Texas inmate faces execution for killing prisoner. The sufferer’s sister asks that his life be spared

HOUSTON (AP) — A Texas inmate faces execution Thursday for killing one other prisoner greater than 26 years in the past, however the sufferer’s sister and non secular leaders have requested authorities to spare his life.

William Speer, 49, is about to obtain a deadly injection on the state penitentiary in Huntsville. He was condemned for strangling to demise Gary Dickerson in July 1997 on the Telford state jail, positioned close to New Boston in northeast Texas.

“I’m so conscious of the issues that I’ve performed. I’m so conscious of the ache and the harm that I’ve induced. I may simply say that I’m sorry,” Speer said in a video submitted as a part of his clemency petition to the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles.

Speer’s attorneys say he has remodeled whereas in jail, expressed remorse for his actions and now helps lead a non secular program that ministers to different demise row inmates.

His attorneys have requested state and federal courts to halt the execution. One request for a keep focuses on allegations that prosecutors at his 2001 trial did not disclose proof, introduced false testimony and that his trial attorneys did not current proof about Speer’s troubled childhood. They are saying Speer was bodily and sexually abused as a toddler. Prosecutors have denied the allegations towards them.

Speer’s attorneys had additionally requested to cease his execution over claims the state’s provide of pentobarbital, the drug utilized in executions, was uncovered to excessive warmth throughout a recent fire, making it unsafe. A federal decide and Texas’ high felony appeals court docket this week denied appeals on this declare. An identical allegation made by one other inmate, Jedidiah Murphy, was unsuccessful and he was executed earlier this month.

The Texas Legal professional Common’s Workplace stated the execution medication have been examined after the fireplace for efficiency and sterility. Murphy’s execution confirmed the state can “deal with Speer’s execution in a secure and humane method,” authorities stated.

On the time of inmate Dickerson’s killing, Speer had been serving a life sentence for fatally taking pictures a pal’s father, Jerry Collins, on the man’s Houston space dwelling. Speer was 16 then.

The paroles board on Tuesday voted 7-0 towards commuting Speer’s demise sentence to a lesser penalty. Members additionally rejected granting a six-month reprieve.

Speer killed Dickerson in a bid to affix the Texas Mafia jail gang, prosecutors stated. The gang ordered the hit after mistakenly concluding Dickerson had knowledgeable authorities about tobacco it had tried to smuggle into the jail.

Speer and one other inmate, Anibal Canales Jr. have been sentenced to demise for the killing. Canales stays on demise row.

At Speer’s trial, Sammie Martin, who’s Dickerson’s solely residing sibling, advised jurors her mom was devasted by her brother’s demise.

However Martin has now requested that Speer’s life be spared.

“I’ve spent a lot time reflecting on what justice my brother and my household deserved,” Martin wrote in federal court docket paperwork filed this week. “In my coronary heart, I really feel that he’s not solely remorseful for his actions however has been doing good works for others and has one thing left to supply the world.”

Martin stated she was by no means knowledgeable by prosecutors about Speer’s scheduled execution.

In court docket paperwork filed this week, attorneys with the Texas Legal professional Common’s Workplace stated that regardless of Martin’s emotions about Speer’s execution, “the state retains its curiosity in deterring gang murders and jail violence, in addition to seeing justice performed for Dickerson.”

A gaggle of non secular leaders from across the nation have additionally requested that Speer be spared. In a letter to the paroles board and Gov. Greg Abbott, they wrote that Speer’s spiritual work with different prisoners “doesn’t excuse his actions, however it offers us a fuller image of who Will is as a human, Christian, chief, and trainer.”

Speer can be the seventh inmate in Texas and the twenty first within the U.S. put to demise this yr.

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Comply with Juan A. Lozano on X, the platform previously often called Twitter: https://twitter.com/juanlozano70