From: davidc@wa-wd.com   
      
   Travis James Mullis, 38, was executed by lethal injection on 7 August   
   2024 in Huntsville, Texas for the murder of his 3-month-old son.   
      
   On Monday, 28 January, Mullis, then 21, took his infant son, Ahijah,   
   and his friend's 8-year-old daughter to her school's playground. He   
   attempted to sexually molest the girl, but she cried, and he was   
   unable to remove her clothing. He then took the girl home and went to   
   his own home in a Brazoria County trailer park. There, he fought with   
   his girlfriend, who was his son's mother.   
      
   In the early hours of the next morning, Mullis put Ahijah in the back   
   seat of his girlfriend's car and drove to Galveston. He parked his car   
   near the east end of Seawall Boulevard and sexually assaulted Ahijah,   
   who then began crying uncontrollably. Mullis first strangled him, then   
   took him out of the car, laid him on the road, and stomped on his head   
   several times, crushing his skull. He then threw the body into the   
   brush and fled the state. He surrendered to police in Philadelphia,   
   Pennsylvania on 1 February.   
      
   At Mullis's trial, the facts of the crime were not disputed. At his   
   sentencing hearing, the defense presented evidence showing that   
   Mullis's mother was morbidly obese and took terrible care of her body,   
   and that he spent the first 71 days of his life in the hospital   
   because of a congenital illness. His mother died when he was 10 months   
   old. His uncle adopted him and sexually abused him until he was 6.   
      
   When Mullis was 12, according to school records, he said about his   
   adoptive father, "I'd like to kill him if I could. I will always hate   
   him."   
      
   Prosecutors claimed that Mullis refused the medical and psychiatric   
   help he had been offered.   
      
   A jury found Mullis guilty of capital murder in March 2011 and   
   sentenced him to death.   
      
   Following his sentencing, Mullis requested to dismiss his   
   court-appointed attorney and waive all of his appeals. The trial court   
   granted his request to dismiss his attorney. Under Texas law, the   
   first appeal to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals is automatic and   
   cannot be waived. The rest of the appeals are waived by simply letting   
   the filing deadline pass, not by making a declaration. Mullis filed no   
   briefs in his automatic appeal. The appeals court reviewed the trial   
   transcripts and affirmed his conviction and sentence in April 2012.   
      
   Mullis's next appeal deadline passed on 2 July 2012. On 22 August, he   
   wrote the trial judge to say that he wished to reinstate his appeals   
   because "new evidence has surfaced." Then, in September, the trial   
   court received another letter from Mullis asking for his request to   
   renew his appeals to be withdrawn. He also requested that the courts   
   disregard any filings made in his case that were not made by him pro   
   se. The trial court then received a filing from an attorney stating   
   that Mullis was incompetent and asking for his appeals to be   
   reinstated. The state appeals court denied that motion in December.   
      
   Mullis subsequently filed an appeal in federal district court asking   
   to pause his federal appeals while he attempted to restore his right   
   to appeal in the state courts. After that request was granted, Mullis   
   once again disavowed any intention to pursue any further appeals at   
   any level, claiming that all motions to the contrary filed on his   
   behalf had been made by lawyers without his knowledge or permission.   
      
   After the federal district court denied Mullis's appeals, he filed an   
   appeal to the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. That appeal had to   
   do only with Mullis's unusual handling of the appeals process and   
   questions about his competency to represent himself, and not about the   
   trial or the facts of the crime. In June 2023, following a review, the   
   Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of his appeals.   
      
   In 2018, Randy Wallace of Fox 26 News in Houston interviewed Mullis on   
   Death Row in Livingston. Mullis told Wallace that he killed his son   
   because he could not get him to stop crying after he sexually   
   assaulted him.   
      
   "The crying after a while just got to be overwhelming," Mullis said.   
      
   "I'm guilty of what I did and the death penalty is the legally   
   justified and, I believe, moral sentence for what I've done," he said.   
      
   Mullis said that he tried to stop his federal appeals and get his   
   attorney dismissed. "I'm ready to accept my punishment," he said.   
      
   Wallace asked Mullis, who said he was a Christian, where he would go   
   in the afterlife. "If I go to Hell, I go to Hell," he answered.   
      
   On the afternoon of Mullis's execution, attorney Shawn Nolan, who   
   claimed to represent him, released a statement that Mullis was "a   
   redeemed man."   
      
   "He never had a chance at life being abandoned by his parents and then   
   severely abused by his adoptive father starting at age three. During   
   his decade and a half on death row he spent countless hours working on   
   his redemption. An he achieved it. The Travis that Texas wanted to   
   kill is long gone. Rest in Peace TJ," Nolan wrote.   
      
   According to a Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesperson,   
   Mullis had declined the opportunity to speak with Nolan earlier that   
   day.   
      
   Mullis's execution was delayed for about twenty minutes while   
   technicians worked to find a suitable vein. One needle was inserted in   
   his right arm, as usual. The other needle, which is normally inserted   
   in the condemned person's left arm, was inserted in Mullis's left   
   foot.   
      
   At his execution, Mullis began his last statement with words of thanks   
   for his friends, pen pals, ministers, prison officials, and prison   
   staff. He said he regretted taking his son's life, apologized to his   
   son's mother, and said he had no will toward anyone involved in his   
   punishment. He said that he took the legal steps to expedite his death   
   as a form of assisted suicide.   
      
   "It was my decision that put me here," he said.   
      
   The lethal injection was then started. He was pronounced dead at 7:01   
   p.m.   
      
   David Carson   
   (Sources: Texas Department of Criminal Justice, court documents,   
   Associated Press, fox26houston.com, Huntsville Item, khou.com.)   
   --   
   Texas Execution Information   
   www.txexecutions.org   
      
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    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)