Texas Schedules Thirteen Executions in Last Five Months of 2019

The thir­teen exe­cu­tions sched­uled in Texas in the last five months of 2019 raise trou­bling ques­tions as to whether the state is exe­cut­ing the most moral­ly cul­pa­ble indi­vid­u­als for the worst of the worst crimes or the most vul­ner­a­ble pris­on­ers and pris­on­ers who were pro­vid­ed the worst legal process. Among those sched­uled for exe­cu­tion were two men with strong claims of inno­cence, two who did not direct­ly kill any­one, but were sen­tenced to death under Texas’ con­tro­ver­sial ​“law of par­ties,” and eight who exhib­it­ed sig­nif­i­cant men­tal or emo­tion­al vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties as a result of intel­lec­tu­al impairments/​brain dam­age, seri­ous men­tal ill­ness, or chron­ic trau­ma. Three pris­on­ers were 21 or younger at the time of their crime. Four pris­on­ers sched­uled for exe­cu­tion had raised claims that their attor­neys did not pro­vide them with con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly ade­quate rep­re­sen­ta­tion, and six received oth­er forms of defi­cient legal process — includ­ing false tes­ti­mo­ny at their tri­als, tri­al before a racial­ly or reli­gious­ly biased judge, or exe­cu­tion dates that inter­fered with ongo­ing judicial review.

Texas’ aggres­sive exe­cu­tion sched­ule also illus­trates its sta­tus as an out­lier in its use of the death penal­ty and the stark dif­fer­ences in approach between the deci­sion­mak­ers empow­ered to end pris­on­ers’ lives and those eval­u­at­ing whether new defen­dants should be sent to death row. Nationally, exe­cu­tions have remained near his­toric lows for the past five years, but Texas has car­ried out more than any oth­er state. In 2018, Texas exe­cut­ed more pris­on­ers than the rest of the United States com­bined and, if most of the sched­uled exe­cu­tions go through, could do so again in 2019. 

A per­son sen­tenced to death in Texas is three times more like­ly to be exe­cut­ed than some­one sen­tenced to death in the rest of the coun­try. This pace of exe­cu­tions con­tin­ues despite a sig­nif­i­cant decline in the num­ber of new death sen­tences being imposed in the state. Fewer death sen­tences were imposed in the Lone Star State in the last five years than in any oth­er five-year peri­od in the mod­ern era of capital punishment.

The table below presents key infor­ma­tion about each case, and is fol­lowed by brief case narratives.

LAST UPDATED: December 12, 2019

Key: A = Asian, B = Black, L = Latino/​a, W = White, M = Male, F = Female

Status: STAYED by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit

Dexter Johnson received a stay of exe­cu­tion to lit­i­gate claims that he is intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled and there­fore inel­i­gi­ble for exe­cu­tion. His claim of intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty had pre­vi­ous­ly been blocked because courts applied an uncon­sti­tu­tion­al stan­dard that required him to score 70 or below on IQ tests. In addi­tion, he has been diag­nosed with schiz­o­phre­nia, and he had turned 18 just days before the crime for which he was sen­tenced to death. 

Status: EXECUTED

Despite seri­ous ques­tions about the verac­i­ty of the foren­sic evi­dence used to con­vict Larry Swearingen, he was exe­cut­ed on August 21. Swearingen pre­sent­ed evi­dence from numer­ous foren­sic experts who said the con­di­tion of the vic­tim’s body when it was dis­cov­ered sug­gest­ed she had been killed dur­ing a time that Swearingen was being held in jail. Two foren­sic sci­en­tists who tes­ti­fied against Swearingen at his tri­al over­stat­ed or mis­char­ac­ter­ized their findings.

Status: EXECUTED

Billy Crutsinger raised a claim that Texas pro­vid­ed him with an incom­pe­tent appeals lawyer who repeat­ed­ly filed friv­o­lous claims and cut and past­ed con­tra­dic­to­ry claims and argu­ments from pri­or clients’ court plead­ings. He argued in state court that the pro­vi­sion of an incom­pe­tent lawyer vio­lat­ed his 14^th amend­ment due process right of access to the courts. In fed­er­al court, he argued that he had been improp­er­ly denied fund­ing nec­es­sary to inves­ti­gate and present his ineffectiveness claim. 

Status: EXECUTED

Mark Soliz claimed that he should be inel­i­gi­ble for exe­cu­tion because he has fetal alco­hol syn­drome, a con­di­tion that impairs brain devel­op­ment. He also pre­sent­ed mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence of chron­ic trau­ma from his impov­er­ished and vio­lent upbring­ing. He saw his aunt mur­dered when he was young, and began using drugs as a child.

Status: EXECUTED

At the time his exe­cu­tion date was set, Robert Sparks still had an appeal pend­ing before the U.S. Supreme Court, mak­ing the exe­cu­tion war­rant pre­ma­ture. He alleges that A.P. Merillat, an expert who tes­ti­fied against Sparks, gave false tes­ti­mo­ny about the prison sys­tem and said that Sparks would pose a threat if sen­tenced to life in prison. His appeal also alleges that a bailiff biased the jury by wear­ing a neck­tie with a pic­ture of a syringe on it while the jury was decid­ing the sen­tence. Sparks has also been diag­nosed with schizoaf­fec­tive dis­or­der, para­noid delu­sions, and anti-social per­son­al­i­ty dis­or­der. A Texas fed­er­al court denied him fund­ing to hire a neu­ropsy­chol­o­gist to eval­u­ate him for intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty, despite evi­dence of cog­ni­tive deficits asso­ci­at­ed with intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty, an IQ score of 75, and dif­fi­cul­ty in spe­cial education classes.

Status: STAYED by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals

Police claim that Stephen Barbee con­fessed dur­ing an unrecord­ed con­ver­sa­tion with a police offi­cer in a bath­room. Barbee says the con­fes­sion was coerced and that police with­held video­tape of his inter­ro­ga­tion. An appel­late judge rub­ber­stamped the state’s ver­sion of events, ​“with­out so much as chang­ing a com­ma,” accord­ing to Barbee’s attor­ney, Richard Ellis. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals stayed Barbee’s exe­cu­tion on September 23, 2019 to deter­mine whether whether to apply the 2018 U.S. Supreme Court rul­ing in McCoy v. Louisiana—which pro­hibits defense coun­sel from con­ced­ing a defen­dan­t’s guilt over his protes­ta­tions of inno­cence — to Barbee’s case.

Status: STAYED by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals

Randy Halprin was con­vict­ed under the law of par­ties for his par­tic­i­pa­tion in a prison escape and rob­bery in which his co-defen­dants killed a police offi­cer, but he main­tains that he did not fire a shot. He has an appeal pend­ing before the U.S. Supreme Court that alleges the tri­al judge who sen­tenced him to death expressed racist and anti-semit­ic views and used racial slurs. He alleged­ly described Halprin, who is Jewish, as a ​“f***ing Jew” and a ​“G*****n k**e.” On August 22, Halprin’s lawyers filed a Motion for Stay of Execution in the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and in the Texas fed­er­al courts. Jewish orga­ni­za­tions and inter­faith lead­ers have called for a stay of exe­cu­tion so Halprin can have a tri­al free of bias. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on September 23 declined to con­sid­er Halprin’s claim on procedural grounds.

On October 4, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals issued a stay of exe­cu­tion and direct­ed a Dallas tri­al court to con­sid­er his claim that his judge’s reli­gious bias vio­lat­ed Halprin’s right to a fair trial.

Status: WARRANT WITHDRAWN

Randall Mays’ attor­neys have argued that he is incom­pe­tent to be exe­cut­ed due to men­tal ill­ness. In 2015, he received a stay of exe­cu­tion on his com­pe­ten­cy claim, but the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals lat­er found him com­pe­tent.

Henderson County District Judge Joe Clayton with­drew the exe­cu­tion war­rant to allow time to ​“prop­er­ly review all med­ical records sub­mit­ted” regard­ing Mays’ attor­neys’ claim that Mays is incom­pe­tent to be executed.

Status: STAYED

Ruben Gutierrez says that he was present dur­ing the rob­bery of Escolastica Harrison, but main­tains that he did not kill her. He is seek­ing DNA test­ing of evi­dence from the crime scene.

On October 22, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals issued a stay of exe­cu­tion due to irreg­u­lar­i­ties in the issuance of the execution warrant. 

Status: EXECUTED

During a 2019 appeal in which Justen Hall’s attor­neys sought DNA test­ing of crime scene evi­dence, Hall told the court ​“I’m ready to get it over with, you know,” in ref­er­ence to his death sen­tence. His attor­neys say that his med­ical records show ​“numer­ous exam­ples of his psy­chi­atric con­di­tion dete­ri­o­rat­ing, basi­cal­ly, dur­ing his time at the Polunsky unit,” and said that if he for­mal­ly tries to drop his appeals, they will chal­lenge his com­pe­ten­cy to do so. He attempt­ed sui­cide while on death row.

Status: STAYED

Patrick Murphy was con­vict­ed under Texas’ law of par­ties for his par­tic­i­pa­tion in a prison escape and rob­bery in which his co-defen­dants killed a police offi­cer. Murphy main­tains that he left the scene before the offi­cer was killed. Murphy had a pre­vi­ous exe­cu­tion date stayed by the U.S. Supreme Court when he chal­lenged Texas’ pol­i­cy of allow­ing only Christian or Muslim spir­i­tu­al advi­sors to be present in the exe­cu­tion cham­ber. Murphy, who is Buddhist, had request­ed his spir­i­tu­al advi­sor be present. Texas respond­ed to the Court’s deci­sion by bar­ring all reli­gious advi­sors from the exe­cu­tion cham­ber. A psy­cho­log­i­cal eval­u­a­tion of Murphy from 2014 revealed chron­ic childhood trauma.

On November 7, the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas grant­ed a stay to allow time to con­sid­er Murphy’s chal­lenge to Texas’ reli­gious advi­sor pol­i­cy. The stay is appealable.

Status: STAYED

Rodney Reed, who is African American, main­tains his inno­cence in the killing of Stacy Stites, a young white woman with whom he was hav­ing an affair. He has sought DNA test­ing of evi­dence that could prove his inno­cence. His lawyers also have chal­lenged tes­ti­mo­ny regard­ing the time of Stites’ death, pre­sent­ing affi­davits from foren­sic experts who say she was killed sev­er­al hours before a state expert claimed. That evi­dence also sup­ports Reed’s inno­cence claim. Reed’s lawyers say that Stites’ fiance, a for­mer police offi­cer who lat­er jailed for sex­u­al offens­es against women he had stopped, may have killed Stites and framed Reed after learn­ing of their affair.

On November 15, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals issued a stay and direct­ed the Bastrop County dis­trict court to review Reed’s claims that pros­e­cu­tors sup­pressed excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence and pre­sent­ed false tes­ti­mo­ny and that he is actually innocent.

Status: EXECUTED

Travis Runnels has filed a claim of inef­fec­tive assis­tance of coun­sel, argu­ing that his tri­al lawyers failed to inves­ti­gate and present mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence that might have per­suad­ed the jury to spare his life. Runnels says that men­tal health test­ing and evi­dence of his trau­mat­ic and unsta­ble upbring­ing might have per­suad­ed the jury to sen­tence him to life. He also argues that the pros­e­cu­tion pre­sent­ed false tes­ti­mo­ny from prison-sys­tem expert A.P. Merillat, who mis­rep­re­sent­ed the con­di­tions in which Runnels would be housed if sen­tenced to life and sug­gest­ed that Runnels would pose a con­tin­u­ing threat if sen­tenced to life in prison under those conditions.