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February 13, 2025
Texas completes its second execution of 2025 of man involved in multiple murders
As reported in this AP piece, a " Texas man who killed his strip club manager and another man, then later prompted a massive lockdown of the state prison system when he used a cellphone smuggled onto death row to threaten a lawmaker, was executed Thursday night." Here is more:
Richard Lee Tabler, 46, was given a lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville. He is the second person executed in Texas in a little over a week, with two more scheduled by the end of April. The time of death was 6:38 p.m. CST.
Tabler was condemned for the Thanksgiving 2004 shooting deaths of Mohammed-Amine Rahmouni, 28, and Haitham Zayed, 25, in a remote area near Killeen in Central Texas. Rahmouni was the manager of a strip club where Tabler worked until he was banned from the place. Zayed was a friend of Rahmouni, and police said both men were killed in a late-night meeting to buy some stolen stereo equipment that was actually a planned ambush.
Tabler also confessed to killing two teenage girls who worked at the club, Tiffany Dotson, 18, and Amanda Benefield, 16. He was indicted but never tried in their killings.
Tabler had repeatedly asked the courts that his appeals be dropped and that he be put to death. He also has changed his mind on that point several times, and his attorneys have questioned whether he is mentally competent to make that decision. Tabler’s prison record includes at least two instances of attempted suicide, and he was previously granted a stay of execution in 2010....
Tabler’s death row phone calls in 2008 to state Sen. John Whitmire, who is now the mayor of Houston, prompted an unprecedented lockdown of more than 150,000 inmates in the the nation’s second-largest prison system. Some were confined to their cells for weeks while officers swept more than 100 prisons to seize hundreds of items of contraband, including cellphones.
Whitmire led a Senate committee with oversight of state prisons, and said at the time that Tabler warned him that he knew the names of his children and where they lived. Whitmire, through a spokesperson at the mayor’s office, declined to comment on Tabler’s pending execution.
The ACLU appealed Tabler’s case to the U.S. Supreme Court last year, claiming he was denied adequate legal representation during his lower court appeals by attorneys who refused to participate in hearings at what they said was his request....
Tabler recruited a friend, Timothy Payne, a soldier at nearby Fort Cavazos, and lured Rahmouni and Zayed to a meeting under the guise of buying the stolen stereo equipment. Tabler shot them both in their car, then pulled Rahmouni out and had Payne video him shooting Rahmouni again.
Tabler later confessed to the killings. During the sentencing phase of his trial, prosecutors introduced Tabler’s written and videotaped statements saying he also killed Dotson and Benefield days later because he was worried they would tell people he killed the men.
February 13, 2025 at 08:18 PM | Permalink
Comments
This is the type of case that makes me wish people condemned to death didn't have so many appeal rights, on any topic other than whether or not they committed the killing(s).
I wonder if appeal rights could exist on a "sliding scale", based on the number of murder victims?
Posted by: William Jockusch | Feb 13, 2025 9:13:33 PM
Amen, Mr. Jockusch.
Posted by: federalist | Feb 14, 2025 10:19:13 AM
The problem isn't the appeal rights, it's the delays in processing the appeals.
The issue is how strict the deadlines in the appeals are and how long the courts take to decide the cases once they get them.
For most states, the process is 1) direct appeal (typically to the highest court in the state and a cert petition to the Supreme Court); 2) a collateral review proceeding with an evidentiary hearing (usually only dealing with ineffective assistance of counsel) in the trial court; 3) collateral review appellate review (again typically to the highest court of the state and a cert petition to the Supreme Court); 4) federal habeas in the trial court; and 5) appellate review of the denial of federal habeas. If each of those five rounds could be kept under two years, then the process would only take ten years.
Federal habeas is a good example of how there is grossly unnecessary delay in the process. Even without the courts/AG willing to certify a state for the expedited timelines provided by federal law, the petition is still due within a year of the denial of collateral review by the state courts. Even giving the state two months to file a response and the defendant two months to file a reply that still leaves eight months for the district court to review the file and make its ruling. Giving the limitations on hearing and the dictates of 2254 which effectively make the district court an appellate court, that should be doable. Either the state courts rulings are contrary to or an unreasonable application of Supreme Court rulings or they are not -- a simple matter of law as in many cases the facts are disputed and the habeas court has to accept the credibility findings of the state courts. But how many district courts dispose of capital habeas petitions within twelve months of filing? Not many (if any).
Posted by: tmm | Feb 14, 2025 11:18:14 AM
one wonders, tmm, if Bondi will push through state certification under AEDPA. I assume that's what you are alluding to.
Doug, what do you think of the Adams brouhaha? I tend to think the charging decision may have had some political motivation, as the corruption seems small beer (as compared to people like Menendez).
Posted by: federalist | Feb 14, 2025 1:46:13 PM
With a few exceptions, federalist, I tend not to pay all that much attention to high-profile political cases unless/until there is a conviction. And someone who's worked at DOJ could better comment on the notable kerfuffle between Main Justice and the local feds and associated resignations.
Posted by: Doug B | Feb 14, 2025 2:05:21 PM
I am dubious that Bondi will push through the certifications. The statutory provision giving the AG power to certify has been on the books for 18 years. It wasn't a priority in the first Trump Administration. As such, I will believe it is going to happen when it happens.
Certification would do several things. First, it would is to limit the time for preparing the federal habeas petition to six months (instead of one year). Second, certification would set a minimum time of 120 days to file responses, replies, and supplemental suggestions, but most district courts already grant at least that much time. Third, it would be to set a semi-firm limit of 450 days after filings (approximately one year, three months) to dispose of the case. My take is that, even without certification, trial courts should be able to meet that deadline if they wanted to. Finally, it would impose slightly stricter default rules restricting new claims (but current law already greatly restricts new claims in non-certified states). Certification would be good, but I do not know how stringently the federal courts would enforce the limits. My bottom line is I think the stages of review could be handled more promptly even without certification which for the most part simply requires the federal courts to act with due diligence in a manner that they already should be doing.
Posted by: tmm | Feb 14, 2025 5:18:12 PM
Fair enough.
To all Happy Valentine's Day.
Posted by: federalist | Feb 14, 2025 6:03:19 PM
Doug --
"And someone who's worked at DOJ could better comment on the notable kerfuffle between Main Justice and the local feds and associated resignations."
Your wish is my command. https://ringsideatthereckoning.substack.com/p/whats-with-trump
Posted by: Bill Otis | Feb 18, 2025 3:43:07 AM
Bill, thx for the link to the thoughtful piece. I am no fan of the Blago pardon, as I think he should have spent the rest of his life in prison. With respect to Adams, given the politicization of justice in the Biden DOJ, the decision to charge Adams may have been tainted. Trump has a right to address that issue. And Trump is entitled to his strong feelings about prosecutions arising during a campaign (Adams is currently running for re-election.) What's problematic is that anyone can argue a quid pro quo.
McCarthy, Whelan and Bill, I think, have it wrong. While payback may be unsavory, Dem lawfare and other dirty tricks happened in each of the past three elections, and the 2020 was "unfair." They weaponized the justice system. Payback is the only way to ensure that they understand the costs of doing it, else you will have a system whereby the GOP plays by the rules and anything goes for the Dems.
I like to think of myself as an ethical guy, but the Dems declared war. You don't fight wars to lose. So yeah, if there's a way to put Liz Cheney in jail, then let's do it. She signed off on subpoenas to people who had nothing to do with J6--which cost them money and took people's cellphones. (Can you imagine--you've done nothing wrong, and some FBI guys stop you in a drive-thru and order you to hand over your cellphone.) Just for that, I'd like to see the FBI cooperator go to prison for a very long time. Liz can spend the rest of her life in prison for those Stasi tactics.
Kash and Pam are gonna get some scalps.
Posted by: federalist | Feb 19, 2025 12:50:34 PM
