Death row prisoner Robert Roberson's lawyers claim new judicial misconduct evidence

Lawyers for Robert Roberson, the condemned man on Texas’ death row who faces execution next week, say the first episode of a “Dateline” podcast about his case includes “highly relevant” evidence that highlights judicial misconduct and supports their petition for a new trial

Lawyers for Robert Roberson, the condemned man on Texas’ death row who faces execution next week, say the first episode of a “Dateline” podcast about his case includes “highly relevant” evidence that highlights judicial misconduct and supports their petition for a new trial.

The ongoing claim before the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals seeks to halt Roberson’s Oct. 16 execution for the 2002 death of his 2-year-old daughter, Nikki. If he is executed by lethal injection, Roberson, 58, would be the first person put to death in the United States in a case of “shaken baby syndrome.”

For more on this case, listen to episodes of the “Dateline” podcast “The Last Appeal”

In a filing Monday, Roberson’s lawyers wrote that an interview with Nikki’s maternal grandfather conducted by “Dateline” anchor Lester Holt is “directly relevant to the judicial misconduct claim,” which alleges a “serious violation of Mr. Roberson’s fundamental right to a trial before an impartial tribunal — and before a tribunal that appears impartial.”

Gretchen Sween, a lawyer for Roberson, said in a statement, “It’s shocking that we are discovering the truth about this glaring, undisclosed evidence of bias only by chance, from a podcast, days before Robert is scheduled to be executed for a tragedy that has been mislabeled as a crime.”