Victim’s Sister, Faith Leaders, and Others Plead for Clemency for Will Speer, Faith Based Coordinator on Texas’ Death Row

On Friday, October 13, the sole sur­viv­ing fam­i­ly mem­ber of mur­der vic­tim Gary L. Dickerson joined dozens of faith lead­ers and oth­ers in ask­ing the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles for clemen­cy for Will Speer. Mr. Speer is set to be exe­cut­ed on October 26, 2023. After a child­hood of hor­rif­ic abuse, a life sen­tence by age 18, and a judg­ment of death by age 23, Mr. Speer devot­ed him­self to the study of Christianity and has become a promi­nent prison min­is­ter. ​“In my heart, I feel that he is not only remorse­ful for his actions but has been doing good works for oth­ers and has some­thing left to offer the world,” said Sammie Gail Martin, Mr. Dickerson’s sis­ter. ​“I respect­ful­ly request that his sen­tence be changed to life in prison where hope­ful­ly he can con­tin­ue to help oth­ers and make amends for his past crimes.”

According to his clemen­cy appli­ca­tion, Mr. Speer was beat­en as a child and forced to take drugs by his father, burned with cig­a­rettes by his step­fa­ther, and sex­u­al­ly abused by a teenage acquain­tance. His step­fa­ther lat­er mur­dered his moth­er. His appli­ca­tion notes that Mr. Speer expe­ri­enced learn­ing dis­abil­i­ties and severe bul­ly­ing while grow­ing up, lead­ing him to des­per­ate­ly seek inclu­sion from his peers. At 16, old­er boys con­vinced Mr. Speer to mur­der the father of a friend. Mr. Speer was tried as an adult and received a life sen­tence. He became an imme­di­ate tar­get of phys­i­cal abuse once he entered prison, includ­ing an attack in which part of his ear was bit­ten off. He then sought pro­tec­tion from a gang, which ordered him to mur­der anoth­er pris­on­er — Mr. Dickerson. The jury returned a ver­dict of death with­out ever hear­ing about Mr. Speer’s violent upbringing.

In 2022, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice ini­ti­at­ed the ​“Faith Based Program” for men on death row, ​“based on the belief that indi­vid­u­als, no mat­ter their past, can change if giv­en the right tools and oppor­tu­ni­ty to do so.” The TDCJ select­ed Mr. Speer for its inau­gur­al class after a rig­or­ous appli­ca­tion process. ​“I was look­ing around my cell and real­ly com­ing to the real­iza­tion of my poor choic­es and poor deci­sions and that I don’t have the answer,” said Mr. Speer. ​“And, because of that, I cried out to God.” In the pro­gram, Mr. Speer par­tic­i­pat­ed in up to 30 hours of study and com­mu­ni­ty dis­cus­sion per week about reli­gion, repen­tance, and respon­si­bil­i­ty. Mr. Speer grad­u­at­ed from the pro­gram in 2023 with honors. 

This year, Mr. Speer was appoint­ed as the first-ever pris­on­er Coordinator for the pro­gram, in which he men­tors and min­is­ters to oth­er death row pris­on­ers, teach­es class­es, and medi­ates con­flicts. Fellow pris­on­ers report that he has deesca­lat­ed oth­ers from vio­lence on mul­ti­ple occa­sions. Mr. Speer also deliv­ers ser­mons over the prison’s radio each morn­ing. Even as his exe­cu­tion date approach­es, TDCJ has grant­ed Mr. Speer unprece­dent­ed per­mis­sion to leave ​“Death Watch” restric­tive hous­ing so that he may con­tin­ue teach­ing class­es and men­tor­ing stu­dents in the pro­gram. Chaplain’s Assistant Joseph Lee describes Mr. Speer as an ​“instru­ment of change for oth­er incar­cer­at­ed men,” whose ​“wit­ness of repen­tance and resti­tu­tion would have a pow­er­ful effect on the men inside, bring­ing peace and hope to men who are often short of both.” Fellow death row res­i­dent David Renteria con­firmed that effect, writ­ing 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.” He observes that Mr. Speer’s ​“tes­ti­mo­ny has caused many of us to look deep­er when it comes to repent­ing of our own bro­ken paths.” A group of evan­gel­i­cal lead­ers wrote in sup­port of Mr. Speer that ​“all life is sacred, from our begin­ning through our nat­ur­al death,” and a grant of clemen­cy would ​“hon­or this Christian cul­ture of life.”

According to Mr. Speer’s clemen­cy peti­tion, he hopes to spend the rest of his life serv­ing as a Field Minister ​“to help oth­ers by shar­ing his sto­ry of hard­ship, sin, repen­tance, and peace­mak­ing.” As an alter­na­tive, he asks for a 180-day reprieve to fin­ish teach­ing his cur­rent course in the pro­gram so he may ​“keep the promise” to his stu­dents — ​“to help shep­herd them from the dark­ness into the light.”

The State of Texas argued mul­ti­ple times in court that it sought Mr. Speer’s exe­cu­tion date in the inter­est of the vic­tims, but nev­er con­tact­ed Ms. Martin, the victim’s sis­ter. Ms. Martin first heard of the exe­cu­tion from Mr. Speer’s legal team in September. Mr. Speer’s attor­neys report­ed that, on hear­ing of Ms. Martin’s oppo­si­tion, the State has said that it will con­tin­ue to pur­sue the exe­cu­tion date against her wishes.