Court of Criminal Appeals Decision Signals Likely Shutdown of Executions in Texas

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has grant­ed a stay of exe­cu­tion to Heliberto Chi, fol­low­ing the U.S. Supreme Court’s lead after it decid­ed to review Kentucky’s lethal injec­tion pro­ce­dures. Chi was sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on October 3. Attorneys for both the pros­e­cu­tion and defense said that the stay sig­nals a prob­a­ble slow­down, if not a com­plete shut­down, of exe­cu­tions in Texas until the Supreme Court issues a deci­sion in the lethal injec­tion case. Andrea Keilen, exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Texas Defender Service, said she was encour­aged ​“that the Texas Court did the right thing instead of wait­ing for anoth­er man­date from the Supreme Court.” Tarrant County Assistant District Attorney Steven Conder said he was not sur­prised by the court’s deci­sion in light of the Supreme Court’s con­sid­er­a­tion of the issue.

Prior to the Court of Criminal Appeals rul­ing in the case, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles declined to grant Chi relief, and Texas Governor Rick Perry refused to inter­vene in the case based on his belief that the state’s lethal injec­tion pro­to­cols are prop­er.

The U.S. Supreme Court announced it would take the Kentucky case on September 25. That same night, Texas exe­cut­ed Michael Richard after defense attor­neys were unable to file an appeal with the Court of Criminal Appeals. Despite being told of the defen­dan­t’s efforts to appeal and of a com­put­er prob­lem caus­ing delays in com­plet­ing the appeal, the court closed at its reg­u­lar time of 5 pm. The Supreme Court then declined to issue a stay because the Texas court had not made a rul­ing on it. Richard would prob­a­bly have been grant­ed a stay, based on the sub­se­quent rul­ings, if the Texas court had agreed to stay open a lit­tle lat­er to accept the appeal. On September 27, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals declined to stay the exe­cu­tion of Carlton Turner, but the U.S. Supreme Court did so with­out expla­na­tion.
(Dallas Morning News, October 3, 2007). See Lethal Injections and Upcoming Executions.