The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has denied an 11th-hour request by death row prisoner Robert Roberson to halt his planned execution today — despite evidence his 2003 conviction for the murder of his 2-year-old daughter was based on “junk science.” Unless Texas Governor Greg Abbott or the U.S. Supreme Court intervenes, Roberson is set to be executed at 6 p.m. this evening. The appeals court ruling came even after a bipartisan group of lawmakers requested a stay of execution, writing, “We believe it would be a stain on the conscience of the State of Texas for an execution to proceed while efforts are underway to remedy deficiencies in how the law was applied to this case.”

Roberson’s conviction was based solely on forensic testimony that cited the “shaken baby syndrome hypothesis,” which was popularized in the early 2000s but never scientifically validated.