A Henderson County court will be asked to determine if an inmate on death row for a 2007 double murder is mentally competent enough to legally be executed.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals continued its stay of execution Wednesday for Randall Mays, who murdered a sheriff's office investigator and deputy in a shootout. He was scheduled to die in March, but the court intervened after his attorneys argued that his competency has not fully been evaluated.

A 2007 U.S. Supreme Court ruling bars execution of inmates who do not understand that they are about to be put to death and why they were condemned.

According to court documents, Mays told an attorney in February that he heard voices connected to "evil spirits" and could not explain why he was on death row.

Mays has a history of mental illness dating back to 1983, when the 56-year-old was involuntarily committed to Terrell State Hospital, court documents show. He was described as "actively psychotic," delusional and combative.

Mays was returned to the state-supported hospital in 1985 by law enforcement, who found him under the influence of crystal methamphetamine and experiencing "auditory hallucinations."

On May 17, 2007, several Henderson County sheriff's deputies responded to a domestic violence call at a home in Payne Springs. Mays and his wife, Candis, were having an argument.

When a deputy tried to arrest Mays, he retreated into his home, emerged with a rifle and later began shooting, drawing more deputies to the scene. They returned fire, but Mays killed Inspector Paul Steven Habelt and Deputy Tony Price Ogburn, and wounded Deputy Kevin Harris. Mays eventually surrendered after being shot.

After his 2007 arrest for the double murder, Mays was sent to East Texas Medical Center to be treated for his gunshot wound from the confrontation. Nurses said he at one point spoke to someone who was not present, and at another "he was lying in bed screaming for help and stating that he thought people were trying to kill him and that he thought they had killed his wife."

After that stay, Mays was discharged to Smith County Jail, where staff documented that he suffered from mental illness. He later was diagnosed with Organic Brain Syndrome, which is described as a precursor to dementia.

At trial, Mays expert and lay witnesses testified with similar examples that he showed signs of mental illness.

Dissenting from the court's 7-2 decision to extend his stay, Presiding Judge Sharon Keller said in an opinion Mays has provided evidence showing mental illness, but none that shows he doesn't understand that he is about to be executed and why. Judge Lawrence Meyers joined Keller's opinion.

^{*Correction appended}

On July 10, Illinois resident Sandra Bland was pulled over in Prairie View by a Texas Department of Public Safety trooper for failing to signal a lane change. 

The encounter soon became heated, and the trooper arrested Bland. Three days later, she was found hanged to death in a Waller County Jail cell.

Her death – ruled a suicide – has left loved ones questioning that conclusion, mobilized social justice organizations and angered lawmakers, who denounced jail safety standards and mental health checks. 

But Bland's death alone did not drive conversations about criminal justice in Texas. In 2015, in-custody deaths in jails and a prison guard's killing powered discussions on inmate and prison employee safety. At the same time, Texas was criticized for the lengths it reportedly went through to find execution drugs for death row inmates, while concerns about mental illness in the justice system made a bipartisan comeback.

Here's a list of some of the top stories this year in criminal justice.

1. "Texas Seven" member executed

Donald Keith Newbury, 52, a member of the notorious "Texas Seven" gang of prison fugitives, was executed in February for the murder of Irving police Officer Aubrey Hawkins. Newbury was serving a 99-year sentence for aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon when he and six other inmates staged a brazen escape from the John B. Connally Unit near Kenedy, on Dec. 13, 2000, after overpowering 14 prison employees.

2. Rookie prison guard killed escorting violent inmate

Correctional Officer Timothy Davison, 47, was escorting inmate Billy Joel Tracy on July 15 inside the Barry B. Telford Unit in New Boston when Tracy took an object from the officer and used it as a weapon. Davison suffered serious injuries and was transported to Christus St. Michael Hospital in Texarkana, where he later died. Davison's slaying was the first of a guard since 2007, when 59-year-old Susan Canfield was killed during an escape attempt at the Wynne Unit in Huntsville involving two inmates who were later recaptured.

3. Truancy no longer a crime

House Bill 2398, which went into effect in September, effectively ended the practice of jailing students for skipping school. Bill supporters argued that criminalized truancy disproportionately affected minority and poor students. Criminal justice reformers hailed the measure as representative of a shift in law-and-order politics.

4. Law enforcement, courts evaluate mixed DNA

A new set of standards for crime labs analyzing evidence involving more than one person's DNA has the courts and law enforcement struggling to come up with a consistent way to evaluate evidence. So far there's no proof that the more conservative standard adopted by the Texas Department of Public Safety crime labs and others used by state prosecutors could eliminate a suspect already charged with a crime. But the new standard could reduce the likelihood a suspect's DNA is the only source of the material found at a crime scene.

5. Sandra Bland dies in Waller County Jail

Bland's death, ruled a suicide by hanging, has galvanized her family, friends and social justice organizations, who say she should not have been arrested. Her death also cast a harsh spotlight on the state's county jails, raising questions about how a known suicidal inmate could have been left unmonitored.

Lawmakers met in September to demand answers and change in how jails handle people with mental and emotional problems. Since then, the biggest change has been creating a new jail inmate intake form for county jails to better determine their mental state on the front end of the criminal justice system.

6. Mentally ill man suspected of killing Harris County deputy

When Dan Goforth's was gunned down while pumping gas, the incident highlighted the criminal justice system's failure to identify and help a man with a history of mental problems and an arrest record dating back to 2005. Goforth's and Bland's deaths became rallying cries for inmate safety and procedures to route the mentally ill to treatment instead of incarceration.

7. Execution drugs, legally secret

For the last four years, Texas has relied on a variety of makeshift drug combinations for its executions of inmates. But as manufacturers have put more restrictions on the drugs in an attempt to keep them from prison systems, the manufactured drug supply has dwindled. In 2011, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice turned to in-state compounding pharmacies, which can mix certain drugs on site. On Sept. 1, a new law went into effect to keep the names of execution drug providers secret. The legislation, Senate Bill 1679, was intended to protect the companies providing the drugs from harassment and threats. 

8. Panetti continues 20-year fight to avoid execution

Scott Panetti's fate has been in and out of court since he shot and killed his second wife’s parents in 1992. After a capital murder conviction and death sentence, his appeals have explored a history of severe mental illness — his first schizophrenia diagnosis came in 1978 — and tales of relentless, religious delusions that have persisted over the years. Now, his case is before a federal appeals court, which is weighing whether Panetti's mental state should be re-examined.

9. "Bernie" returns to courtroom

Convicted murderer Bernhardt Tiede II, better known as Bernie to those who saw the eponymous film that helped win his freedom, returned to an East Texas courtroom in October to fight the state's efforts to send him back to prison.

While Tiede's guilt is not in doubt, his life sentence for killing 81-year-old Marjorie Nugent in 1996 has been dismissed. Tiede's attorney presented evidence that he was sexually abused as a child, a mitigating factor that might have persuaded the jury to give him a lighter sentence had it been known at the time of his trial. The new trial starts next spring.

*Correction: This story originally said state lawmakers raised the age for offenders to be treated as adults from 17 to 18. That provision did not pass.

A Waller County grand jury will meet again Wednesday to continue considering charges in connection with the arrest and death of Sandra Bland.

Bland, a black woman from Illinois, was found hanged in a Waller County Jail cell on July 13, 2015, three days after being arrested during a traffic stop. Her death, ruled a suicide, galvanized loved ones, social justice organizations and critics across the country, raising questions about race and policing, jail safety standards and mental health awareness.

In December, the grand jury decided not to indict anyone for Bland’s death. But the door remains open for other charges, special prosecutor Darrell Jordan said, though details of what the grand jury is examining are confidential.

Unclear is the fate of Department of Public Safety trooper Brian Encinia, the officer who stopped Bland in Prairie View. Dashboard camera footage shows Encinia and Bland in a heated argument before the two struggled as she was arrested. DPS chief Steve McCraw has said Encinia violated several protocols when engaging Bland, but the agency and the trooper's attorney say they are immune to a federal lawsuit under the 11th Amendment. Encinia remains on administrative duty.

Bland’s mother, Geneva Reed-Veal, is suing Encinia, the Department of Public Safety, Waller County and two jailers who interacted with her daughter, claiming that Bland was denied her constitutional rights, which led to her death. The wrongful death case, filed in federal court in Houston, is set for trial in early 2017.

State lawmakers monitoring the case have asked for calm as the grand jury meets.

Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas, said he understands the Bland family’s frustration over transparency during the grand jury process but added that the panel and the prosecutors have racial diversity.

Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, said in a statement that Waller County and the state should review the “systematic problems” that led to Bland’s death and look for policy solutions.

“This includes police training in de-escalation techniques and community policing. It means policies like pre-arrest and pre-trial diversion, prohibiting arrests for minor offenses like Class C misdemeanors, and encouraging greater use of Texas’ cite-and-release statute,” he said. “It means protecting defendants' constitutional rights by appointing counsel at the earliest stages and expanding and funding public defender offices.”

^{Editor's note: This story has been updated to reflect the execution.}

In Texas' first execution of 2016, a man convicted in a fatal strangling and robbery was executed in Huntsville Wednesday night.

Richard Masterson, 43, was declared dead at 6:53 p.m. from a lethal injection of pentobarbital, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. He was sentenced to death for the 2001 strangulation of Darin Honeycutt in Harris County, and served almost 14 years on death row.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court both denied last-minute requests for stays of execution Wednesday.

“Sending me to a better place. I am alright with this," Masterson said in his final words. "You have to live and die by the choices that we make. I have made mine."

Masterson met Honeycutt at a bar, and the two left together early on Jan. 26, 2001. Honeycutt’s body was found in his apartment the next day, and his car was gone, according to court documents.

Masterson was arrested Feb. 6 in Florida. He originally confessed to intentionally killing Honeycutt but later claimed that the death was accidental, saying Honeycutt had asked to be choked while they were having sex.

The medical examiner in the case testified during the trial that the death was caused by intentional strangulation, and the jury found Masterson guilty and sentenced him to death in May 2002.

The day before Masterson’s execution date, his lawyers filed last-minute requests for stays and new hearings in the U.S. Supreme Court and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, after already having received several denials.

In their latest appeal at the state level, Masterson’s lawyers asked for a new hearing to challenge the constitutionality of a statute that allows the state to keep execution drug manufacturers secret. The Court of Criminal Appeals denied the request Wednesday morning.

In an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, attorney Gregory Gardner said that Honeycutt died of a heart attack after having sex with Masterson. Gardner said that Paul Shrode, the medical examiner, wrongly classified the death as a homicide.

In the same year as Honeycutt's death, Shrode was written up by the Harris County Medical Examiner's Office for wrongly determining a cause of death. In 2010, he was fired from his position as El Paso County chief medical examiner after a death row inmate in Ohio was granted clemency due to issues related to Shrode's testimony in the case.

These incidents and the fact that the state did not reveal them to Masterson, Gardner argued, was cause for a stay and hearing. The request was denied by the U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday afternoon, allowing the execution to move forward.

“Richard was an innocent man,” Gardner said. “If [he] was not poor, he could have afforded attorneys who would have handled his case properly. He would be free today.”

The execution was the first of nine scheduled for the first six months of the year, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, with the second scheduled for James Freeman next Wednesday. Thirteen men were put to death by the state of Texas in 2015.

^{Editor's note: This story has been updated to reflect the execution.}

A man convicted in the 2007 shooting death of a Texas game warden in Wharton County was executed Wednesday evening.

James Garrett Freeman, 35, shot and killed Justin Hurst, a game warden with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, following a 90-minute chase on country roads in the early morning of March 17, 2007, according to court documents. It was Hurst’s 34th birthday.

Freeman was injected with a lethal dose of pentobarbital and died at 6:30 p.m., according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. He declined to give a final statement.

It was the second execution in Texas this year and the fourth in the United States. Eight more executions are scheduled in the state through July. Texas executed 13 people last year.

Freeman was first approached by law enforcement after he shot and killed a possum from the side of the road, according to court documents. Another game warden patrolling the area heard the shot, and when he activated his emergency lights, Freeman sped away.

Law enforcement from multiple agencies took part in the high-speed chase before Freeman ran over a set of spikes that officers had set up near a cemetery. Dashboard camera video shows he exited the car shooting at officers with a handgun, returned to his car while officers shot back, then came back out firing an assault rifle.

Hurst came out from cover to fire at Freeman and was shot and killed. Freeman was also hit by several bullets, including one that penetrated his leg, Wharton County District Attorney Ross Kurtz said.

“Justin was very loved and respected, as is his family who remains in Wharton,” Kurtz said. “It was a great loss.”

Freeman was the first person to be executed from Wharton County since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, according to TDCJ. There have been other capital murder cases in the county since Freeman's case in 2008, but none have sought the death penalty, Kurtz said. The county has a population of about 41,000.

Freeman's lawyers said the unique thing about this case was Freeman's lack of a violent criminal history. He was on probation for a DWI at the time of the shooting, court documents said, but had never faced violent charges. During appeals, Freeman argued his good behavior in jail and lack of violent history indicated he would not be a future danger to society, an element that was necessary to sentence someone to death.

"The most difficult thing for people to grapple with on all sides of this case is the lack of criminal history in this fellow’s background and the extraordinary violence of this event," said Patrick McCann, Freeman’s lawyer for his direct appeal to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. “It’s so hard for people to look at the video of this encounter and not think that this was done by someone with a violent, vicious history.”

In Freeman’s last appeal, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review his case on January 11. On Monday, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles voted not to recommend a commuted sentence, a common occurrence immediately before a scheduled execution.

Mark Anthony Gonzalez arrived on death row last week after being convicted in the shooting death of Bexar County Sheriff Sgt. Kenneth Vann. With his arrival and the executions of Richard Masterson and James Freeman in January, there are now 252 people in Texas living with a death sentence.

_{Editor's note: This story has been updated throughout.}

HUNTSVILLE — After 24 years on Texas death row, a re-sentencing trial and an unsuccessful escape attempt, Gustavo Julian Garcia was executed Tuesday night. He was 43.

Garcia was sentenced to death in 1992 after confessing to the murders of two clerks during separate robberies, according to court documents. On Tuesday, his only personal witness was his spiritual advisor. Family members of one of the victims were also present.

At 6:10 p.m., witnesses shuffled from the clear, warm night into the death house, where Garcia was already strapped to a gurney. He was asked if he had any last words.

“Yes, sir,” he replied. “To my family, to my mom, I love you. God bless you, stay strong.”

A lethal dose of pentobarbital began streaming into the IV already inserted into his tattooed arm. Garcia, in prison whites and black-rimmed glasses, looked straight at the ceiling with a calm expression on his face. A minute later, he yawned and his eyelids drooped. At 6:26 p.m., he was pronounced dead.

It was the third execution in Texas this year, and the sixth in the United States.

In December 1990, Garcia, 18 at the time, and 15-year-old Christopher Vargas entered a liquor store with a sawed-off shotgun, according to court documents. They stole money and beer, and Garcia shot the clerk, Craig Turski, in the stomach and head.

The two weren’t arrested until a month later, when they were caught at a Texaco where another clerk, 18-year-old Gregory Martin, had been shot and killed. Garcia confessed to the murders, and he was sentenced to death for Turski’s death in January 1992, according to court documents. He was never tried in Martin’s case.

Martin’s sister, brother-in-law and friend attended Garcia’s execution. No one related to Turski was there. Garcia’s spiritual advisor, Father Clifton Labbe, stood at the front of the viewing area and stared at Garcia’s face.

Garcia’s long stretch on death row wasn’t uneventful. More than six years into his sentence, on Thanksgiving night 1998, Garcia took part in an escape attempt that ended with the death of another death row inmate, Martin Gurule, according to the Dallas Morning News.

The inmates crept under a fence, climbed a roof and sprinted across the prison yard, the Morning News reported. Garcia and five other inmates surrendered on the lawn after guards began shooting at them, but Gurule managed to get over the outer fence. He was found dead a week later, apparently drowned in a nearby creek.

About two years later, then-Texas Attorney General John Cornyn discovered that psychologist Walter Quijano, who testified at Garcia’s original sentencing trial, had claimed in testimony that Hispanics were more likely to pose a future danger to society, according to court documents. Quijano said he came to that belief because Hispanics were overrepresented in the prison population.

Garcia and several other inmates whose death sentences had been influenced by Quijano's improper testimony were granted new sentencing trials, but Garcia was again sentenced to death in 2001, according to the attorney general’s office.

In August, a Collin County judge set his execution date. His latest appeal to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals was denied Feb. 9, and the U.S. Supreme Court denied his request for a stay and new hearing the next day.

On his final day, Garcia visited with family and friends, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

“He was complacent,” TDCJ spokesman Robert Hurst said.

Texas executed 13 men last year, according to TDCJ. Nine more inmates have executions scheduled through July.

^{Editor's note: This story has been updated.}

Texas prison officials have recommended the firing of a supervisor at the Clements Unit and disciplinary actions against 17 others for failing to conduct required checks on a cell where an inmate was severely beaten. The inmate later died. 

"Our preliminary review has identified areas where policies, unrelated to the homicide, were not being properly followed by certain correctional staff at the prison," said Jason Clark, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. 

Of the 18 Clements Unit correctional officers disciplined, one — Maj. Rowdy Boggs — has been recommended for dismissal, Clark said. The remaining 17 have been disciplined, including suspensions without pay and letters of reprimand, he said. The 3,700-inmate Clements Unit is outside Amarillo.

Clark declined to say how long the assigned cell of inmates Alton Rodgers and Joe Greggs remained unopened and searched before the 31-year-old Rodgers was found unresponsive on Jan. 18. Rodgers, who suffered a skull fracture and bleeding in his brain, died the following day. Clark said a criminal investigation of the case is pending.

TDCJ requires correctional officers to check on inmates every 30 minutes. Twice a day, inmates are required to come to the door of their cells and show their IDs to officers in what is known as a "bed book check."

At least once a month, officers are to enter each cell and search it. 

"They were not appropriately doing those checks," Clark said.

A source with knowledge of the investigation confirmed to The Texas Tribune that the once-a-month cell search was not conducted and that the correctional officers being disciplined had covered up that fact. It is not known if the bed book checks were not completed. 

Clark said the prison system has started a serious incident review to take a closer look at the events surrounding Rodgers' homicide. 

"There was a level of complacency regarding cell checks that was unacceptable," he said.

The Texas Tribune is taking a yearlong look at the issues of border security and immigration, reporting on the reality and rhetoric around these topics. Sign up to get story alerts.

About 4.6 percent of the men and women in Texas prisons are undocumented immigrants with standing requests that they be turned over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement when their sentences are served, according to data released to The Texas Tribune by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

The statistics reflect detainers that ICE has placed on prisoners. Detainers can be placed on immigrants in the country legally or illegally. The Pew Research Center estimates there are 1.7 million undocumented immigrants living in Texas, about 6.3 percent of the state’s total population.

In December 2015, 9,158 Texas prisoners were under ICE detainers, and 6,698 of them were determined by ICE to be undocumented. TDCJ turns inmates with detainers over to federal authorities when they have finished serving their terms, said department spokesman Jason Clark.

Among other findings in the data:

• Mexican nationals account for most of the inmates with ICE detainers. ICE determined that 78 percent of Mexican nationals in Texas prisons are undocumented.
  

• El Salvador and Honduras nationals account for the next greatest numbers of offenders with ICE detainers.
  

• Sexual assault against a child is the most common crime for inmates with ICE detainers. There were 1,731 such cases involving inmates with detainers, and 69 percent of those inmates were determined to be in the country illegally. Homicide is the second most common crime by offenders with ICE detainers.

• There are 21 offenders with ICE detainers on death row, and 12 of those offenders have been determined to be in the country illegally. There are 595 offenders with ICE detainers who have life sentences, and 62 percent of those were determined to be in the country illegally.

• There are 1,875 undocumented inmates with sentences of 21 years or more, including life and death sentences. That’s equal to 1.3 percent of the general state prison population.

The higher number of Mexican prisoners doesn't surprise Alexandre Afanassiev, a Houston immigration attorney at Quan Law Group, given the country's geographic proximity to the United States. 

In 2011, the Obama Administration announced a push to focus its deportation efforts on undocumented immigrants convicted of the most dangerous crimes. Afanassiev pointed to this shift to explain the high number of detainers for prisoners convicted of sexual assault against a child and homicide.

These charges are considered aggravated felonies, and undocumented immigrants convicted of these crimes have virtually no chance of obtaining citizenship, according to Afanassiev.

"The DHS typically waits for the person to finish their sentence before removal process is initiated, which explains why so many people with long sentences or life sentences remain on the list of detainers for a long time," he said. "While there are mechanisms to have a criminal alien to undergo removal proceedings while in criminal detention, they still for the most part end up serving the rest of their sentences before being physically deported."

This story is part of The Texas Tribune's yearlong Bordering on Insecurity project.

Becca Aaronson contributed data analysis to this story.

^{Editor's note: This story has been updated to reflect the execution.}

HUNTSVILLE — Adam Kelly Ward, whom appeals courts had recognized as mentally ill, was executed Tuesday evening for a 2005 shooting death after the U.S. Supreme Court declined his final appeal.

Three friends and a spiritual advisor attended the execution on his behalf, holding hands, silently crying and watching through a glass pane as the 33-year-old Ward slipped out of consciousness. He spoke with his mother and father in the morning, but they did not attend the execution.

Before being injected with a lethal dose of pentobarbital at 6:22 p.m., Ward spoke for about five minutes, thanking his friends and family and wishing peace to the family of his victim, Michael Walker. He also said his execution was an “injustice.”

“This is wrong, what’s happening,” he said. “This is not a capital case; it never was a capital case; I had never intended to do anything.”

He continued talking until he lost consciousness, his eyes shutting behind his black-rimmed glasses.

“I know there’s something else I need to say, but I don’t know,” he paused and then spoke his final words: “I feel it.”

Several minutes later, the warden and a doctor entered the room. The doctor checked his vitals, squinted up at the clock and called his time of death at 6:34 p.m.

After the execution, Walker’s father, Dick Walker, said he felt closure. Walker said he was able to forgive his son’s killer about two years ago, but that Ward still received a just punishment.

“He had a very peaceful death, contrary to what my son had,” said Walker, who was the first responder to his son’s fatal shooting almost eleven years ago.

“Appeal after appeal after appeal has weighed on me physically and emotionally,” Walker said. “I got some closure tonight and that’s what I was praying for.”

Walker’s daughter, Marissa, who was 9 when her father was killed, cried when she spoke of him.

“My daddy was the most amazing person I was blessed to know,” she said. “He had the biggest heart.”

Marissa and her brother came to Huntsville but did not witness the execution with their grandfather. She said flatly that she did not accept the apology offered by Ward on his deathbed.

Ward became the fifth person killed by Texas in 2016. It was the ninth execution in the country this year, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Ward was on death row fewer than nine years, a relatively short term.

On June 13, 2005, Ward shot and killed Walker, a housing and zoning code enforcement officer for the city of Commerce in Hunt County, about 60 miles northeast of Dallas, according to court documents.

The house where Ward, 24 at the time, lived with his father, had been cited numerous times for failing to comply with city codes, the documents state. Walker was taking pictures of the property to record a continuing violation of unsheltered storage while Ward was washing his car in the driveway.

The men began arguing, and Ward sprayed Walker with the hose. Walker called to request help, and Ward went back into the house. Ward’s father told Walker it might be “best if he left the property” but did not tell Walker it was because he believed Ward had a gun in his room, according to court documents.

Ward came back out with a .45-caliber pistol and chased Walker around the city truck and property, shooting at him. Walker was shot nine times, according to the medical examiner.

Ward was charged with intentionally murdering Walker while in the course of committing an obstruction or retaliation, making it a capital murder case. He was convicted and sentenced to death in June 2007.

At his original trial, a psychiatrist said Ward suffered from a psychotic disorder that caused him to “suffer paranoid delusions such that he believes there might be a conspiracy against him and that people might be after him or trying to harm him,” according to court documents.

Appeals courts recognized Ward’s mental illness, describing his aggressiveness as a young child and delusional tendencies by sixth grade. By 15, the federal district court where he filed his appeal said, Ward “interpreted neutral things as a threat or personal attack.”

“Adam Kelly Ward has been afflicted with mental illness his entire life,” the federal district court observed on appeal.

Still, state and federal courts have rejected Ward’s appeals, saying his mental illness did not “rise to the level” of making him ineligible for the death penalty, according to a concurring opinion by Judge Elsa Alcala issued last Monday, when the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rejected Ward’s last petition with the state.

“As is the case with intellectual disability, the preferred course would be for legislatures rather than courts to set standards defining the level at which a mental illness is so severe that it should result in a defendant being categorically exempt from the death penalty,” Alcala said.

Ward’s lawyers filed appeals with the U.S. Supreme Court after the rejection from the state last week, claiming his mental illness should make him ineligible for the death penalty. The state responded that his claims were without merit. 

_{Editor's note: This story has been updated with the news that John Battaglia's execution has been stayed.}

On a May evening in 2001, a Dallas accountant shot and killed his two daughters, 6-year-old Liberty and 9-year-old Mary Faith, while their mother listened over the phone in shock. Now, on the day of his scheduled execution, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals granted him a stay.

John Battaglia’s latest appeal in federal court asked for a stay of execution and for counsel to be appointed to argue whether he is mentally competent to be executed under standards set by an earlier high court ruling. The state will not appeal the stay, according to the attorney general’s office.

"Battaglia effectively lacked counsel to prepare his claim of incompetency,” the court said in its ruling. "In our view, it would be improper to approve his execution before his newly appointed counsel has time to develop [this claim.] A stay is needed to make Battaglia’s right to counsel meaningful."

About a year and a half before he killed his daughters, Battaglia had beaten his wife, Mary Jean Pearle, during their divorce proceedings and was placed on probation for assault, according to an opinion issued by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. When the divorce was finalized, a protective order was issued prohibiting him from harassing Pearle and their daughters.

Around Easter 2001, Battaglia called Pearle, swearing at her and calling her names, court records show. She reported the call to the police, and a warrant was issued for his arrest for violating the order. He learned about the warrant on May 2, the day he killed his children.

That evening, Pearle dropped off Mary Faith and Liberty with their father for a dinner they had planned, according to the court documents. When Pearle arrived at a friend's house, she discovered she had a missed call from Battaglia. She called back, and he answered on speakerphone, telling 9-year-old Mary Faith to “ask her.”

“Mommy, why do you want Daddy to go to jail?" Mary Faith asked, according to her mother.

Pearle pleaded with Battaglia to stop, then heard her daughter say, “No, daddy, please don't, don't do it."

Next came the gunshots.

Police discovered the girls’ bodies in their father’s apartment, each with several gunshot wounds, the appeals court opinion said. Battaglia was arrested at a tattoo parlor later that night, after getting new tattoos representing his daughters; it took four officers to restrain him.

He was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death in April 2002. He has lived on Texas’ death row for almost 14 years.

During his trial, multiple forensic psychiatrists testified that Battaglia had bipolar disorder, according to court documents. Since he has been on death row, he has blamed his daughters’ deaths on different conspiracies, with theories ranging from the Ku Klux Klan to his ex-wife and the Dallas County district attorney.

"His delusions and complete loss of reality prevent him from understanding the connection between his conduct and his pending execution," his attorney, Greg Gardner, said in his latest filing. "Instead, Mr. Battaglia believes he will be executed for the actions of others, who conspired in impossible and sometimes undefined ways to falsely convict and execute him."

Michael Gross, who has also represented Battaglia, compared his letters to those of another Texas death row inmate, Scott Panetti. In one of Panetti’s appeals, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that an inmate cannot be executed unless they are mentally competent enough to understand that they are about to be killed and why.

“Some of the statements Battaglia made were fairly startling,” Gross said of his former client’s letters. “It doesn’t appear that he understands why he’s to be executed.”

With a stay and appointment of counsel, Gardner will make the case that Battaglia lacks the competency required to be executed.

“It will go back to district court,” Gardner said. “I will be appointed and get experts and be able to fully litigate the case.”

This was the first stay issued in Texas this year. There have been five executions in the state in 2016, and nine in the nation. Eight more are scheduled in Texas through August.

^{Editor's note: This story has been updated to reflect the execution.}

Twelve-year-old David Cardenas was still alive when his killer drank the blood from his wounds, according to a videotaped confession Pablo Lucio Vasquez later gave police. After Cardenas' April 1998 murder, his body was mutilated and buried in a shallow grave in Donna, Texas.

Vasquez, who admitted slitting Cardenas’ throat and beating him to death before stealing a ring and chain from the body, was executed Wednesday for the crime. He was 38.

“I started hearing voices in my head, and I told my cousin that somebody was telling me to kill him,” Vasquez said in his confession.

After his final appeals were denied by the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday afternoon, Vasquez was strapped to a gurney in the Huntsville Unit shortly after 6 p.m. He was injected with a lethal dose of pentobarbital and pronounced dead at 6:35 p.m.

In his final statement, he thanked his family and apologized to Cardenas' family.

"This is the only way that I can be forgiven," he said from the execution chamber. "You got your justice right here."

In his last appeal, Vasquez claimed he wasn't given a fair trial because the court “repeatedly excused prospective jurors with sympathies against the death penalty but still qualified to serve,” according to the petition originally filed with the state. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals had already rejected his claim.

In previous unsuccessful appeals, Vasquez's attorneys argued that the murder shouldn't have been considered a capital crime because Vasquez didn't kill Cardenas intending to rob him, according to court documents. They have also claimed that his trial counsel was ineffective for not using an insanity defense.

Sometime in the early morning of April 18, 1998, Cardenas, Vasquez, then 20, and Vasquez’s cousin, 15-year-old Andres Chapa, left a party together. Vasquez had been drinking, smoking marijuana and snorting cocaine, according to his confession.

When they got to the house where Chapa’s mother was staying, Vasquez said he “blacked out” and started hearing voices telling him to kill Cardenas. He struck the boy several times in the back of the head with a pipe.

Vasquez then slit Cardenas’ throat while Chapa began to prepare a grave, Vasquez said.

“He was still saying something, and I picked him up in the air,” Vasquez said in his confession. “The blood was dripping and got it all over my face. So, I don’t know, I mean something just told me drink.”

Vasquez put Cardenas back down, and Chapa hit the boy in the face with a shovel five or six times, according to Vasqeuz’s statement.

The two dug a small hole, placed Cardenas in it, and covered him with grass and pieces of wood.

When police found Cardenas’ body on April 22, he was scalped and missing a foot, arm and part of his other arm. Skin had been cut from his back, court documents stated.

Vasquez confessed to the murder after his arrest and was indicted on capital murder charges for the boy’s death and the theft of his jewelry. He was convicted and sentenced to death in March 1999 in Hidalgo County, just over 17 years ago.

Chapa was also convicted but received a 35-year-sentence because he was a minor. He first became eligible for parole last year but was denied in December. His next shot at parole is in 2020, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

It was the sixth execution of the year in Texas and the 11th in the United States, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Texas prison inmates shouldn't be allowed to have active social media accounts, even if friends or family on the outside actually run them, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice has decided.

Earlier this month, the department updated its criminal handbook to prohibit prisoners from having personal pages on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram run in their name by others. When pages violating the policy are discovered, the department plans to report the violations to the appropriate social network.

"What really prompted the rule was that social media companies now require some sort of specific rule in place that's going to prohibit offenders from maintaining their social media accounts," said department spokesman Jason Clark. "I can tell you increasingly it has become more difficult to ask those companies to take it down. They would come back to us and say, 'You don't have a specific policy that says they can't have it.'"

But the new rule is eliciting free-speech concerns from civil liberties groups and raising questions about how friends or family can advocate for inmates.

"I think that while TDCJ may have sincere goals in trying to implement this new policy, it raises very serious concerns about the stifling of free speech and frankly probably reaches far beyond, in terms of its impact," said. Wayne Krause Yang, legal director for the Texas Civil Rights Project. "We don't know whether TDCJ is going to attempt to exercise, and has the power to enforce, this policy and against whom. If and when it does, it could present some very serious concerns."  

A Facebook representative declined to comment on TDCJ's new prohibition but pointed to the company's policy for removing prisoner accounts when there is "a genuine risk of physical harm." The representative said this risk is demonstrated "by legal authority banning access to social media or by evidence that an inmate’s access to our service poses a real-world security risk."

Facebook has a form on its website to submit requests for inmate accounts to be removed. 

No specific inmate prompted the new policy, Clark said, but he pointed out that the department recently learned convicted Houston serial killer Elmer Wayne Henley was selling trinkets from prison through a Facebook account operated by another individual. 

Clark said analysts with the Office of Inspector General may search for prohibited accounts, but the ban will primarily be enforced when officers within TDCJ catch wind of violations or when victims and their families report them. When an account violating the policy is discovered, Clark said the department will request the network remove it. 

If the department finds evidence that an inmate “initiated someone to start and maintain the page,” he said, they could be subject to disciplinary action for a “rule violation” — the lowest-level violation.

While the measure is aimed at accounts tied specifically to Texas inmates, Krause Yang said the prison system's reach exceeds its legal grasp.

"Typically, prisons control the things inside the prisons. they don't traditionally get to pass prison policies that extend far beyond the bars, and it seems like that's what they're trying to do here," he said. "Those types of policies have a name – they're called laws. They should be considered by the representatives of the people, too, because this policy doesn't just affect the people behind the bars."

State Rep. Joe Moody, vice chair of the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee, said the legislature "deserves an opportunity to weigh in on things like this."

"It's not a small policy change," the El Paso Democrat said. "It’s been a practice for a long time of inmates writing stuff to folks on the outside to post it on social media sites, and that’s been a problem. That’s definitely something that can be addressed legislatively.” 

While he acknowledged the policy could limit inmates’ abilities to express themselves, Moody said it addresses just “one mechanism” inmates use to communicate with the outside world.

“There are other avenues that individuals who are incarcerated are able to raise awareness about their case,” Moody said, pointing to websites and organizations that share things online on behalf of incarcerated individuals. “This is specifically saying you can’t have a person running a social media site in the name of someone who is an inmate.”

Gov. Greg Abbott's office declined a request for comment. 

Uncertain about the policy's impact, Julie Strickland, a grant writer living in Florida who runs two social media sites for a death row inmate, said she has contacted an attorney for advice on handling her Facebook and Twitter accounts. 

Strickland is trying to help free Rodney Reed, convicted of killing a woman during an aggravated sexual assault. Her sites are not run on Reed’s behalf, but they include a community Facebook page titled, “Rodney Reed: Innocent on Texas Death Row" and a connected Twitter account.

Strickland said she thinks the policy is “complete bullshit.” 

“It sounds to me like the only reason they’re implementing this is because their actions in the prison, which they like to keep very private, are just becoming way too public, and they don’t like that,” she said.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has told the Texas Department of Criminal Justice it is tentatively barred from importing a drug used in executions, according to department spokesman Jason Clark. 

Clark said the FDA sent a letter to the department on April 15 informing it of the tentative ban on importing sodium thiopental. 

The department is reviewing the decision and, "exploring its options moving forward regarding the lawful importation of drugs used in the lethal injection process," Clark said.

Texas has been struggling to obtain the drug used in the execution of Death Row inmates. Last year, Buzzfeed reported that Texas and Arizona were attempting to import the drug from India, although the FDA stopped the shipments. 

The Statesman first reported the ban on Tuesday and said it came after Texas appealed the FDA seizure last summer. Clark declined to comment on specifics of the FDA's letter. 

Texas has relied on various drug combinations to create the lethal concoction used for executions after the European Union issued various restrictions on the export of drugs used in execution and U.S. manufacturers began cutting off suppliers. 

In an effort to prevent harassment and threats aimed at domestic manufacturers of the drug, the Texas Legislature approved a measure that would keep the names of execution drug providers from the public. 

"Discussion in the public area has led to a chilling effect for companies who want to supply this compound to the state of Texas," said state Sen. Joan Huffman, the bill's author, in May. "There are very few doses left of the drug that’s currently being administered." 

BEAUMONT — Lori Williams was searching online last year when she found a plea apparently written by a Texas inmate looking for pen pals to write him in prison. The accompanying photo was of the man who cut the phone line at her Corpus Christi home 20 years ago, woke her from her sleep and sexually assaulted her at knifepoint.

"My name is Robert Torres and was born in 1965 in Lubbock near where Buddy Holly grew up. I am six feet tall, weigh 200 pounds, and my hazel eyes reflect my olive skin," the posting read in part. "I seek to connect with women who are romantics at heart that can share my most cherished dreams. I welcome all women that are open to the possibility of true love. I answer all letters and a photo of you gets one of me in kind. God bless and I await your response."

Torres was caught two months after assaulting Williams, and he is serving several concurrent life sentences for aggravated sexual assault at the Mark W. Stiles Unit in Beaumont. He is not eligible for parole until 2026.

Torres said in an interview that he didn't post the ad and has no pen pals. But after getting over her shock, Williams says she's determined to change Texas prison rules to make it harder — if not impossible — for some inmates to solicit correspondents from behind bars.

"When I discovered that he had an online ad and read the contents of that ad, it was definitely a setback as far as my healing," she said. "And it seems incredibly unbelievable that that's taking place and that people don't know that it's taking place."

An online petition she launched at Change.org has drawn more than 116,000 signatures asking Gov. Greg Abbott and the Texas Department of Criminal Justice to bar prisoners convicted of violent offenses from soliciting the public online. State Rep. Matt Shaheen, R-Plano, has already promised Williams he'll introduce legislation in the 2017 session to crack down on prison pen pals for sex offenders.

The push comes as state prison officials continue adapting to social media. TDCJ recently imposed new rules prohibiting inmates from having social media accounts that are run by third parties on their behalf.

Currently, inmates are allowed to have pen pals and can use online forums or postings to seek them out, according to TDCJ. Letters go through the usual prison vetting process to ensure they comply with prison correspondence rules, said agency spokesman Jason Clark. Inmates do not have direct access to the internet, he said.

Shaheen said he was surprised that inmates like Torres had that ability until he heard from Williams.

"We're wholeheartedly supportive of her and what she's trying to do," Shaheen said. "I have a high confidence that this legislation will get passed." 

Williams also reached out to Abbott's office, which she said directed her to lawmakers.

Though Torres has inspired an online movement, he said no one writes him, not even relatives. And he said no one to his knowledge has published anything on his behalf or with his permission. "I'm not writing anybody," said Torres.

The department does not have an internal protocol to determine through letters whether an inmate is part of pen pal service, Clark said.

Torres's posting is on friendonline.org. Joost Hogenboom, the site's creator, would not say whether Torres arranged the notice himself, citing privacy. Generally, though, inmates reach out to the site via mail, asking to put a pen pal request online and the content is mailed in, said Hogenboom, who lives in the Netherlands.

With its new social media policy, TDCJ can now ask companies like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to shut down inmates' accounts, Clark said. But he said pen pal services are different and harder to track.

Taking precautions, Hogenboom said he hid the tab on the website for Texas inmates until he can independently sort out the implications of the new policy. The links to pages with pen pal information from Texas inmates still work, he said.

Social media restrictions and efforts to regulate pen pal services run the risk of impeding First Amendment rights, inmate advocates argue. Prisoners largely retain their First Amendment rights, said Alex Friedmann, associate director of the Human Rights Defense Center and managing editor of Prison Legal News, a monthly publication.

Prisoners already don't have direct access to the internet or the outside world, he said.

"I would submit that prisoners should have the right to human contact and communication, just like every other person," Friedmann said. "And they aren't sent to prison to be socially ostracized. They're sent to prison to serve out their prison term. That doesn't mean they should be social pariahs and not be able to communicate with people on the outside."

Attempts to restrict such access are shortsighted, and making inmates miserable does not help rehabilitate an offender, he added.

"Ultimately, that does not help society," Friedmann said. "It does not help when you put somebody in a cage and you beat them up for years and years and then you let them out and say, 'there you go, now you can live a life that is free of crime.'"

The Texas prison inmates database has been updated with the latest data from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Use the app to learn more about the most common crimes and look up any of the more than 144,000 inmates housed in Texas prisons.

A New Orleans-based appeals court says the Texas Department of Criminal Justice's restrictions on beard lengths and religious head garments for inmates violate federal law.

Muslim inmate David Rasheed Ali, 33, sued the correctional agency to be allowed to grow a "fist-length" beard and wear a knit skullcap in accordance with his beliefs. Prison rules don't allow for a fist-length, or four-inch long, beard and only permit religious headwear in inmates' cells or during religious services. Rasheed is serving multiple 20-year sentences in the Michael Unit in Tennessee Colony in East Texas for arson, aggravated robbery and criminal mischief in 2001.

In August, TDCJ dropped its clean-shaven grooming policy for inmates who wanted to grow beards for religious reasons. Inmates have been allowed to ask their wardens to grow beards no longer than a half-inch long.

TDCJ argued that its headwear and grooming policies prevent contraband from spreading and misidentifying inmates, and are cost-control measures. But Ali said the policy violates the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. 

A trial court agreed with Ali, but TDCJ appealed the decision. In a Monday opinion, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals stood with the trial court and the inmate.

"We are reviewing the opinion and have no further comment at this time," TDCJ spokesman Jason Clark said in a statement.

Revealing Texas' supplier of execution drugs could have a harmful effect on the provider and as a result leave the state empty-handed, a lawyer for the state suggested Wednesday during an appeals court hearing.

State Deputy Solicitor General Matthew Frederick told a three-judge panel on the Austin-based 3rd Court of Appeals that a "substantial risk" comes with naming the state’s supplier. Specifically, he said, people who are against the death penalty might lash out against the supplier.

"Pharmacies don't have security details," Frederick said. "Their only protection is anonymity."

But three lawyers who have filed suit to release the identity of lethal injection drug suppliers say that no “substantial threat of physical harm” exists; therefore, the information legally cannot be withheld, their attorney, Philip Durst, argued.

The appeals court had challenged attorneys for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and the group of three lawyers — who have represented clients on death row — to differentiate between risks and threats when explaining what the harm is in identifying a compounding pharmacy that has provided the state with lethal injection drugs. The court did not offer a timeline for when it would make a ruling, but either party could appeal a future ruling to the Texas Supreme Court.

The three lawyers sued the Texas Department of Criminal Justice in 2014 after the agency refused a request to identify the compounding pharmacy that supplies the state with lethal injection drugs. The attorneys — Maurie Levin, Naomi Terr and Hilary Sheard — had made the request through the state's Public Information Act. 

A state district court later that year ordered the prison agency to release the pharmacy's identity because it was public information, but the agency appealed. Since then, major pharmaceutical companies have refused to supply capital punishment states with the drugs needed to execute the condemned, forcing Texas to scramble and find alternative providers. In 2015, Texas made it legal to conceal the identity of parties that supply lethal injection drugs to the state.

As a result, the attorneys are challenging the Department of Criminal Justice to release the identity of lethal injection drug suppliers from before the law went into effect last September.

The three lawyers say that identifying lethal injection drug providers makes it easier to hold them accountable. But the state argues that releasing that information could lead to physical harm of its supplier. There may be risk, but there is no sign of an imminent threat, attorneys for both sides acknowledged before the appeals court.

Justice Bob Pemberton pushed back Wednesday on the state's "substantial risk" characterization, saying that there is a difference between a risk and a threat, and that individuals such as former Gov. Rick Perry have been vocal about their position on capital punishment, which hasn't led to threats being realized. A pharmacy supplier is a soft target, though, Frederick responded.

Also, Frederick referenced the 2013 revelation that the Woodlands Compounding Pharmacy supplied the state with execution drugs led to significant amounts hate mail and messages. As providers have been identified over the years, they have stopped making the drugs, according to multiple media reports.

Equating people who oppose the death penalty to anti-abortion activists, Durst said that such activists generally protest peacefully. There's never been anything other than "How could you?" and other responses protected by the First Amendment, he said.

The judges also asked how allowing the supplier’s identity to remain secret because of safety concerns would not gut the state's Public Information Act. Frederick said that keeping the identity secret falls in line with the physical safety exemption from complying with a public information request. Durst said that labeling someone or something a threat should be based on concrete evidence. Theories from experts alone is not enough, he said.

"It can't be that," Durst told the panel.

Until a few years ago, major pharmaceutical companies provided execution drugs to death penalty states, Frederick said. As soon as smaller companies are identified, they might leave the market, he said.

"They don't want to stick around long enough to see what happens," he said.

After the larger companies dropped death penalty states as clients, Texas began seeking alternative providers to make the lethal drugs, but the federal government has weighed in on a couple of occasions.

In April, the Food and Drug Administration barred the Texas Department of Criminal Justice from importing sodium thiopental, a drug used in executions. Last year, Texas and Arizona reportedly tried to import execution drugs from India but were unsuccessful.

In 1938, as the Great Depression was winding down, a Texas radio station began airing “Thirty Minutes Behind the Walls,” a variety show broadcast every Wednesday night from the state prison in Huntsville.

The show featured male and female prisoners singing, strumming, dancing and acting. At one point, it had 5 million listeners, who sent in as many as 100,000 fan letters each year. Executions were stayed so that they would not conflict with the show, which was performed in an auditorium 50 yards from Old Sparky, the state’s electric chair.

In a new book, “Texas Jailhouse Music,” Caroline Gnagy collects the stories of the men and women who performed on the show and at the annual Texas Prison Rodeo. Gnagy, a writer who herself plays country music, was inspired to do the research after seeing photos of the Goree All-Girl String Band and reading a Texas Monthly story about the group from 2003, “O Sister, Where Art Thou?” Jennifer Aniston has spent years trying to make a film about the band.

Governors and other state officials appeared on “Thirty Minutes Behind the Walls,” using it as a platform to explicitly promote prisoner rehabilitation. Inmates also gave interviews about life behind bars.

“Before the advent of radio, prisoners were exiled; citizens outside paid little attention to them,” Gov. Wilbert Lee “Pappy” O’Daniel, himself a radio personality and bandleader, announced on the show in 1939. “But now you hear them talk; you hear them sing; you find out they are sons and daughters of good mothers. You find out they made mistakes, thus proving that they are human.”

EnlargePhoto by: Texas Department of Criminal Justice

Members of an African-American musical group from Goree strike poses in their full Western dress.

It was an era in which radio was exploding in popularity — President Franklin Roosevelt was delivering his “Fireside Chats” — but also an era in which southern prisons still had much in common with the slave plantations they replaced.

“Announcers consistently represented black prisoners with a mix of opprobrium and condescension, while still emphasizing their musical skill to listeners,” historian Ethan Blue writes, and many were described as being “from Darkyland.”

But “through humor and through music, black prisoners expressed their self-worth and dignity in a social formation that asserted they should have none.” The show included the minstrel duo of Charlie Jones and Louie Nettles, both black men who wore rodeo clown outfits and called themselves Fathead and Soupbone.

“They give me life fer just goin’ off an leavin’ my wife,” Fathead said in one exchange.

“Now wait a minute, Fathead...How did you leave your wife?” Soupbone responded.

“Why, I left her dead!”

Hundreds of fans were allowed into the prison to watch the broadcast, which featured prisoners, competitively selected, performing all the popular genres: country and western, patriotic songs, hymns, blues, jazz, and swing. Gnagy discovered that many of the performers had been professional musicians before their crimes.

EnlargePhoto by: Texas Department of Criminal Justice

The Cotton Picker's Glee Club poses with Warden W.W. Waid (on horse) at an early prison rodeo.

Some became famous through the show and were allowed to perform at state fairs, in fiddle contests, and at homecoming celebrations. Gnagy tells us they “fervently hoped that one more song on a guitar, one more yodel or one more interview about their lives would get them ever closer to freedom and back into the arms of those they loved.”

Some of the show’s performers appear on a series of Library of Congress recordings by the folklorist John Avery Lomax, who documented the music of prisoners in the late 1930s. Those recordings are the closest we can get; no recordings of “Thirty Minutes Behind the Walls” have ever been found.

This article was originally published by The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization that covers the U.S. criminal justice system. Sign up for their newsletter, or follow The Marshall Project on Facebook or Twitter.

Charles Dill spent 14 years in prison after being convicted of indecency with a child in Collin County. His wife, Helga, recalls how he suffered from heart problems behind bars and had several operations.

Three weeks after his release in 2014, he died. His wife says she learned later that he had leukemia. She thinks the state's refusal to release her husband earlier, like they sometimes do for other inmates with severe medical issues, was both cruel and a waste of taxpayer resources. She's hoping that lawmakers will consider changing the state's rules regarding medical release of sex offenders next session.

One top lawmaker on criminal justice issues sympathizes with Hegla Dill's point of view but believes his colleagues won't touch the thorny issue out of fear of how it may be used against them.

"It takes 15 or 20 minutes to explain it, and somebody beats you up in a 30-second TV commercial: 'John Smith supported paroling sex offenders,'" said state Sen. John Whitmire, a Houston Democrat and chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee.

When Texas prisoners become so sick that they are deemed too incapacitated to be a public threat and have just months to live, prison doctors will sometimes recommend them for medical parole.

That option is not available to inmates who were convicted for sexual offenses unless they are in a vegetative state.

Helga Dill recalled how the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles blocked her husband's medical parole efforts three times, she said. The board eventually released him from his 20-year sentence with standard parole. She is now an advocate for other sex offenders in Texas prisons.

Inmates with terminal illnesses or requiring long-term care like her husband are not physical threats to their communities anymore and should be released into nursing homes or back home, with electronic monitors, saving the state millions in health care costs, said Helga Dill, former chairman of the Texas Citizens United for the Rehabilitation of Errants (Texas CURE).

• Read More Few Texas Inmates Get Released on Medical Parole

Helga Dill said she fought for five years to secure the early release of a blind, double-amputee prisoner. The struggle, she said, was over the fact he was a sex offender. He was in no position to harm another person, Dill said.

"We want to make sure people understand that these guys are not hurting anybody," she said.

Under medical parole, officially known as Medically Recommended Intensive Supervision, the parole board approves early parole and release of offenders with terminal illnesses or other severe illnesses or disabilities, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. The parole board decides each case based on recommendations from the Texas Correctional Office of Medical and Mental Impairments, which screens prisoners.

Sex offenders who aren't in a "persistent vegetative state or do not suffer from organic brain syndrome with significant to total mobility impairment are not eligible for MRIS," according to the department. 

While Whitmire, who chairs the Senate committee that oversees the state's prison system, supports re-examining the issue, his counterpart in the House doesn't agree.

"It is unlikely that we would lessen the stringent guidelines for the MRIS program as it relates to these offenders," said Martha Bell Liner, chief of staff to state Rep. Jim Murphy, R-Houston, who chairs the House Corrections Committee "Chairman Murphy's official stance is that the safety of all Texans is his top priority, and we do not want to take any actions that would erode the safety of our communities."

As of 2014, it cost Texas $54.89 a day to support prisoners and $4.04 for those on parole supervision, according to the Legislative Budget Board. Sick prisoners can cost significantly more.

Some years, the state's costs for caring for certain particularly sick prisoners have hit $1 million, Whitmire said adding that if their illness effectively neutralizes them as a threat to society, the issue becomes a fiscal concern.

"If they're a public safety concern, I wouldn't be for them being out. End of conversation," Whitmire said. "But if my colleagues and others are worried about the politics of letting someone out that has a serious crime 20, 30 years ago that is now unable to pose a public threat, put them in a nursing home that is supervised."

Whitmire said expanding eligibility for medical parole would be tough but smart policy.

A major hurdle to overcome might be the general perception that sex offenders have a high recidivism rate, said Mary Sue Molnar, executive director of Texas Voices For Reason and Justice, an advocacy group that promotes changing laws affecting people who have to register as sex offenders. More than 87,000 people are on the state's registry, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety.

A majority of that population does not commit another sex offense after being released, Molnar said, pointing to findings from around the country, as well as a 1997 Texas report, which found that 4 percent of sex offenders released from prison during a three-year period were arrested again in relation to a new sex crime.

"There's perception, and there's myth, and then there's truth," Molnar said. "I think they need to start looking at the research before they start making that decision."

Despite his support for changing the current rules, Whitmire said he doesn't plan to file a bill next session because he believes it will go nowhere. Supporting medical parole for certain sex offenders may save money but remains politically toxic, he said.

"But if you're too scared," he said, "you shouldn't be in this business."