NEWS (5/​7/​20) — Texas: The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has grant­ed a stay of exe­cu­tion to Randall Mays, direct­ing a Henderson County tri­al court to review Mays’ claim that he is inel­i­gi­ble for the death penal­ty because of intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty. The appeals court declined to address claims that Mays’ con­vic­tion and death sen­tence had been taint­ed by racial bias and juror mis­con­duct and that he had been sub­ject to improp­er inter­ro­ga­tion by law enforcement. 

On October 3, 2019, the tri­al court with­drew a pre­vi­ous death war­rant amid ques­tions of Mays’ com­pe­ten­cy to be exe­cut­ed. Prison men­tal health per­son­nel had recent­ly diag­nosed Mays with schiz­o­phre­nia and pre­scribed him anti-psy­chot­ic med­ica­tion. A foren­sic psy­chi­a­trist report­ed that Mays’ men­tal health con­di­tion had dete­ri­o­rat­ed, that he had become increas­ing­ly delu­sion­al and inco­her­ent, and that he was claim­ing that prison guards were poi­son­ing the air vents in his cell. Mays’ com­pe­ten­cy issue is still pend­ing before the Court of Criminal Appeals.

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