Texas man set to be executed for killing his infant son

[Pelican Press 0]

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Texas man set to be ********* for ******** his infant son

HOUSTON (AP) — A

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with a long history of mental illness who has repeatedly sought to waive his right to appeal his ****** sentence faced ********** Tuesday evening for ******** his 3-month-old son more than 16 years ago.

Travis Mullis, 38, was condemned for stomping his son Alijah to ****** in January 2008. His ********** by lethal injection was set to take place at the state penitentiary in Huntsville.

Authorities say Mullis, then 21 and living in Brazoria County, drove to nearby Galveston with his son after fighting with his girlfriend. Mullis parked his car and ********* assaulted his son. After the infant began to cry uncontrollably, Mullis began strangling his son before taking him out of the car and stomping on his head, according to authorities.

The infant’s body was later found on the side of the road. Mullis fled Texas but was later arrested after turning himself in to police in Philadelphia.

Mullis’ ********** was expected to proceed as his attorneys did not plan to file any final appeals to try and stay his lethal injection. His lawyers also did not file a clemency petition with the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles.

In a letter submitted to U.S. District Judge George Hanks in Houston, Mullis wrote in February that he had no ******* to challenge his case any further.

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for his son’s ****** and has said “his punishment fit the ******.”

In the letter, Mullis said, “he seeks the same finality and justice the state seeks.”

Galveston County District Attorney Jack Roady, whose office prosecuted Mullis, declined to comment ahead of Tuesday’s scheduled **********.

At Mullis’ trial, prosecutors said Mullis was a “monster” who manipulated people, was deceitful and refused the medical and psychiatric help he had been offered.

Since his conviction in 2011, Mullis has long been at odds with his various attorneys over whether to appeal his case. At times, Mullis had asked that his appeals be waived, only to later change his mind.

Shawn Nolan, one of Mullis’ attorneys, told the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals during a June 2023 hearing that state courts in Texas had erred in ruling that Mullis had been mentally competent when he had waived his right to appeal his case about a decade earlier.

Nolan told the appeals court that Mullis has been treated for “profound mental illness” since he was 3 years old, was ********* abused as a child and is “severely bipolar,” leading him to change his mind about appealing his case.

“The only hope that Mr. Mullis had of avoiding **********, of surviving was to have competent counsel to help the court in its determination of whether he was giving up his rights knowingly, intelligently and voluntarily and that did not happen,” Nolan said.

Natalie Thompson, who at the time was with the Texas Attorney General’s Office, told the appeals court that Mullis understood what he was doing and could go against his lawyers’ advice “even if he’s suffering from mental illness.”

The appeals court upheld Hank’s ruling from 2021 that found Mullis “repeatedly competently chose to waive review” of his ****** sentence.

The U.S. Supreme Court has prohibited the application of the ****** penalty for the intellectually disabled, but not for people with serious mental illness.

Mullis would be the fourth inmate put to ****** this year in Texas, the nation’s busiest capital punishment state, and the 15th in the U.S.

Mullis’ ********** is one of five set to take place in the U.S. within a week’s time. The first took place Friday when

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. Also Tuesday,

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was scheduled to be ********* in Missouri. On Thursday, executions are scheduled for Alan Miller in

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and Emmanuel Littlejohn in

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.

___

Follow Juan A. Lozano:

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#Texas #man #set #********* #******** #infant #son

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