With his execution looming last Thursday, the 57-year-old Texas death row inmate watched as his attorneys’ legal arguments were rejected in the courts and his pleas for clemency disregarded, as the state parole board declined to recommend he receive a lesser sentence or reprieve.

As the battle between the Texas House and the state's attorney general's office over the in-person testimony of inmate Robert Roberson continues, it opens the possibility of a new outcome from the Court of Criminal Appeals as one-third of the judges will not return to the bench.