The Texas Supreme Court late Thursday night blocked the execution of Robert Roberson III, directing state officials to allow the death row inmate to comply with a subpoena issued by a House committee for his testimony.

Thomas Roberson, the younger brother of a 57-year-old autistic man who was scheduled for execution Thursday night, says he prayed for the stay.

Legislators held a daylong hearing Wednesday that ended with a surprising twist: a subpoena for Robert Roberson to testify before the committee, issued about 24 hours before he was supposed to be executed by the state of Texas.

The last-minute decision comes in response to a legal maneuver in which a House committee voted to subpoena Roberson after his scheduled death.

The development comes after several Republican and Democratic state lawmakers issued a subpoena for Roberson to testify at a hearing next week about his case

The American Academy of Pediatrics embraces the diagnosis, but courts have thrown out some cases, calling it “junk science.”

A Texas House committee voted Wednesday to subpoena the condemned man to testify at a hearing scheduled after he is expected to be put to death.

Robert Roberson to be executed today, despite critics' doubts over the potentially flawed 'shaken baby syndrome' diagnosis.

The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles on Wednesday denied a request for clemency for Robert Roberson, who could be the first person in the U.S. executed for a murder conviction tied to the diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome.