In 2002, the Supreme Court banned the death penalty for mentally retarded defendants. Still, Texas finds a way.
Elroy Chester was the worst one-man crime wave Port Arthur had ever seen.
Paroled in 1997 from prison, where he was serving time for burglary, Chester, then 27, embarked on an 11-month crime spree – more than two dozen crimes, including multiple burglaries, sexual assaults, shootings, and, ultimately, in February 1998, the murder of a well-liked local fireman.
On that occasion, Chester walked through the unlocked front door of a residence where 17-year-old Erin DeLeon was home alone with her one-year-old son. Chester held her at gunpoint as she collected from around the home various items of value; when her 14-year-old sister Claire arrived home accompanied by her boyfriend, Chester made each of them strip and blindfolded all three with duct tape before raping Erin. He then made each of the girls perform oral sex on him. When the girls' uncle, Willie Ryman, a local firefighter, stopped by, Chester shot him and ran out of the home. Claire locked the door behind Chester; after trying unsuccessfully to re-enter the home, Chester fled the scene.
When he was arrested, Chester confessed to Ryman's murder and to assaulting Erin and Claire in addition to a host of other crimes. Ultimately, he pleaded guilty to capital murder in connection with Ryman's death, forgoing a trial and instead leaving only his fate – death or, at the time, life in prison with the (very unlikely) possibility of parole – in the hands of a jury.
To say that Chester was a difficult client to defend would be an understatement; transcripts from the sentencing hearing reflect that Chester had little, if any, rapport with his defense counsel. Against the advice of his attorney, Chester opted to testify on his own behalf, delivering a rambling and inflammatory rant wherein he claimed variously that he hadn't acted alone in committing his many crimes, and that if sentenced to death he would have his "homeboys" on the outside commit additional crimes in his honor, and that he should've killed additional victims – including a 10-year-old who had survived his attack, and a police officer who had previously arrested him for burglary. He refused to allow his attorneys to present any witnesses that might help mitigate his culpability, says attorney Susan Orlansky, pro bono counsel from an Alaskan law firm, who currently represents him. "He doesn't get what's important," she says of Chester's ability in 1998 to grasp the gravity of his legal situation. "He tells his lawyer not to put on a mitigating case."
And that is a key issue, because Chester is mentally retarded, says Orlansky, a circumstance that should make him ineligible for execution, based on a 2002 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court barring execution of the mentally impaired as cruel and unusual punishment. "He has a compelling case for mental retardation," she says. "I think the evidence is, essentially, undisputed." (Although the term "mentally retarded" is steadily being replaced by "intellectually disabled" in the general lexicon, it remains the standard term in matters of criminal liability.)
Chester repeatedly scored below 70 on IQ tests – the generally accepted upper limit for mental impairment; spent almost his entire childhood in special education classes; never learned to read, to shop or cook, or to live on his own, or even to distinguish among colors, according to court testimony; and was placed in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice's Mentally Retarded Offenders Program during his previous stays in the pen. Nonetheless, the courts have repeatedly determined that Chester has not proven he is mentally retarded, and is thus eligible for execution – a sentence the state intends to carry out on April 24. [Update: After this story went to press, Chester's execution date was postponed to June 12, due to a "technical defect" in the death warrant documentation.]
Source: Austin Chronicle, Jordan Smith, Fri., April 19, 2013