Texas Executes Mentally Ill Man After Denying Him Access to Mental Health Testing

Texas exe­cut­ed Tracy Beatty (pic­tured) on November 9, 2022, after the United States Supreme Court declined to review his chal­lenge to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice​’s refusal to unhand­cuff the men­tal­ly ill and brain dam­aged death-row pris­on­er so that defense men­tal health experts could con­duct men­tal health test­ing his lawyers argued was nec­es­sary in seek­ing clemen­cy and in attempt­ing to demon­strate his mental incompetency.

The Court, with­out com­ment or any not­ed dis­sent, denied Beatty a stay of exe­cu­tion, paving the way for Texas to exe­cute him lat­er in the day. In the same sum­ma­ry order, the Court denied Beatty’s peti­tion for writ of cer­tio­rari. Beatty’s coun­sel had pre­sent­ed evi­dence that Beatty, who suf­fered from para­noid schiz­o­phre­nia, had been expe­ri­enc­ing hal­lu­ci­na­tions and delu­sions and might not be com­pe­tent to be exe­cut­ed. A defense expert described him as ​“clear­ly psy­chot­ic,” say­ing that he ​“has a com­plex para­noid delu­sion­al belief sys­tem” and lives in a ​”com­plex delusional world.”

Defense lawyers had argued that Texas’ refusal to uncuff Beatty so that a psy­chi­a­trist and a neu­ropsy­chol­o­gist could admin­is­ter test­ing to assess brain impair­ments con­sti­tut­ed unlaw­ful state inter­fer­ence with ser­vices Congress has autho­rized be made avail­able to fed­er­al coun­sel rep­re­sent­ing death-row pris­on­ers in clemen­cy and oth­er poten­tial cap­i­tal post-conviction proceedings.

The U.S. District Court declined to order the Texas pris­ons to free Beatty’s hands so he could com­plete rou­tine neu­ropsy­chi­atric and neu­ropsy­cho­log­i­cal tests, assert­ing that the fed­er­al courts had no juris­dic­tion to inter­vene. As a result, defense men­tal health experts — who had doc­u­ment­ed numer­ous indi­ca­tors of brain impair­ment that made test­ing nec­es­sary — could not com­plete the men­tal health eval­u­a­tions they had been retained to con­duct. That rul­ing, upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, would ​“leave[] fed­er­al courts pow­er­less” to ensure that men­tal health and oth­er ser­vice providers have mean­ing­ful access to the client, Beatty’s lawyers said. Such an out­come ​“leaves peti­tion­ers with the right to paid ser­vice providers but no right to any ser­vices,” coun­sel wrote, ren­der­ing the fed­er­al law autho­riz­ing cap­i­tal defense ser­vices ​“mean­ing­less as a practical matter.”

Beatty was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death for the mur­der of his moth­er, Carolyn Click, in 2003. His lawyers had pre­vi­ous­ly argued, with­out suc­cess, that Beatty was inel­i­gi­ble for the death penal­ty because he had not com­mit­ted cap­i­tal mur­der. Not all mur­ders qual­i­fy as cap­i­tal mur­der and, under Texas law, Beatty was sub­ject to the death penal­ty only because the mur­der osten­si­bly occurred dur­ing the com­mis­sion of a sep­a­rate felony, the alleged bur­glary of the house he lived in with his mother. 

Prosecutors argued that Beatty had com­mit­ted bur­glary by enter­ing the res­i­dence with­out per­mis­sion, assault­ing his moth­er, and tak­ing prop­er­ty out of the house. They based this the­o­ry on the hearsay tes­ti­mo­ny of a neigh­bor who told the jury that, on the last day she saw Click, Click told her that she and Beatty had had an argu­ment and that she had told him to move out. In a dis­sent­ing opin­ion in Beatty’s direct appeal in 2009, for­mer Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Judge Cheryl Johnson not­ed that anoth­er neigh­bor had tes­ti­fied that Click and Beatty argued dai­ly and that Click had told Beatty to move out numer­ous times before but had con­sis­tent­ly allowed him to stay after their argu­ments. She wrote, ​“The evi­dence of entry with­out con­sent in this case is thin, and the evi­dence of intent to com­mit a felony, theft, or assault even thin­ner…. There is no doubt that [Beatty] killed Click; the issue is whether the bur­glary was proven and thus whether the offense is cap­i­tal mur­der or murder.” 

The major­i­ty of the court upheld Beatty’s cap­i­tal con­vic­tion, point­ing to evi­dence that Beatty had severe­ly assault­ed Click after a pri­or argu­ment. The court held that “[a] ratio­nal jury could infer that [Beatty] was angry after Click told him to get out and that he entered Click’s house with intent to assault her again or kill her, or at least take some of her mon­ey or her possessions.” 

Beatty’s pri­or coun­sel had nev­er had him eval­u­at­ed by any men­tal health pro­fes­sion­al. In his lat­est court fil­ings, fed­er­al defense coun­sel argued that ​“prop­er [men­tal health] eval­u­a­tions are crit­i­cal to deter­mine whether the pris­on­er is men­tal­ly incom­pe­tent or has an intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty that would bar his exe­cu­tion on con­sti­tu­tion­al grounds.” The Supreme Court’s denial of his peti­tion for review per­mit­ted his exe­cu­tion to go for­ward with­out assess­ing the mer­its of his legal claims. 

Beatty exe­cu­tion was the thir­teenth in the U.S. in 2022 and the fourth in Texas. On November 3, 2022, a fed­er­al dis­trict court grant­ed a pre­lim­i­nary injunc­tion against the exe­cu­tion of Stephen Barbee, who is sched­uled to be put to death November 16, 2022. Texas pros­e­cu­tors have appealed that injunc­tion. As of November 9, 2022, six exe­cu­tions have been sched­uled in the state for 2023.