The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals halted the execution of Robert Roberson on Thursday morning.

The order was issued one week before Roberson's execution was scheduled at the Texas State Penitentiary in Huntsville. Roberson was sentenced to death after he was convicted of capital murder in the 2002 death of his 2-year-old daughter, Nikki.

Roberson's defense contends that he has spent 22 years on death row as an innocent man. 

His legal team has argued that Nikki was misdiagnosed with shaken baby syndrome. Testimony from medical experts cited by the defense suggests that the child died from severe viral and bacterial pneumonia, exacerbated by prescribed dangerous medications, rather than abuse.

"Robert adored Nikki, whose death was a tragedy, a horror compounded by Robert's wrongful conviction that devastated his whole family. We are confident that an objective review of the science and medical evidence will show there was no crime," Roberson's attorney Gretchen Sween said in a statement.

Texas "junk science" law 

The Court of Criminal Appeals ruling from Thursday morning orders the trial court to weigh Roberson's arguments for overturning his conviction in line with what is known as Texas' junk science law, and in light of the case of Andrew Roark.

The 2013 law allows a person convicted of a crime to seek relief if the evidence used against them is no longer credible.

"Robert lives to fight another day, and that really is a triumph," Sween said. "Many other things, such as infections like pneumonia, genetic disorders, etc., all can cause these same symptoms."

Roark was convicted of injury to a child in 2000 and sentenced to 35 years in prison based on a shaken baby syndrome diagnosis. Last year, the Court of Criminal Appeals sent Roark's case back to the trial court due to the new research surrounding shaken baby syndrome. The next month, the Dallas County District Attorney exonerated Roark. 

Since 1992, at least 40 parents and caregivers have been exonerated after wrongful shaken baby convictions, according to Roberson's defense team.   

New expert opinions found the shaken baby diagnosis unsound and asserted that the autopsy ruling the child's death a homicide was flawed, his legal team said. They claim that police and prosecutors rushed to judgment, leading to his wrongful conviction under the discredited shaken baby syndrome hypothesis.

A series of delayed executions

Since his first execution date more than nine years ago, Roberson's lawyers have filed multiple petitions with state and federal appeals courts, as well as with the U.S. Supreme Court, to try and stop his execution. Over the years, they have also asked the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and Gov. Greg Abbott to stop his lethal injection, as part of their efforts to get Roberson a new trial.

After all of those avenues were exhausted, Roberson was scheduled to be executed in October of 2024. But in an unusual move, a bipartisan group of legislators on state House Criminal Justice Committee issued a subpoena for Roberson to testify in a hearing, The state supreme court upheld the subpoena, and the warrant for Roberson's execution expired at midnight the next day.

The office of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, as well as some medical experts and other family members of Nikki, maintain the girl died because of child abuse and that Roberson had a history of hitting his daughter.

Ellis County State Representative Brian Harrison spoke out in support of the court's decision.

"I believe it is a matter of documented, unambiguous, unassailable fact that for over two decades, Mr. Robert Roberson has never, not once, been afforded due process and he has never had a fair trial," Harrison said.

Roberson's legal team argues previously unrecognized autism 

Sween said Roberson had undiagnosed autism at the time of his conviction.

"We had disability rights groups, particularly in the autism community, who recognized how unfairly Robert had been treated based on symptoms of his then-unrecognized autism," Sween said.

Autism Society of Texas executive director Jacquie Benestante said she hopes Roberson's case sets a precedent in the future.

"We hope that this leads to a better understanding of failures that people with developmental disabilities face when they're in the criminal justice system."

Roberson's case is far from over.

"Robert has not yet been awarded a new trial. What he's been awarded is the right to go back to the trial court level and try to demonstrate before that court that he, too, should be granted a new trial," Sween said.

Joshua Burns was convicted of shaken baby syndrome, which was ultimately overturned.

"I know that there's so much more work to be done for Robert, to get this new trial and to get this underway," Burns said. "I am just hoping and praying that we can see Robert come home, and we can see Robert exonerated and declared innocent."

CBS News Texas reached out to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's office for comment on the court's decision.