text: AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - A Texas man scheduled to be put to death next week for murdering his 2-year-old daughter has been granted a stay of execution after his lawyers argued his conviction stemmed from “junk science” about shaken baby syndrome. 
   
   Death row inmate Robert Roberson is seen in an undated photo provided by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Texas Department of Criminal Justice/Handout via REUTERS 
   
   The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Thursday halted the planned June 21 execution of Robert Roberson and sent his case back to a trial court. It based its decision on a recent state law that permits legal challenges citing new scientific evidence potentially pointing to wrongful convictions. 
   
   Roberson, 49, was found guilty of killing his daughter in 2002. Prosecutors said he took her to the hospital after causing fatal head injuries or trauma in the toddler. 
   
   In a brief filed with the court this month, his lawyers said new scientific evidence showed that he should not have been convicted and the state relied on “false, misleading, and scientifically invalid testimony.” 
   
   Roberson has contended that the death of the girl, Nikki Curtis, may have been caused by a fall from her bed or a fever of 104.5 degrees Fahrenheit (40.3°C) that led to a visit to a doctor two days before her death. 
   
   Prosecutors presented experts at his original trial who said Nikki died of shaken baby syndrome and that Roberson intended to sexually abuse her. 
   
   The Texas attorney general’s office has said in court filings that Roberson was properly convicted and sentenced to death. 
   
   For decades, pathologists, pediatricians and courts recognized a distinct set of internal head injuries - brain swelling, bleeding on the surface of the brain and behind the eyes – as proof of death by deliberate shaking, even in the absence of other overt signs of violence. 
   
   But medical consensus has shifted in recent years and research now shows such injuries can be caused by accidental falls from a short height, or even medical conditions such as blood-clotting disorders and latent trauma from a difficult birth, which can manifest weeks later. 
   
   Lawyers for Roberson also pointed out that it is impossible to shake a baby to death without causing serious neck injuries, which his child did not suffer. 
   
   “Robert Roberson was wrongfully convicted of murdering his ... daughter based on junk science and highly inflammatory sexual-abuse allegations that were false,” his lawyers said in their court filing. ||||| This photo provided by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice shows Robert Roberson III. Texas' highest criminal court has given a reprieve to Roberson, who was set for execution next week for the... (Associated Press) 
   
   This photo provided by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice shows Robert Roberson III. Texas' highest criminal court has given a reprieve to Roberson, who was set for execution next week for the slaying of his 2-year-old daughter 14 years ago. (Texas Department of Criminal Justice via AP) (Associated Press) 
   
   This photo provided by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice shows Robert Roberson III. Texas' highest criminal court has given a reprieve to Roberson, who was set for execution next week for the slaying of his 2-year-old daughter 14 years ago. (Texas Department of Criminal Justice via AP) (Associated Press) This photo provided by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice shows Robert Roberson III. Texas' highest criminal court has given a reprieve to Roberson, who was set for execution next week for the... (Associated Press) 
   
   HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) — Attorneys who contended "junk science" was used to send a father to death row for killing his 2-year-old daughter 14 years ago have won a reprieve blocking the Texas inmate's execution set for next week. 
   
   Robert Roberson III, 49, was set to die Tuesday for the February 2002 death of his daughter, Nikki Curtis, at his home in Palestine in East Texas. But the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals sent his case back to his Anderson County trial court late Thursday to review claims he is innocent of capital murder. There is no timetable for the appeal to be resolved. One judge on the nine-member court, Lawrence Meyers, voted to refuse the reprieve and dismiss the appeal. 
   
   Lawyers argued Roberson's conviction was based on "junk science" and "false, misleading and scientifically invalid testimony" and that new scientific evidence establishes he would not have been convicted. 
   
   The child had serious head injuries, and Roberson contended she accidentally fell from a bed. Medical staff at a Palestine hospital called police because they considered the injuries suspicious. Physicians who examined her said bruises to her chin, cheek and jaw and a subdural hematoma — bleeding outside her brain but inside her skull — likely were intentional and no accident. 
   
   Nikki died the next day, Feb. 1, 2002, and a medical examiner ruled blunt force head injuries as the cause. 
   
   Defense attorney Benjamin Wolff told the appeals court that Nikki's death could be attributed to a number of things, such as undiagnosed meningitis, an accidental injury before Roberson began caring for her the day she died, a fall from the bed he didn't see or a fatal congenital condition. 
   
   The Anderson County District Attorney's office did not immediately respond to a message left Friday. 
   
   According to court records, she'd been living with Roberson and his girlfriend, Teddie Cox, for about three months after a court awarded him custody of the child. 
   
   Testimony from Cox, who was not the child's mother, showed he had no interest in caring for his daughter, but was her sole caretaker for the first time on Jan. 31, 2002, and was not pleased. 
   
   Prosecutors initially said Roberson sexually assaulted the 2-year-old, based on statements from a hospital nurse, but dropped that element of the capital murder charge late in the trial when evidence could not conclusively support it. 
   
   "But by then, the damage had been done," Wolff said in Roberson's appeal. "The state used this rank speculation to drive home its view that Robert was not just a poor, mentally impaired father struggling with sobriety, but a deviant — capable of raping and brutally shaking his own daughter to death." 
   
   Roberson was a parolee with previous convictions for burglary and theft and parole violations. 
   
   At least seven other Texas inmates have executions scheduled for the coming months, including one in July and four in August. 
   
   ___ 
   
   Follow Michael Graczyk on Twitter at https://twitter.com/mikegraczyk
target: – A man on death row in Texas has been granted a last-minute reprieve after his lawyers successfully argued he was convicted on "junk science" regarding shaken baby syndrome, Reuters reports. Robert Roberson, who had been scheduled to be executed June 21, was convicted in 2002 of murdering his 2-year-old daughter. According to the AP, Roberson's girlfriend says he was angry when he became the sole caregiver of his daughter, Nikki. That same day, Roberson brought Nikki to the hospital with serious head injuries. Doctors thought they looked intentional and called police. Nikki died the following day. While Roberson maintains Nikki was hurt falling off her bed or from a fever, experts during his trial testified that she died of shaken baby syndrome and that Roberson planned to sexually abuse her. But new research shows that what used to be taken as signs of shaken baby syndrome—brain swelling and bleeding behind the eyes and on the brain’s surface—can also be caused by short falls or undiagnosed medical conditions. Roberson's lawyers successfully convinced eight of the nine members on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals that Roberson had been convicted on "false, misleading, and scientifically invalid testimony." Nikki never showed any outward signs, such as an injured neck, of shaken baby syndrome. Roberson's case will now go back to trial. (This boy died 12 years after being shaken as a baby.)