Prosecutors Accept Life Plea by Severely Mentally Ill Man in Killing of Texas Sheriff’s Deputy

Texas pros­e­cu­tors have dropped their pur­suit of the death penal­ty against a severe­ly men­tal­ly ill cap­i­tal defen­dant charged with what they char­ac­ter­ized as the ​“ambush mur­der” of a Harris County sheriff’s deputy. Special pros­e­cu­tor Brett Ligon (pic­tured, left) — the Montgomery County District Attorney who was han­dling the pros­e­cu­tion because Houston pros­e­cu­tors had a con­flict that pre­vent­ed them from par­tic­i­pat­ing in the case — announced on September 13 that he had agreed to a plea deal in which Shannon Miles (pic­tured, right) would be sen­tenced to life with­out pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole in the killing of Sheriff’s Deputy Darren Goforth. Miles’s lawyers say that he has schiz­o­phre­nia and episod­ic psy­chosis when he is not on psy­chi­atric med­ica­tion, that he has no mem­o­ry of the mur­der, and that they intend­ed to pur­sue an insan­i­ty defense in the case. In 2012, the tri­al court had declared Miles incom­pe­tent to be tried. In March of 2017, after treat­ment at a state men­tal hos­pi­tal that had been delayed by a short­age of avail­able beds, the court found Miles com­pe­tent to stand tri­al. In explain­ing the plea deal, Ligon said “[t]he state’s experts all came to the same con­clu­sion, the like­li­hood of exe­cut­ing a men­tal­ly incom­pe­tent man was almost zero.” The victim’s wid­ow, Kathleen Goforth, said she sup­port­ed to deal because her two chil­dren ​“have been spared” the ordeal of extend­ed death-penal­ty pro­ceed­ings. She said, ​“They will not have the back­drop of their lives, for the next 10 to 25 years, being court dates, tri­als and appeals…. They won’t have that inflict­ed upon them and that is mer­ci­ful. It’s com­pas­sion­ate and it’s the right thing to do.” Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez and Donald Cuevas, pres­i­dent of the Harris County Deputies Organization, said jus­tice had been served by the plea deal. The plea had been entered against the back­drop of an emerg­ing sex scan­dal. The sole grounds on which pros­e­cu­tors could seek the death penal­ty in the case was if Officer Goforth had been killed in the per­for­mance of his duties. However, evi­dence had come to light that Goforth was at the gas sta­tion to meet his mis­tress, who was a wit­ness to the mur­der and would be called upon to tes­ti­fy in the case. Two sheriff’s offi­cers — one who was assigned to inves­ti­gate the case — had been fired for hav­ing sex­u­al rela­tions with the woman, and a third had been fired for send­ing her an email solic­it­ing sex. The Goforth mur­der once again focused atten­tion on the role of men­tal ill­ness in pre­med­i­tat­ed mur­ders of police offi­cers. In July 2016, in unre­lat­ed inci­dents, men­tal­ly ill Gulf War vet­er­ans who exhib­it­ed symp­toms of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder fatal­ly shot five police offi­cers in Dallas, Texas and three in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. In July 2015, a Washington jury sen­tenced a men­tal­ly ill and delu­sion­al cap­i­tal defen­dant, Christopher Monfort, to life with­out parole for the ambush mur­der of a Seattle police officer.

Comments by Ligon­ report­ed in The Houston Press sug­gest­ed his pur­suit of pun­ish­ment against Miles was based on vengeance. ​“I’ve exe­cut­ed peo­ple, and I’ve put ​‘em on life with­out parole, and I will tell you, nei­ther one of those are good options. Neither one of them. They both suck. And that’s what I want, is the ulti­mate suck — and he got the ulti­mate suck,” Ligons said. ​“When nobody gives a good god­damn about you and die in a pau­per’s grave, that is the beat down that’s life without parole.”

(C. Langford, ​”Houston Cop Killer Sentenced to Life in Prison,” Courthouse News Service, September 14, 2017; B. Rogers, ​“Accused killer in deputy Goforth case pleads guilty, avoids death penal­ty,” Houston Chronicle, September 13, 2017; M. Flynn, ​“Shannon Miles Sentenced to Prison for Killing Deputy Goforth,” Houston Press, September 13, 2017; ​“Shannon Miles found incom­pe­tent to stand tri­al in Deputy Darren Goforth’s mur­der,” KPRC2 News, February 9, 2016; ​“Gavin Long of KC, who ambushed Baton Rouge police last sum­mer, left a sui­cide note,” Associated Press, June 30, 2017; K. Krause and S. Ambrose, ​“Dallas shoot­er showed signs of PTSD when he returned from Afghanistan, VA records show,” Dallas Morning News, August 24, 2016.) See Mental Illness and Life Without Parole