Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Issues Last-Minute Stay in William Speer’s Scheduled Execution

On October 26, 2023, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) grant­ed a stay of exe­cu­tion for William Speer, who was set to be exe­cut­ed the same evening for the killing of anoth­er pris­on­er 26 years ago. Mr. Speer has been sched­uled to die by lethal injec­tion, but his attor­neys asked the TCCA to pause his exe­cu­tion over alle­ga­tions that pros­e­cu­tors failed to dis­close evi­dence at tri­al, know­ing­ly pre­sent­ed false tes­ti­mo­ny, and that his tri­al lawyers pro­vid­ed inad­e­quate rep­re­sen­ta­tion by fail­ing to present mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence of severe child­hood trau­ma and abuse. In a two-page deci­sion, TCCA paused Mr. Speer’s exe­cu­tion pend­ing fur­ther order of the Court. According to attor­neys for Mr. Speer, his stay of exe­cu­tion can­not be appealed to the fed­er­al court sys­tem because it is a state law issue.

Mr. Speer is serv­ing a life sen­tence for a fatal shoot­ing he com­mit­ted at age 16 and has since been sen­tenced to death for the 1997 stran­gling death of Gary Dickerson in Barry B. Telford Prison in New Boston, Texas. Mr. Speer killed Mr. Dickerson to join the Texas Mafia prison gang, after the gang false­ly con­clud­ed that Mr. Dickerson had told author­i­ties of their efforts to smug­gle tobac­co into the prison. At tri­al, Mr. Dickerson’s sis­ter, Sammie Martin, told jurors about her mother’s dev­as­ta­tion from her son’s death. Since then, Ms. Martin has asked for Mr. Speer’s life to be spared. In fed­er­al court fil­ings, Ms. Martin wrote: ​“In my heart, I feel that [Mr. Speer] is not only remorse­ful for his actions but has been doing good works for oth­ers and has some­thing left to offer the world.” The State of Texas argued sev­er­al times in court that it sought Mr. Speer’s exe­cu­tion date in the inter­est of the vic­tims, but nev­er con­tact­ed Mr. Martin. Ms. Martin first learned of Mr. Speer’s sched­uled exe­cu­tion from his defense coun­sel in September 2023. As report­ed by Mr. Speer’s attor­neys, the State said it would con­tin­ue to pur­sue the exe­cu­tion date despite Ms. Martin’s opposition.

During his time on death row, Mr. Speer ded­i­cat­ed him­self to the study of Christianity, and has since become a promi­nent prison min­is­ter. In 2022, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice began a ​“Faith Based Program” for men on death row. The TDCJ select­ed Mr. Speer to par­tic­i­pate in this pro­gram fol­low­ing a rig­or­ous appli­ca­tion process. While in this pro­gram, Mr. Speer par­tic­i­pat­ed in upwards of 30 hours of study and com­mu­ni­ty dis­cus­sion sur­round­ing reli­gion, repen­tance, and respon­si­bil­i­ty. Since grad­u­at­ing from the pro­gram with hon­ors, Mr. Speer has tak­en on the inau­gur­al role of Prisoner Coordinator for the pro­gram, where he men­tors and min­is­ters to oth­er men oth­er death row, as well as teach­es class­es and mit­i­gates con­flict. Outlined in his clemen­cy appli­ca­tion, which the Texas Board of Pardons and Parole unan­i­mous­ly denied on October 24, 2023, Mr. Speer talks of his con­tin­ued desire to min­is­ter to those around him. Mr. Speer, in his role as Field Minister, hopes ​“to help oth­ers by shar­ing his sto­ry of hard­ship, sin, repen­tance, and peace­mak­ing.” In a video sub­mit­ted with his clemen­cy appli­ca­tion, Mr. Speer told the board that “[he is] so aware of the things that [he has] done. [He is] so aware of the pain and the hurt that [he has] caused. [He] could just say that [he is] sorry.”

Fellow death row pris­on­ers have con­firmed the pos­i­tive influ­ence Mr. Speer has had on them. David Renteria, who is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed in November 2023, wrote that Mr. Speer’s ​“will­ing­ness to lay him­self bare before oth­ers [has] served as inspi­ra­tion for many in our com­mu­ni­ty, and made a dif­fer­ence in how we as a group relate to one anoth­er as part of cre­ation.” For Mr. Renteria, tes­ti­mo­ny from Mr. Speer ​“has caused many [on death row] to look deep­er when it comes to repent­ing of our own broken paths.” 

Following the TCCA’s announce­ment of a stay of exe­cu­tion, Amy Flynn, an attor­ney for Mr. Speer said in a state­ment that his defense team is ​“relieved that Will Speer will live to see anoth­er day so he can con­tin­ue to spread his mes­sage of hope and heal­ing in Texas pris­ons… Will’s life of min­istry, and his efforts to offer some mea­sure of peace to his vic­tims’ fam­i­lies, are an inspi­ra­tion. We are grate­ful for the thou­sands of peo­ple, includ­ing faith lead­ers and his vic­tims’ sur­vivors, who told the State of Texas that Will’s life was worth saving.”