A Texas Court of Appeals ruled on January 19, 2017 that all charges against Jerry Hartfield should be dis­missed with prej­u­dice after the state had kept the intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled for­mer death row pris­on­er in prison for 32 years with­out retry­ing him after his con­vic­tion had been over­turned. Calling the sit­u­a­tion a ​“crim­i­nal judi­cial night­mare,” the court ruled that the three-decade delay in try­ing Hartfield vio­lat­ed his con­sti­tu­tion­al right to a speedy tri­al. Hartfield had been con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death for a 1976 mur­der, but in 1983, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals over­turned his con­vic­tion and death sen­tence because a juror in his case had been improp­er­ly exclud­ed. Hartfield, an illit­er­ate man with an IQ of 51, believed he was await­ing retri­al, but pros­e­cu­tors were work­ing to ren­der the court’s rul­ing moot under Texas law by hav­ing the gov­er­nor com­mute his sen­tence to life. However, they failed to do so in the time peri­od pre­scribed by law, and then-Governor Mark White’s order attempt­ing to com­mute Hartfield’s for­mer death sen­tence to life with­out parole was with­out legal effect. Hartfield’s attor­neys did noth­ing fur­ther because they believed they were done with the case. In 2006, a fel­low pris­on­er helped Hartfield begin fil­ing motions in his case. In 2013, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals told him his motions were improp­er­ly filed because the pro­vi­sion under which he sought review applied only to peo­ple who had been con­vict­ed. At that point, he refiled his claims say­ing he was improp­er­ly incar­cer­at­ed with­out a con­vic­tion, and final­ly got a new tri­al. Hartfield’s new lawyers then asked for the charges to be dis­missed because he had not received a speedy tri­al, but pros­e­cu­tors suc­cess­ful­ly per­suad­ed the tri­al court that Hartfield him­self was part­ly to blame for the delay. In 2015, he was retried, con­vict­ed, and sen­tenced to life in prison. If his sen­tence were count­ed from his first tri­al, his 38 years in prison would have made him eli­gi­ble for parole. He appealed his con­vic­tion, once again argu­ing that his con­sti­tu­tion­al right to a speedy tri­al had been vio­lat­ed, and a Texas Court of Appeals agreed, not­ing that there was prece­dent for a delay of as many as eight years, but not 32. Prosecutors may appeal the rul­ing to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. David R. Dow of the University of Houston Law Center, one of the lawyers who rep­re­sent­ed Mr. Hartfield on appeal, described Hartfield’s case as, ​“the per­fect storm of every­thing that could go wrong with the crim­i­nal justice system.”

(R. Perez-Pena, “‘Justice Nightmare’: 32 Years in Texas Prisons After Conviction Voided,” The New York Times, January 19, 2017.) See Arbitrariness and Intellectual Disability.

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