What is shaken baby syndrome? And why might a Texas man be executed for it?

If Robert Roberson’s execution – dramatically halted at the 11th hour last week – eventually goes ahead, it will be the first for shaken baby syndrome.

In 2002, Robert Roberson found his two-year-old daughter, Nikki Curtis, unresponsive after she fell off a bed in the family’s house in the East Texas city of Palestine. Roberson took her to hospital, but a day later, the baby tragically died after succumbing to a head injury.

Within a year, Roberson, a labourer who is now 57, had been tried, sentenced and placed on death row for the killing of his daughter. Doctors and an autopsy report concluded that baby Nikki had died following severe abuse at the hands of Roberson – specifically from shaken baby syndrome.

The Texas Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence, which is reconsidering the lawfulness of Roberson’s conviction, issued a subpoena for Roberson to attend a hearing scheduled for Monday, October 21.

But Roberson very nearly didn’t make it to Monday. After a Texas state board rejected his clemency plea on Wednesday last week, he had been scheduled to receive a lethal injection on Thursday evening at 6pm local time (23:00 GMT) at the Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville.

But in a dramatic turn of events, just hours before the execution was due to take place, a state judge in Texas issued a temporary restraining order halting it after a committee in the Republican-controlled state House of Representatives petitioned the court.