Huntsville, Texas

Within eight days in February, Texas executed two men, one innocent and the other disabled with serious mental illnesses, which brings Texas’s total state killings to 593 since the Supreme Court of the U.S. allowed executions to resume in 1976.

Steven Nelson had always proclaimed his innocence, saying he was the lookout driver and not the killer, but was convicted under Texas’s Law of Parties. After the legal lynching of Nelson, an African American man, on Feb. 5, his spiritual adviser spoke to the crowd of activists protesting the execution.

Rev. Jeff Hood said Nelson told him to let it be known that he didn’t go quietly: “He was on a gurney and wheeled to the transport van to the death house. He had bandages on his arms that he didn’t have this morning when we visited. He said to tell everybody outside that they didn’t fail, because their work gave him the will to fight.”

Hood told the crowd: “The people who participated in this [execution] tonight will go home and think they have done something righteous. There is nothing righteous about killing people. There’s nothing righteous about strapping someone to a gurney and making them defenseless and then killing them.

Hood said:  “Sometimes we can’t stop executions. Sometimes the state is too powerful. But Nelson said that because he knew you all were behind him, that gave him the will to fight. So, it is our job, when we go from this place tonight to continue to fight.

“In this time of Trump, we have to resist. They are demonizing people, trying to take away this and that right. The way that Steven resisted tonight showed that he remains human. Steven Nelson matters. So often in difficult times ministers talk about peace. But God also gives us rage in the midst of executions, in the midst of injustice. Each of you go with your rage and fight back, speak out, stand up and change the world with your rage.”

Texas execution of people with mental illness

Eight days later, Texas executed a man known for alternately giving up his appeals and asking to be executed to then reinstating his appeals and continuing to fight. Richard Tabler was abandoned by attorneys and then later represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). His mental illnesses began as a

child. Tabler’s prison record includes at least two instances of attempted suicide.

Despite the World Psychiatric Association’s position that ​“the death penalty should not be imposed on any person with mental illness or developmental and intellectual disabilities, and no person with mental illness or developmental and intellectual disability should be executed,” Texas executed Tabler on Feb. 13.

A large and diverse crowd of people protested outside of the death house in Huntsville on the unusually cold night. A rather non-traditional-looking group was the Bikers for Christ who said that one of their members visited Tabler and guided him spiritually. A group of Quakers from Austin, Texas, was there with one of their members who had visited and written to Tabler for over 15 years.

Groups which attend all execution protests are: the Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement, the Prison Show from Houston’s Pacifica Radio; Texas Death Row Angels; reporters for Execution Watch, another Pacifica program that does a live program for each Texas execution; and the Houston Peace and Justice Center. Many independent activists were also present.

The ACLU released a statement Feb. 13, lamenting Tabler’s execution, claiming he had reformed in the years since the murders to be a “mentor and source of support for those around him.” Tabler also reportedly led a ministry for death row inmates.

“Today, Texas plans to execute a man who spent the last two decades proving his capacity for growth, remorse and redemption.” said Claudia Van Wyk, senior counsel at the ACLU’s Capital Punishment Project.

Many people were familiar with Tabler, because in 2008 when contraband cell phones were very common in Texas prisons, including on death row, he used a contraband phone to call then-Senator John Whitmire, who chaired the Texas Senate’s Criminal Justice Committee, to ask for his help in getting his mother in to visit. Whitmire was so enraged that he had every one of the over 120 prisons put on lockdown in an attempt to find all contraband phones.

SCOTUS refused to halt execution

Since 1984, the United Nations has said countries should not impose or execute people with mental illness, intellectual disability or ​“any form of mental disorder.”

Both executions were of men with several disabilities. Because every person on Texas death row lives in solitary confinement, mental illness and suicide are common. For those who arrive on the row without mental illness, it can soon develop due to the extreme isolation.

According to the ACLU, people placed in solitary exhibit a variety of negative psychological reactions, including severe and chronic depression; self‐mutilation; decreased brain function; hallucinations; and revenge fantasies. The ACLU appeal argued that Tabler’s attorneys ignored a psychological exam that determined he had a “deep and severe constellation of mental illnesses” that had been ignored since childhood. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to halt his execution.

Tabler made a moving last statement, addressing the family of his victims who were witnessing, by offering his regrets, while thanking his family and supporters for “allowing me the opportunity to show you that I can change and become a better man.”

The one bright spot for Nelson and his spouse, Uno Dubois, who visited him and witnessed his execution, was that her service dog was allowed to accompany her into the visitation room and was also with her as she witnessed Texas murder Nelson. Many were surprised at Texas making this accommodation, but others realized if she had been denied this right and she had sued the state, it would have delayed the execution. If there’s one truism about Texas, the state does not want to stop any executions!

Statistics vary depending on which organization is asked, but people with physical and psychological disabilities are present in prisons in large numbers — over 40%. No person, regardless of ability, should ever be executed by any state or any country. The injustices in prisons and on death rows are much bigger crimes than those allegedly committed by the incarcerated!