Attorneys for Robert Roberson and for the State of Texas went toe-to-toe in a Palestine courtroom Wednesday, arguing over the fate of the man whose 2024 execution date was halted in a dramatic eleventh-hour intervention by state legislators—and whose appeals have raised the question of whether a crime occurred at all.
After hearing arguments, Smith County District Court Judge Austin Reeve Jackson, who is new to the case and is described in campaign literature as “a grassroots conservative,” ruled that there was no legal reason not to sign the execution order, which sets a date of October 16, almost exactly a year after Roberson’s last scheduled date. He noted that the Court of Criminal Appeals has had the matter pending for five months and hasn’t ruled.
“It doesn’t seem like anything is going to get resolved without a date,” Jackson said at the close of the hearing, calling it “unfortunate.”
