Man on death row for 1986 killing is 'intellectually disabled,' Harris DA agrees
The Harris County district attorney’s office has agreed that a man convicted of murdering a 50-year-old woman at a dry cleaner in 1986 is intellectually disabled and should be removed from death row.
Attorneys for Steven Butler, 59, have argued since 2003 that their client has intellectual disabilities that preclude him from a death sentence, but have had their requests denied on multiple occasions.
On Tuesday, however, prosecutors accepted their own expert’s opinion that Butler is unfit for execution and recommended that he be removed from death row. The decision will lie in the hands of the Criminal Court of Appeals if District Court Judge Jason Luong signs off on the recommendation.
Prosecutors brought in a new expert, Dr. Timothy Proctor, to re-examine Butler in 2019 after the Texas Court of Criminal Court of Appeals agreed to have his case reconsidered in light of the 2017 U.S. Supreme Court case Moore v. Texas, which ruled that the state had been incorrectly measuring intellectual disability for years.
The expert who evaluated Butler the 1st time, Dr. George Denkowski, has since been discredited by the state Board of Examiners and Psychologists. The new stipulations require that intellectual disability now be determined using standards set by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM-5.
Butler was sentenced to death in 1988 for killing 50-year-old Velma Clemons at a dry cleaning store after he tried to pick up clothes under a false name. When she refused to hand over clothes or money, Butler fatally shot her in the abdomen.
Butler admitted to that crime and others after he was arrested in Chambers County, but blamed a made-up person for his actions and accused his lawyer of being a “demon.”
In subsequent mental health evaluations, experts found a history of limited intellectual functioning, including an IQ score around 70 and difficulty with everyday activities such as reading and obeying signs, as well as an inability to effectively engage in most kinds of social interactions. All are thresholds for intellectual disability in the DSM-5.
After Proctor found that Butler meets those thresholds, he agreed with the defense’s assessment that Butler has an intellectual disability, court records show.
“Once that happened, it became clear this was not a person who deserves to be on death row, and we need to get him off,” said Assistant District Attorney Joshua Reiss.
In agreed findings submitted to the district court Tuesday, prosecutors argued that Butler should be taken off death row, and instead serve an automatic life sentence in prison. Though he will be eligible for parole, because a life sentence without parole did not exist as a sentence when Butler was convicted, Reiss said prosecutors will argue against his release at parole board hearings.
“Sometimes when you follow the law, it leads you to results you might not necessarily like, but you do what the law is required and in this case its clear,” Reiss said, noting Butler also committed another murder, as well as multiple sexual assaults and robberies, the same year he killed Clemons.
Lisa Clemons, Velma Clemons’s youngest daughter, said she doesn’t believe Butler is intellectualy disabled .
“To me, he’s a coward, and the fact that he’s possibly being given another opportunity, I don’t think he deserves that,” Clemons said. “I think it’s very sad that he can do a play on the criminal justice system like that and say he’s not of the right mind. It’s just a disgrace the way the criminal justice system is overturning something like this.”
For Jacqueline Lifshutz Boggs, sister of Jefferson Johnson, a store clerk who was killed by Butler during a robbery that same year, the development brings back painful memories.
“We felt like justice had been served 35 years ago and now to learn about this intellectual disability and the possibility of parole, it’s stirred up a lot of emotions and feelings and memories that are once again hard to deal with,” Boggs said.
Butler’s attorneys declined to comment Wednesday, and Judge Luong did not respond to questions on whether he would pass the recommendation to the appeals court.
(source: Houston Chronicle)
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