Texas Set to Execute Christopher Wilkins Despite Lawyers’ Conflicts of Interest

Christopher Wilkins (pic­tured) is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed in Texas on January 11, even as he has a peti­tion pend­ing before the U.S. Supreme Court argu­ing that he has been improp­er­ly denied the oppor­tu­ni­ty to devel­op and present evi­dence that he suf­fers from sig­nif­i­cant cognitive deficits. 

Wilkins’ Supreme Court peti­tion asserts that his tri­al lawyer, Wesley Ball, who lat­er with­drew from the case because of a poten­tial con­flict of inter­est, bare­ly con­duct­ed any inves­ti­ga­tion into the case until just before jury selec­tion and ignored a rec­om­men­da­tion from a defense psy­chol­o­gist that Wilkins’ men­tal func­tion­ing should be eval­u­at­ed because he suf­fered from sev­er­al cog­ni­tive deficits and was exposed to LSD as as a child, in addi­tion to hav­ing oth­er risk fac­tors for brain damage. 

Wilkins’ state post-con­vic­tion lawyer, Jack Strickland — who was respon­si­ble for inves­ti­gat­ing and pre­sent­ing new evi­dence in the case — accept­ed a posi­tion with the pros­e­cu­tor’s office while rep­re­sent­ing Wilkins before fil­ing a habeas appli­ca­tion for Wilkins that only pre­sent­ed claims that had been pro­ce­du­ral­ly barred or that were not review­able. Wilkins repeat­ed­ly tried to fire Strickland but the state court refused to appoint new coun­sel and dis­missed Wilkins’ habeas peti­tion. The fed­er­al dis­trict court judge then refused to pro­vide Wilkins’ fed­er­al lawyer fund­ing to inves­ti­gate his case, gave him only 45 days to pre­pare his fed­er­al habeas peti­tion, and then denied the peti­tion because Wilkins had not pre­sent­ed the evi­dence he says an inves­ti­ga­tion would have developed. 

When Wilkins’ cur­rent lawyer filed a new peti­tion in state court, the Texas courts refused to con­sid­er it, say­ing the evi­dence should have been pre­sent­ed in his first habeas peti­tion. Judge Elsa Alcala of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals dis­sent­ed, writ­ing that Strickland ​“appears to have whol­ly failed to act as coun­sel” for Wilkins, and that the defec­tive peti­tion Strickland filed should have been con­sid­ered ​“a nullity.” 

Wilkins’ peti­tion in the United States Supreme Court argues that fed­er­al law enti­tles him to inves­tiga­tive and expert ser­vices that are ​“rea­son­ably nec­es­sary” to assist him in devel­op­ing the fac­tu­al basis for his habeas cor­pus claims, and that the Texas fed­er­al court rul­ings deny­ing him that assis­tance are out of step with the prac­tices of oth­er fed­er­al cir­cuits. If Wilkins is exe­cut­ed, he will be the first per­son exe­cut­ed in the United States in 2017. [UPDATE: The U.S. Supreme Court denied Wilkins’ peti­tion for writ of cer­tio­rari and motion for stay of exe­cu­tion on January 11 and Texas exe­cut­ed him that evening.]