Robert Roberson is scheduled to be executed in Texas on October 17, 2024
AFP

A district judge issued a temporary order halting Texas' execution of Robert Leslie Roberson III on Thursday, just over an hour before he was scheduled to receive the death penalty.

Roberson, 57, was scheduled to die by lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville at 6 p.m. CT, but the order came through about 90 minutes before to keep is chance for an appeal alive.

Travis County 200th District Court Judge Jessica Mangrum issued the temporary stay in the high profile case. Roberson was sentenced to death for the February 2002 death of his two-year-old daughter, Nikki.

The latest turn came a day after a bipartisan coalition of the Texas House of Representatives unanimously voted to subpoena the autistic man, who would be the first person to receive the death penalty in the US for shaken-baby syndrome.

The Texas state attorney general announced that it will appeal the decision despite the fact that public outcry is growing. Experts are challenging the diagnosis of shaken-baby syndrome as well as Roberson's mental capacity and rights violations in his first trial.

"Executing Robert would be a stain on our criminal justice system in Texas," Republican Texas Rep. Lacey Hull told The Washington Post earlier this week, after she joined state lawmakers in visiting and praying with Roberson.

The Texas attorney general said it will appeal the ruling sparing Roberson, who was one of two death row inmates who were to be executed in the US on Thursday. Derrick Dearman, 36, died by lethal injection in Alabama for the 2016 murders of five family members of his girlfriend.