught parent, which Sween says can be attributed to his autism.
“This started when he brought his child to the hospital,” Sween said. “She was comatose. He didn’t know how to explain her condition. His demeanor, from the outset, was judged as just odd, off, weird. There are all these judgments made that then became part of the trial testimony. Multiple witnesses told the jury that this was a reason to suspect him, his off demeanor. Now, of course, none of these doctors or nurses or law enforcement knew that Robert had autism.”
Part of autism, Sween says, is that a person may often shut down when they have a crisis of emotion and do not show the emotions they feel on the inside. She said this was the case with Roberson, who was not diagnosed with autism until 2018.
“And that was his condition, and it stayed, but there are even references to this in his records way before this happened with Nikki,” she said. “But he’d never been properly diagnosed. He’d been, you know, a special needs kid, poor kid, living on the edge of town, got some help through Medicaid, was put in special ed classes, but he was never given a thorough diagnosis, a workup to figure out what was going on.”
Roberson said the outpouring of support from various people and groups who believe he is innocent has made a difference to him, according to Sween, who said he had not felt “as human,” as he described, in a long time as he did when state lawmakers visited him and expressed solidarity with him.
Texas Senate Bill 1578, enacted in 2021, allows parents accused of child abuse by a medical professional to seek a second medical opinion from an independent doctor who specializes in the child’s specific medical condition. But Roberson did not benefit from this law, since it came nearly 20 years after his conviction.
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Since GOP Gov. Greg Abbott was sworn into office in 2015, he has granted clemency in only one death row case. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki, File)
Sween also said Roberson’s case should raise concerns about capital punishment, even among people who support the death penalty, given the “really irrefutable evidence from experts with decades of experience pointing out the pneumonia in this child’s lungs.”
“If no court can hear that, and that is a reason then to kill somebody, I think it becomes hard to feel confident that Texas doesn’t frequently risk executing the innocent,” she said. “And I don’t know of anyone who would take the moral position that executing people for crimes that did not occur is somehow legitimate.”
As for Roberson’s mindset ahead of his scheduled execution, Sween said he seems to be fluctuating between being scared and being happy that people are concerned about the case.
“Every time he learns there are new people that care about the case, he gets this sort of childlike enthusiasm and feels hopeful again,” she said. “So it’s a kind of byproduct of his disability. And one of the things that I think helps him is that if you tell him, you know, we still have things to try and do, then he gets optimistic again. So he doesn’t go into complex philosophical thinking about this. He just doesn’t understand why he hasn’t already gone home.”
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Arizona governor vetoes Charlie Kirk memorial license plate, sparking GOP outrage: ‘This bill falls short’
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Democratic Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs is facing fierce backlash after vetoing a bill that would have created a specialty license plate honoring slain Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, a move Republicans are blasting as a stunning act of partisanship after his assassination.
Kirk, who was assassinated while speaking at a Sept. 10 Turning Point USA event at Utah Valley University, lived in Arizona with his wife, Erika, and two children.
The proposed specialty plate, referred to as the “Charlie Kirk memorial” plate or the “Conservative grassroots network special plate,” featured a photo of the late Kirk and the TPUSA logo in front of an American flag background.
Below the license plate number were the words “FOR CHARLIE.”
A custom Arizona license plate, featuring a Turning Point USA and Charlie Kirk design, shared by state Sen. Jake Hoffman. (Senator Jake Hoffman via X)
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Of the $25 fee required for the plate, $17 would be an annual donation deposited into the Conservative Grassroots Network Special Plate Fund, according to the legislation.
While the recipient of the Grassroots Network Special Plate Fund was not explicitly designated as TPUSA in the bill, it noted the director of the fund would allocate revenue annually to a nonprofit organization, founded in 2012, that focuses on restoring traditional values, maintaining a grassroots activist network on high school and college campuses in Arizona, and assisting college students with voter registration and absentee ballots.
People gather at a memorial to mourn Turning Point USA Founder Charlie Kirk outside Turning Point USA headquarters Sept. 12, 2025, in Phoenix. (Charly Triballeau/AFP via Getty Images)
TPUSA, founded by Kirk in 2012, is well known for its grassroots activist networks on high school and college campuses. It is headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona.
The $25 fee and annual $17 donation are consistent with the fees for the other 109 nonprofit license plates offered by the Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT).
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The state Senate passed the bill, 16-2, with the House of Representatives voting 31-23 in favor prior to Hobbs’ veto.
Specialty plates in Arizona are authorized by the legislature and sent to the governor to be signed into law. They have been offered since 1989.
In a letter explaining the veto, Hobbs cited concerns with the bill “bring[ing] people together,” claiming it would “insert politics into a function of government that should remain nonpartisan.”
Democratic Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs is facing fierce backlash after vetoing a bill that would have created a specialty license plate honoring slain Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk. (Rebecca Noble/Getty Images)
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“Charlie Kirk’s assassination is tragic and a horrifying act of violence,” Hobbs wrote. “In America, we resolve our political differences at the ballot box. No matter who it targets, political violence puts us all in harm’s way and damages our sacred democratic institutions.
“I will continue working toward solutions that bring people together, but this bill falls short of that standard.”
Specialty license plates with political interests already approved by the state include the “Choose Life” Plate, which benefits the Arizona Life Coalition and its mission to promote anti-abortion advocacy and education; the “In God We Trust” Plate, which benefits conservative Christian legal advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom; and the Arizona Realtors’ “Homes for All” Plate, which funds affordable housing projects.
Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, speaks during the Turning Point Action conference in 2023 in West Palm Beach, Fla. (Lynne Sladky/AP Photo)
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Another approved plate, “Alice Cooper’s Solid Rock Plate,” which benefits Solid Rock Teen Centers, features a portrait of the legendary musician, who has made political comments about social issues including gender identity.
Republican state Sen. Jake Hoffman, who sponsored the bill, posted a fiery statement on social media after the governor’s action, claiming her “grotesque partisanship knows no bounds.”
“Even in the wake of a global civil rights leader — an Arizona resident and her own constituent — being assassinated in broad daylight for his defense of the First Amendment, Hobbs couldn’t find the human decency to put her far-Left extremism aside simply to allow those how wish to honor him to do so,” Hoffman wrote. “Katie Hobbs will forever be known as a stain on the pages of Arizona’s story.”
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On Saturday, TPUSA COO Tyler Bowyer shared an X post that said, “Deport Katie Hobbs.”
TPUSA, Bowyer and Hobbs’ office did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment.
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Air Force veteran warns ‘cartels don’t collapse — they fracture’ after notorious drug lord killed
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Nearly two weeks after Mexican forces killed notorious cartel boss Ruben “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes, questions remain about how the powerful Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) will respond and whether the blow will meaningfully disrupt the flow of fentanyl into the United States.
Carlos De La Cruz, a 20-year U.S. Air Force veteran who deployed after 9/11 and later served along the southern border, told Fox News the cartel leader’s death marked a major victory, but warned Americans should not mistake it for the end of the fight.
“When I say that this is a significant win, I mean it,” De La Cruz said. “El Mencho ran one of the most violent cartels on the planet.”
Oseguera, who rose to prominence in the post–El Chapo era, oversaw CJNG’s aggressive expansion across Mexico and into key trafficking corridors feeding U.S. drug markets. Under his leadership, the cartel became a central architect of fentanyl and methamphetamine trafficking and drew a $15 million U.S. reward for information leading to his capture.
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Smoke rises from burning vehicles after a military operation that a government source said killed Mexican drug lord Nemesio Oseguera, known as “El Mencho,” in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, on Feb. 22, 2026. (Screen grab obtained from a social media video. @morelifediares via Instagram/YouTube via Reuters)
But De La Cruz cautioned that removing a cartel kingpin does not dismantle the organization.
“Cartels don’t collapse when you just cut the head off — they fracture,” he said. “And part of that fracture is going to see a lot of short-term violence while all these factions fight over territory.”
Following Oseguera’s killing on Feb. 22, the U.S. State Department issued travel alerts in multiple Mexican states, citing road blockages and criminal activity tied to security operations, underscoring concerns about instability in the aftermath.
Drawing on his military background studying enemy command structures, De La Cruz described the cartel fight as a long-term campaign requiring sustained pressure.
A mughsot of Ruben “Nemesio” Oseguera Cervantes, known as “El Mencho,” beside graffiti depicting the letters of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, covering the facade of an abandoned home in El Limoncito, in the Michoacan state of Mexico. (Eduardo Verdugo/AP Images; Drug Enforcement Administration)
“You don’t win a war with just one airstrike,” he said. “The goal is dismantling the networks and going after their financing.”
De La Cruz, who is running for Congress and is the brother of Texas Republican Rep. Monica De La Cruz, argued that CJNG’s Foreign Terrorist Organization designation gives U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies expanded tools to target cartel infrastructure and financial pipelines.
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A soldier stands guard by a charred vehicle after it was set on fire in Cointzio, Mexico, Sunday, Feb. 22, 2026, after the cartel leader’s death. (Armando Solis/AP Photo)
But he stressed that the fentanyl crisis should be viewed as a domestic security emergency, not a distant foreign problem.
“For decades, they were using their territories as launching pads to pump chemical weapons into America — because that’s exactly what fentanyl is,” he said.
De La Cruz, who said he worked side by side with Customs agents while deployed to the border, warned that cartel networks are highly adaptive and that any gains could be temporary without sustained follow-through.
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Smoke rises after violence hit Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. (Courtesy of Scott Posilkin)
“These networks, they’re going to adjust. They’re going to adapt and they’re going to adapt quickly,” he said. “We have to continue to go after the money launderers, especially on our side of the border, because that’s the full fight.”
While Oseguera’s death removes one of the most dominant figures in Mexico’s criminal underworld, De La Cruz said the mission is personal.
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“I took an oath to defend this country,” he said. “And I intend to stand by that oath.”
Fox News Digital’s Greg Wehner contributed to this report.
Stepheny Price covers crime, including missing persons, homicides and migrant crime. Send story tips to stepheny.price@fox.com.
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TUCSON, Ariz. — More than five weeks after the suspected abduction of Nancy Guthrie — the 84-year-old mother of “Today” co-host Savannah Guthrie — Arizona authorities say cadaver dogs used earlier in the investigation are not currently being deployed as the search continues.
The elder Guthrie is believed to have been kidnapped from her home in the Catalina Foothills in northern Tucson around 2:30 a.m. on Feb. 1.
While no suspects have been publicly identified, and she has not been found, cadaver dogs had been deployed earlier in the case, according to Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos. They have not been visible in weeks.
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A member of the Pima County Sheriff’s Office remains outside of Nancy Guthrie’s home, Monday, Feb. 9, 2026 in Tucson, Ariz. (AP Photo/Ty ONeil; Nathan Congleton/NBC via Getty Images)
“They are available if needed in the future,” he told Fox News Digital.
There are a number of reasons not to be using cadaver dogs at this stage in the investigation, according to Betsy Brantner Smith, a retired police sergeant and spokeswoman for the National Police Association.
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Savannah Guthrie visits the Today show at Rockefeller Plaza in New York on Thursday, March 5, 2026. (Charles Sykes/Invision/AP)
One would be if there’s credible information that Guthrie is still alive.
“Anything is possible,” Nanos told Fox News Digital last week, adding that he would not discuss specific leads or evidence in the case.
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Brantner Smith, who is not involved in the case, said departments may hold back K-9 resources for several reasons. Those could be that authorities don’t have a good idea of where to search, they think she might be concealed in a place where dogs would have a hard time detecting her, or they believe she’s been taken to Mexico, according to Brantner Smith.
Law enforcement agents walk around the neighborhood where Annie Guthrie, whose mother Nancy Guthrie has been missing for more than a week, lives just outside Tucson, Ariz. (Ty ONeil/AP Photo)
“I do believe that the sheriff’s department has much more information that they are not releasing to the public,” she told Fox News Digital. “And I’m not sure at this point why that would be, unless they have a solid suspect and don’t want to tip them off.”
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Most departments, including the Pima County Sheriff’s, don’t have their own cadaver dogs and borrow them from state and federal authorities or neighboring jurisdictions.
An investigator looks inside a culvert in the neighborhood where Annie Guthrie, whose mother Nancy Guthrie has been missing for more than a week, lives just outside Tucson, Ariz., on Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026. (Ty ONeil/AP Photo)
In Guthrie’s case, the sheriff’s department sought K-9 assistance from the local Border Patrol office earlier in the investigation.
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PCSD deferred further comment on the K-9s to Customs and Border Protection, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A member of the Pima County Sheriff’s Office walks around Nancy Guthrie’s home on Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026 in Tucson, Ariz. (Ty ONeil/AP Photo)
The biggest lead so far has been Nest camera video showing a masked intruder on Guthrie’s doorstep the morning of her abduction.
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He is described as about 5 feet, 9 inches to 5 feet, 10 inches tall and of medium build.
Nancy Guthrie, 84, has been missing from her Arizona home since Jan. 31, 2026. (Don Arnold/WireImage/Getty Images)
He was wearing a black Ozark Trail backpack.
Authorities have said they won’t consider the case cold until they run out of viable leads to follow up on — and tens of thousands have come in so far.
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Savannah Guthrie has asked anyone with information to dial 1-800-CALL-FBI.
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There’s a combined reward of more than $1.2 million for information that leads to her mother’s recovery.
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