Texas Appeals Court Overturns Death Sentence of Nation’s Longest Serving Death-Row Prisoner

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) has over­turned the death sen­tence of the nation’s longest-serv­ing death-row pris­on­er, 45 years after he was first sent to death row. 

In an unpub­lished opin­ion issued on April 14, 2021, the TCCA held that Raymond Riles (pic­tured), orig­i­nal­ly sen­tenced to death by a Harris County jury on December 11, 1975, is enti­tled to a new sen­tenc­ing hear­ing. The court ruled that Riles had been uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly sen­tenced to death in his 1978 retri­al when the tri­al court failed to instruct the jurors that they could con­sid­er evi­dence relat­ing to Riles’ back­ground, upbring­ing, and men­tal health his­to­ry as rea­sons to spare his life.

At Riles’ tri­al, his defense team pre­sent­ed an insan­i­ty defense, pro­vid­ing tes­ti­mo­ny from psy­chi­a­trists and psy­chol­o­gists who said that Riles was psy­chot­ic and suf­fered from schiz­o­phre­nia. Several fam­i­ly mem­bers also tes­ti­fied that Riles dis­played odd and vio­lent behav­ior, but that efforts to have his men­tal health eval­u­at­ed had been unsuc­cess­ful. They said sev­er­al of his close rel­a­tives also had been com­mit­ted to psychiatric institutions. 

The jury reject­ed the insan­i­ty defense and sen­tenced Riles to death. He then lan­guished on death row for four decades after being found incom­pe­tent to be executed. 

Riles’ cur­rent lawyers argued that his sen­tence was uncon­sti­tu­tion­al, cit­ing Penry v. Lynaugh, a 1989 U.S. Supreme Court deci­sion that struck down the sen­tenc­ing pro­ce­dures used at the time of his tri­al. Penry held that the Texas sen­tenc­ing statute — which lim­it­ed the jury’s con­sid­er­a­tion of evi­dence in the sen­tenc­ing phase to con­sid­er­ing whether the defen­dant com­mit­ted the mur­der inten­tion­al­ly and with­out provo­ca­tion and whether he posed a future dan­ger to soci­ety — pro­vid­ed no mech­a­nism for the jury to give mit­i­gat­ing effect to evi­dence such as a defendant’s upbring­ing and men­tal health. Unless the tri­al court clear­ly informed jurors that they could con­sid­er that evi­dence inde­pen­dent of the spe­cial ques­tions, Penry said, the state’s sen­tenc­ing pro­ce­dures would be unconstitutional.

“The men­tal health evi­dence that [Riles] pre­sent­ed at his tri­al is the type of evi­dence that both this Court and the Supreme Court have come to regard as the kind of ​‘two-edged’ mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence call­ing for a sep­a­rate, mit­i­ga­tion focused jury instruc­tion,” the TCCA wrote in its April deci­sion. “[Riles’] jury did not receive any such instruction.”

The Texas court unan­i­mous­ly agreed that Riles had been uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly sen­tenced to death. Three jus­tices nonethe­less dis­sent­ed, say­ing they had doubts as to whether Riles had been com­pe­tent to con­sent to the appeal.

Riles’ attor­neys, Thea Posel and Jim Marcus, said they were ​“very pleased” with the deci­sion. They called Riles’ death sen­tence ​“an uncon­sti­tu­tion­al rel­ic of a long-inval­i­dat­ed sen­tenc­ing scheme.” Posel and Marcus also not­ed the unusu­al legal pos­ture of his case that had con­tributed to his lengthy stay on death row. ​“Because he is too men­tal­ly ill to exe­cute, Mr. Riles has spent decades — includ­ing sev­er­al in soli­tary con­fine­ment — in a legal lim­bo between life and death,” they said. ​“Today’s deci­sion will, hope­ful­ly, facil­i­tate a res­o­lu­tion of the case.” 

Under the U.S. Supreme Court’s rul­ing in Ford v. Wainwright, severe men­tal ill­ness that affects an individual’s men­tal com­pe­ten­cy can block a prisoner’s exe­cu­tion but does not affect their death sen­tence. Prisoners like Riles, who have been deemed incom­pe­tent to be exe­cut­ed, can linger on death row for decades.

Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg had joined Riles’ defense attor­neys in ask­ing the TCCA to over­turn his death sen­tence. ​“We are glad Texas’s high­est court unan­i­mous­ly agreed with pros­e­cu­tors and defense lawyers that jurors must be able to con­sid­er a defen­dan­t’s men­tal health his­to­ry before decid­ing pun­ish­ment,” Ogg said in a statement.

Citing office pol­i­cy, the dis­trict attorney’s office would not say whether it will seek a new death sen­tence for Riles.

Riles was trans­ferred from coun­ty cus­tody to Texas’ death row on February 4, 1976. Charles Foster, who was sen­tenced to death in Florida in 1975, had been on death row longer than any oth­er U.S. pris­on­er. When Foster died on December 30, 2020, Riles became the longest-serv­ing death-row pris­on­er in the country.