Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Removes Henderson County Man from Death Row Citing Intellectual Disability

On March 27, 2024, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) resen­tenced death row pris­on­er Randall Mays to life in prison with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole after an expert for the state con­ced­ed that the evi­dence pre­sent­ed by Mr. Mays’ attor­neys indi­cates he is intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled, and thus inel­i­gi­ble for the death penal­ty. Originally sen­tenced to death in 2008 for the mur­der of two Henderson County, Texas, sheriff’s deputies, Mr. Mays’ attor­neys have long argued that he should be exempt from fac­ing exe­cu­tion because of his dis­abil­i­ty. ​“The evi­dence of Randall’s intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty is over­whelm­ing,” said Benjamin Wolff, the direc­tor of the Texas Office of Capital and Forensic Writs. ​“He has a 63 IQ. His intel­lec­tu­al deficits have been seen, and observed by oth­ers, through­out his life from child­hood to mil­i­tary ser­vice, and through­out his adult­hood,” Mr. Wolff added.

During a hear­ing in December 2022, neu­ropsy­cho­log­i­cal experts, hired by Mr. Mays’ attor­neys, pre­sent­ed evi­dence from eval­u­a­tions of Mr. Mays indi­cat­ing that he met the cri­te­ria to be diag­nosed with intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty. An expert for the state of Texas said she ​“could not rebut that find­ing,” and nei­ther did the Henderson County District Attorney. District Attorney Jenny Palmer expressed dis­ap­point­ment with the TCCA’s deci­sion to take Mr. Mays off of death row. In the years fol­low­ing Mr. Mays’ death sen­tence, the state revised its intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty cri­te­ria to more close­ly align with med­ical­ly accept­ed diag­nos­tic cri­te­ria and Ms. Palmer said her office did not agree with this change. ​“We stand ever faith­ful in our sup­port of the Habelt and Ogburn fam­i­lies and our law enforce­ment fam­i­ly who must live with the effects of the hor­ri­ble acts com­mit­ted by Randall Mays on that day. While the jus­tice they deserve, and Randall Mays has earned is now not an option, we gain small com­fort in being able to say with con­fi­dence that Randall Mays will die in prison,” Ms. Palmer said in a statement.

In October 2019, a Henderson County judge with­drew a pre­vi­ous death war­rant amid ques­tions of Mr. Mays’ com­pe­ten­cy to be exe­cut­ed. Although com­pe­ten­cy is a dif­fer­ent legal issue from intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty, that action allowed time for con­sid­er­a­tion of Mr. Mays’ many legal claims, includ­ing his claim of intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty. Prison per­son­nel diag­nosed Mr. Mays with schiz­o­phre­nia and a foren­sic psy­chi­a­trist report­ed that Mr. Mays’ men­tal health con­di­tion was dete­ri­o­rat­ing, claim­ing he had become increas­ing­ly delu­sion­al and could not under­stand why he was fac­ing an exe­cu­tion. In May 2020, the TCCA grant­ed Mr. Mays a stay of exe­cu­tion, direct­ing the Henderson County tri­al court to review his claims of inel­i­gi­bil­i­ty based on intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty. In 2002, the United States Supreme Court held in Atkins v. Virginia, that it is cru­el and unusu­al to exe­cute an indi­vid­ual with intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty but grant­ed indi­vid­ual states the pow­er to define the cri­te­ria for intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty. In February 2023, the Henderson County tri­al court rec­om­mend­ed that relief be grant­ed to Mr. Mays based on his intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty claim, con­clud­ing that Mr. Mays is intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled based on ​“pre­vail­ing med­ical stan­dards for diag­nos­ing intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty.” Agreeing with the tri­al court, the TCCA ruled that ​“based upon the tri­al court’s find­ings and con­clu­sions and our own review, we grant relief by reform­ing [Mr. Mays’] sen­tence of death to a sen­tence of life impris­on­ment without parole.”

Texas state Representative Toni Rose authored House Bill 727 in 2023 that would pre­vent those diag­nosed with severe men­tal ill­ness, includ­ing schiz­o­phre­nia, from being sen­tenced to death. HB 727 intend­ed to elim­i­nate the death penal­ty for peo­ple with men­tal health issues that ​“impair [indi­vid­u­als’] capac­i­ty to appre­ci­ate the wrong­ful­ness of their actions of exer­cise ratio­nal judge­ment.” This bill passed the state House in pre­vi­ous ses­sions, but ulti­mate­ly failed in the Senate. Two states — Ohio and Kentucky — have cod­i­fied sim­i­lar leg­is­la­tion that pre­cludes those with severe men­tal ill­ness from being sen­tenced to death. In oth­er death penal­ty states, includ­ing Texas, peo­ple with men­tal ill­ness are only exempt from exe­cu­tion if they can show that they are legal­ly insane, mean­ing they do not com­pre­hend their crime or its consequences.