Texas: Mays ruled competent for execution

The question of whether convicted murderer Randall Mays is competent to be executed has been answered.

On Monday, senior state visiting District Judge Joe D. Clayton found Mays competent to be executed by the state of Texas.

Mays, 58, of Payne Springs, was convicted and sentenced to death for the 2007 murder of Henderson County Sheriff’s Deputy Tony Ogburn. Mays also killed Investigator Paul Habelt and wounded Deputy Kevin Harris.

The original execution date scheduled for March 18, 2015, was stayed by the Court of Criminal Appeals. The appellate court justices found Mays made “a substantial showing that he is incompetent to be executed” and ordered further competency hearings, including the appointment of mental-health experts.

In August, Clayton conducted a hearing in the Henderson County 392nd District Court.

"The state of Texas has afforded Randall Wayne Mays every opportunity and resource to contest his conviction and sentence over the last decade," Henderson County District Attorney Mark Hall said. "That includes what I consider to be this last-ditch effort to claim that he is incompetent and does not have a rational understanding of why he was to be executed.”

“In determining the credibility of all witnesses, the court considered their observed attitudes, their interest in the outcome, their relationship with the parties, if any, and the probability or improbability of their testimony," Clayton said, “The court has read and considered over 130 pages of writing by the defendant while on death row. Most of the letters were to (Mays’) mother, other family members and friends. Nowhere in the correspondence did I see any sign of defendant’s obsession with wind energy that Dr. Woods and Dr. Agharkar referred to. The few times this subject was ever mentioned was as a suggestion for ways to save on household electric bills.”

Dr. George Woods and Dr. Bhushand Agharka testified Mays to be incompetent to be executed. The third psychologist, Dr. Randall Price, found Mays competent to be executed.

During closing arguments at the competency hearing, Hall said he was not buying the paranoid defense.

The district attorney asked the judge to look at all of the evidence presented — not just the health-care professionals — to find Mays competent to be executed.

Clayton noted in his ruling that less than one month prior to the original execution date, Mays wrote a detailed letter to his sister regarding the cost of necessary material needed to build “the wood box” and gave information on where to obtain the supplies. In the same letter, Mays informed his sister of the burial plots bought for the Mays family in Dunbar cemetery.

“During the course of three days of hearings, and one-half day of arguments, the court was able to observe the defendant’s interaction with his counsel throughout the time,” Clayton said. “The defendant and his counsel had a steady stream of written notes passed between them. The defendant appeared to be fully participating in the hearing as much as he physically could.”

Clayton said after consideration of all of the credible evidence, he concluded that Mays failed to meet his burden by a preponderance of evidence, and the court rules as follows:

Randall Mays is competent to be executed pursuant to TCCP article 46.05 and the guidelines set forth in Panetti and Battaglia:

• Randall Mays has a rational understanding that he is to be executed and that his execution is imminent.

• Randall Mays has a rational understanding of the reason for which he will be executed.

• While Randall Mays does have some form of mental illness, it does not deprive him of the rational understanding of the connection between his crime and the punishment received.

Under Texas law, a defendant is incompetent to be executed if he does not understand that he is to be executed and that his execution is imminent and he does not understand the reason for his execution.

“I appreciate the fact that Judge Clayton listened intently to the three and a half days of testimony and argument in August on this issue, and was clearly not convinced,” Hall said. “We are one giant step forward in seeing justice done in this case, and the lawful and appropriate sentence Mays received finally carried out.”

Hall said he will ask the judge to set an execution date. He expects an appeal to be filed.

Source: Athens Daily Review, Kathi Nailling, October 2, 2017

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but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde