NEW: After Texas death row inmate Steven Butler’s lawyers spent almost 2 decades saying he was too intellectually disabled to execute, yesterday prosecutors finally agreed he should not be on the row.
Butler was convicted of a 1986 killing at a dry cleaner, and has been on death row since 1988 -- much of that time in near-total isolation. houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-t…
Tests show his IQ is between 67 and 77. He’s been unable to balance a checkbook, obey common signs or fill out basic paperwork on his own:
He also had some erratic behavior during trial, talking to himself and accusing his lawyers of conspiring against him.
He first raised his intellectual disability claims in 2003, and the court held a hearing but said he was not ID. A few years later they reconsidered because of the use of a since-discredited expert witness for the state.
But the court said no that time, too. Then came the Moore case, which forced Texas (over AG Ken Paxton’s objection) to update its standards for evaluating intellectual disability. chron.com/news/houston-t…
Since, then Butler's case has move slow due in part to COVID - but when the state’s new expert evaluated him, the expert said he DOES have such intellectual disability that he should not be executed.
The Harris County DA said ok, and sided with the defense in asking for Butler to be considered ID.
That won’t mean he walks free, but it could mean that he gets off death row – if the trial court judge and the CCA agree.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
The Texas prison system announced NINE employee covid deaths in the past 16 days. Five just since last Friday.
How many prisoners died in that time? NO CLUE. They haven't updated prison deaths since JANUARY.
Some of the staff who died had a lot of years in with the agency, but some of them are so much younger than the deaths earlier in the pandemic. Like this guy was 38 -- and died three days after testing positive.
Wondering how Texas prisons have fared in the storm?
Officials say 1 unit on generator power, several others had outages but are back online, another had a power line down and another had trees blown over nearby. No flooding or sewage probs reported. More details below:
The unit still on generator power is Wayne Scott. CONFUSINGLY, the old Scott Unit closed last year but now another unit (Jester IV psych unit in Richmond) was renamed as Scott Unit.
The Stringfellow Unit in Rosharon & all the Jester Units in Richmond (all SW of Houston) had outages, but are now back up and running. Stringfellow, btw, was one of the units that had to evacuate for Harvey.
chron.com/news/houston-t…
When I got arrested, Gawker took a swimsuit pic off my FB &wrote: "Cornell senior smuggled heroin, posed in bikini, edited Cornell Daily Sun"
It was completely misogynist clickbait.
I am not glad they're back. But I hope they do better this time
I think we can all understand why this was problematic, but to be clear: It was a 3-year-old candid picture of me - a nobody - and they put it in the headline of their story, framing the existing shaming of a drug arrest in a way that invited sexist commentary.
A few months after he went to prison, a dentist pulled all of Nicholas Bailey’s teeth. “I’m in pain,” he wrote, begging for dentures. “I cannot eat because I have no teeth.” My latest column w/@NBCNews is a look at dental care in Michigan prisons. Thread: themarshallproject.org/2021/07/22/i-h…
This story is mostly about Michigan, but the basics are something I remember well: Even when it’s actually adequate, prison and jail medical and dental care is hard to get. That was something that shocked me when I got locked up myself. nbcnews.com/news/us-news/m…
Back in 2011, I was in jail in upstate NY when a chunk of my tooth fell out. The jail had a rule that they wouldn’t treat cavities, so they gave me a choice: Get it pulled or be in pain.
It’s not clear yet how many they have already moved there, but previously they said they expected around 1000 total. I have asked if any other units are earmarked for this same repurposing and have not gotten an official response on that.
#breaking There were two homicides in two Texas prisons this past weekend, including one in which a group of 7+ men allegedly killed another man right there in the cell block in front of cameras. Here’s what I know so far:
The first of the killings was at the Beto Unit, a maximum-security unit in Palestine. It happened around 5:30 when staff found a 39-year-old Black man unresponsive in the cell block. He was taken to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
This is the one where there were multiple people involved – at least seven. Unclear how they killed him.
Prison officials did not say whether it was on camera but other sources are telling me it was, and that it is suspected to be gang-related.