In this edition:
Scheduled executions: No executions in Texas this summer
Updates on innocence cases: Attorneys for Robert Roberson object to Texas Attorney General’s request for an execution date; U.S. Supreme Court rules Ruben Gutierrez has a legal right to challenge Texas’s post-conviction DNA statute; Oklahoma will retry Richard Glossip but drops the death penalty
Mid-year snapshot: Harris County jury sentences 300th person to death and other death penalty developments in Texas this year
Featured events: Justice & Java returns to Houston area on July 19; summer lunch series continues in Austin on July 23; next book group on August 20
Seeking TCADP Partners for Justice: Become a monthly donor!
Quote of the month
“Legislators across the entire political spectrum are certain Robert didn’t get a full and fair trial. Many of us believe he’s innocent. What I know is that we’re no closer to truth or fairness today than we were one year ago — all we’ve added to this is politics, which should never have any role in our justice system.”
– State Rep. Joe Moody, D-El Paso, who chaired the House Committee that led the effort in support of a new trial for Robert Roberson, June 17, 2025
Texas will not carry out any executions this summer. There is one execution now scheduled for September. Blaine Milam faces execution on September 25, 2025; he also had an execution date in January 2021 but received a stay from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to consider evidence of his intellectual disability.
To date in 2025, 25 people have been executed nationwide in 10 states. This includes four men in Texas. Michael B. Bell faces execution in Florida this month; he is the eighth person scheduled to be executed in Florida this year.
Robert Roberson’s attorneys object to request for a new execution date
The Office of the Texas Attorney General (OAG), which recently took over the case of Robert Roberson at the request of the Anderson County District Attorney, has asked the district court to set a new execution date for Roberson this fall.
Roberson is an innocent father with Autism who has spent over 20 years on death row in Texas for a crime that never occurred. His conviction is based on the outdated and now debunked Shaken Baby hypothesis. No court has considered overwhelming new medical and scientific evidence that Roberson’s chronically ill daughter, Nikki, died because of serious health issues, including undiagnosed pneumonia.
Roberson was scheduled to be executed on October 17, 2024, but he is alive today thanks to a brave bipartisan group of Texas lawmakers who held hearings to examine why the courts failed to grant relief under the “junk science law” intended to help innocent people like him.
On June 17, 2025, the Roberson legal team filed its strenuous objection to the OAG’s request for an execution date, noting that Roberson has an application for relief based on new evidence pending with the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.
The Dallas Morning News editorial board also voiced its strong opposition to what it called Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s “ugly campaign to deny justice to Robert Roberson, even as Roberson’s lawyers keep discrediting his conviction in the death of his 2-year-old daughter.”
Learn more about Roberson and what people are saying about his case.
Ruben Gutierrez can pursue DNA testing
There was good news last week from the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Ruben Gutierrez, who has been seeking DNA testing for more than a decade to prove he was wrongfully sentenced to death in Brownsville, Texas in 1999 for the murder of Escolastica Harrison. Gutierrez was just 20 minutes from execution on July 16, 2024, when the Supreme Court issued a stay and subsequently granted review. That was Gutierrez’s sixth execution date since 2018. On June 26, 2025, the Justices ruled in a 6-3 opinion that he should be permitted to continue his lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Texas’s post-conviction DNA statute. Read the statement by Gutierrez’s attorney.
Richard Glossip will face a new trial but not another death sentence
On June 9, 2025, Oklahoma’s Attorney General Gentner Drummond announced the state will retry Richard Glossip for allegedly arranging the murder of Barry Van Treese in 1997, but it will not seek another death sentence. Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Glossip is entitled to a new trial based on prosecutors’ failure to disclose potentially exculpatory evidence to his defense counsel. Glossip has steadfastly maintained his innocence of playing any role in Mr. Van Treese’s death. He has faced nine execution dates since first being sentenced to death in 1998.
Additional information:
https://tcadp.org/get-informed/texas-death-penalty-facts/
https://tcadp.org/get-informed/death-sentences-by-county/death-penalty-at-the-county-level/
Justice & Java for supporters in the Houston area
Join TCADP Board Members in the Houston area for coffee and conversation on Saturday, July 19, 2025, from 9:30 to 11:00 AM at The Rooster (7129 Broadway St, Pearland, TX 77581). These gatherings are a relaxed setting for meeting other TCADP members in the region, sharing your passion for this cause, and learning about current campaigns and initiatives. RSVP here.
TCADP Summer Lunch Series in Austin
TCADP’s summer lunch series for supporters in the Austin area continues this month on Wednesday, July 23, 2025, from 12:00 to 1:00 PM. Join us at the TCADP office in North Austin to hear from Randi Chavez, the Deputy Director and Head of Mitigation for Texas Defender Service. Lunch will be provided; pre-registration is required. RSVP here.
TCADP Book Group
The TCADP Book Group meets every six to eight weeks on Zoom and reads a mix of fiction, non-fiction, and memoirs. Our next selection is The River is Waiting, a novel by Wally Lamb. We will discuss the book on Wednesday, August 20, 2025, at 7:00 PM CT. Register here. (Note: If you have signed up for previous book group meetings, you do not need to register again.)
TCADP seeks Partners for Justice
“The more I’ve learned about the death penalty, the more I’ve realized how deeply broken and unjust it is. Supporting TCADP as a Partner for Justice is my way of standing up—for human dignity, for fairness, and for change. I know every dollar helps advance the mission to end the death penalty in Texas and brings us one step closer to justice.”
– Amanda Hernandez, San Antonio, Texas
Join Amanda and nearly 100 others who make recurring contributions to TCADP as our Partners for Justice! With recurring gifts, Partners ensure a steady source of support for the fight to end the death penalty in Texas.
Thank you for being a catalyst for change in Texas.