Texas fathers execution for murder of 2-year-old daughter could be first in US over shaken baby syndrome after judges ruling

A Texas judge has ruled to uphold the execution of a father convicted of killing his two-year-old daughter — despite a growing number of voices, including the detective who helped send him to death row, demanding the state intervene.Robert Roberson, 57, is scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection on Thursday after his attorneys were told Judge Alfonso Charles, the Tenth Administrative Judicial Region presiding judge, denied the defense’s motion to vacate their client’s execution warrant on Tuesday, according to the Innocence Project.Roberson’s potential execution would mark the first ever carried out in the United States for a murder conviction tied to shaken baby syndrome.“It is terrifying that Robert, an innocent, disabled man with the most gracious heart, is scheduled to be executed under an invalid warrant issued by a seemingly biased judge in just two days’ time,” Roberson’s attorney, Gretchen Sween, said.Charles also denied the motion to vacate the previous judge, Deborah Oakes Evans, from the case.Sween claimed Evans had shown bias in the case and that her rulings should be vacated.Sween claims the judge repeatedly denied routine hearings on Roberson’s previous motions before and after the execution date was set in July. Roberson and his defense team have long proclaimed his innocence after he was sentenced to death for the 2002 killing of his 2-year-old daughter, Nikki Curtis.His attorneys have said Roberson was wrongfully arrested and later convicted when he found his daughter lying on the floor at the foot of the bed one night in 2002.They claim Roberson comforted Curtis and put her back in bed, only to find her unconscious with blue lips the following morning, and he rushed her to the emergency room, where she was pronounced dead.Roberson was later found guilty based on the testimony from a pediatrician who told the court there was swelling and hemorrhages in Curtis’ brain, despite there appearing to be limited evidence to s...