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Thread: Tracy Lane Beatty - Texas Execution - November 9, 2022

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    Tracy Lane Beatty - Texas Execution - November 9, 2022


    Carolyn Click



    Tracy Beatty


    Summary of Offense:

    On July 25, 2003, in Smith County, Beatty strangled his 62-year-old mother, Carolyn "Callie" Click, placed her in the bathtub for two days and then buried her in a shallow grave in their backyard.

    Beatty was sentenced to death in August 2004.

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    March 11, 2009

    HOUSTON — A divided Texas Court of Criminal Appeals upheld the conviction of an East Texas man for strangling his mother in Smith County but disagreed Wednesday on whether the evidence supported a jury's finding that he should be put to death.

    Tracy Beatty, 48, was condemned in 2004 for the slaying of his mother, Carolyn Click, 62, two days before Thanksgiving in 2003. The murder charges were elevated to capital murder because prosecutors said Beatty broke into her home, killed her, and took her car and her ATM card.

    Click's body was found buried behind her trailer home about a month after she was reported missing. Beatty, who recently had been paroled to his mother's house, was in jail at the time of his arrest on charges of unauthorized use of a motor vehicle and possession of a weapon by a felon.

    He had a previous record for injury to a child in Dallas County, where he got a four-year prison term, then returned to prison with a 15-year term for theft, also from Dallas County.

    Evidence showed he had a stormy relationship with his mother and that he'd talked about his mother's slaying to fellow inmates at the Henderson County Jail. Information he gave to other inmates led to the discovery of Click's body.

    In his appeal to the state's highest criminal court, Beatty raised 24 points of error from his trial, among them arguing the evidence was insufficient to show burglary.

    While the court upheld the murder conviction, three of the eight judges reviewing in the case — a ninth judge, Michael Keasler, did not participate — agreed the burglary element was lacking.

    "The evidence of entry without consent in this case is thin and the evidence of intent to commit a felony, theft, or assault even thinner," Judge Cheryl Johnson wrote in a dissent joined by Judges Tom Price and Charles Holcomb. "There is no doubt (Beatty) killed Click; the issue is whether the burglary was proven and thus whether the offense is capital murder or murder."

    A non-capital murder conviction would take the death penalty off the table.

    "It could be argued (Beatty's) behavior after the murder, such as using her credit card and giving away many of her belongings, support commission of theft, but again, there was no evidence of his intent at the time of entry," Johnson continued. "The state amply proved murder, but I do not think that it proved, beyond a reasonable doubt, lack of consent to enter or entry with the intent to commit a felony, theft, or assault."

    Johnson said she would change the judgment to murder and send the case back to the trial court in Smith County for a new sentencing.

    The court majority, however, decided the evidence was legally sufficient to show Beatty entered the house without his mother's consent.

    "The evidence shows (Beatty) did not have a job, a driver's license, or much money," the court said. The judges said evidence showed he had assaulted his mother in the past and told an acquaintance he'd thought about killing her and that his history showed he "possessed the requisite intent at the time of entry to establish a burglary."

    The judges all agreed to reject Beatty's other claims, including what he said were violations of his rights of self-incrimination, ineffective trial lawyers, improper evidence, unfair prosecution in Smith County death penalty cases and challenges to the Texas death penalty statute.

    Beatty does not have an execution date. His case still can go into the federal courts for additional appeals.

    In the months leading up to his trial in Tyler, he was found in criminal contempt of court for refusing a judge's order to submit a handwriting sample.

    http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/6305295.html8

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    In May 2009, Beatty was denied a writ of habeas corpus by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.

    Opinion is here:

    http://www.cca.courts.state.tx.us/OP...PINIONID=18365

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    May 15, 2009

    TEXAS----new (not serious) execution date

    August Execution Date Set for Tyler Man

    A 48-year-old Tyler man condemned in 2004 for killing his mother returned to a Smith County courtroom Wednesday and was ordered to be executed on Aug. 13.

    Tracy Lane Beatty exhausted his state appeals when the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied him habeas corpus relief in a May 6 opinion. The defendant was brought back to Smith County from death row Wednesday and 241st District Judge Jack Skeen Jr. set his date of execution.

    Beatty will pursue federal appears so it is unlikely he will be executed on that date.

    The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals upheld his capital murder conviction and death sentence March 11.

    Beatty was convicted and sentenced to death by lethal injection by a Smith County jury for killing Carolyn "Callie" Click, 62, stealing her car, draining her credit and bank accounts to buy drugs and alcohol, giving away her personal items and burying her body in a shallow grave behind her mobile home Nov. 25, 2003.

    Beatty’s lawyers filed the writ of habeas corpus, presenting 10 allegations that challenged the validity of his conviction and sentence. Skeen submitted findings of fact and conclusions of law, and recommendation that relief be denied was followed by the Court of Criminal Appeals.

    Defense attorney Jeff Haas told Skeen he would file an appeal in federal court.

    Defense attorneys Robert Perkins and Don Davidson also appeared in court for the brief hearing, as well as District Attorney Matt Bingham and First Assistant DA April Sikes.

    THE TRIAL

    Neighbors testified Ms. Click and Beatty had a rocky relationship and fought almost daily but that the victim offered her son a place to stay after he was paroled from prison in October 2003.

    Ms. Click reportedly had kicked her son out of her house the day of her murder. Beatty told family, friends and law enforcement about 5 different stories before he led authorities to his mother's body and confessed nearly a month after the murder, evidence showed.

    A pathologist testified Ms. Click was suffocated, strangled or smothered to death. She suffered broken bones in her neck, cracked ribs, blunt force trauma to her head and a fractured breastbone.

    While awaiting the capital murder trial, Beatty was found with a long, sharp metal shank in jail. Also before the trial began, Beatty was found in contempt of court for refusing Skeen's order to provide the state with a handwriting sample.

    Parole records indicated Beatty threatened a parole officer and assaulted his mother, which resulted in his parole being revoked before the capital murder offense.

    Witnesses said Beatty had been arrested 21 times for various offenses, including injury to his 18-month-old niece in which Beatty shocked her with an electrical cord, burned her with a cigarette, pulled out her hair and struck her in the face.

    There were 16 incidents where Beatty threatened or attacked prison employees or showed other acts of violence while in several Texas prisons. Since 1987, when Beatty was first released from prison on parole, the defendant has been in and out of prison and has had his parole revoked 4 times. Beatty was on parole at the time of the capital murder.

    Beatty once claimed to be a member of the Arian Circle, a white supremacist prison gang.

    (Source: The Tyler Morning Telegraph)

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    On May 13, 2009, Beatty filed a habeas petition in Federal District Court.

    http://dockets.justia.com/docket/tex...v00225/116178/

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    On July 16, 2013, Beatty's habeas petition was DENIED in Federal District Court.

    http://docs.justia.com/cases/federal...0225/116178/28

    On August 20, 2013, Beatty filed an appeal in the US Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

    http://dockets.justia.com/docket/cir.../ca5/13-70026/

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    COA denied by the 5th Circuit yesterday.

    http://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions...-70026-CV0.pdf

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    Article

    Man on death row for mother's slaying loses appeal

    A 53-year-old East Texas man sent to death row for strangling his mother, then stealing her car and draining her bank accounts, has lost a federal court appeal.

    The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals says Tracy Lane Beatty isn't entitled to pursue appeals that argue he had poor legal help at both the guilt-innocence and punishment phases of his capital murder trial for the 2003 slaying of his 62-year-old mother, Carolyn Click.

    Evidence and testimony showed the pair had a rocky relationship and that Click had kicked him out of her Smith County mobile home the day she was killed.

    After she was strangled, court documents say Beatty "crudely" buried his mother behind her home.

    Beatty does not yet have an execution date.

    http://www.theeagle.com/news/texas/m...49b25e1db.html
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

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    On November 3, 2014, the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit DENIED Beatty's petition for en banc rehearing.

    http://www.supremecourt.gov/Search.a...es\14-8291.htm

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    Tonight at 10:00 p.m. EDT Investigation Discovery's The Mind of a Murderer television series will feature Beatty's case.
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

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