Execution Date Set for Clifton Williams

From Tyler Paper:

Execution Date Set for Man Who Killed Tylerite
By CASEY KNAUPP
Staff Writer

A state district judge set the date of execution Thursday for Clifton Lamar Williams, who has been condemned for killing a 93-year-old Tyler woman in 2005.
Williams, 25, was convicted of capital murder and sentenced Oct. 13, 2006, to death by lethal injection for killing Cecilia Schneider and setting her on fire.
Judge Christi Kennedy, of the 114th District Court, ordered that the defendant be put to death on July 28.

With their verdict, jurors found Williams was not mentally retarded and there were no miti-gating circumstances that warranted a life sentence instead of the death penalty.
Two mental health experts hired by the state said Williams was not mentally retarded.
Defense attorney Melvin Thompson said Thursday that they raised the issue of mental retardation during the trial and they continue to assert that issue.
During the trial, Thompson said evidence showed that the defendant was mentally retarded. A mental health expert who examined Williams in early adulthood for Social Security benefits diagnosed Williams with mental retardation and paranoid schizophrenia. Another expert hired by the defense examined Williams and found him to be mentally retarded.

From Longview News Journal:

"A real problem in our culture in individual freedom is that people have the right not to take their medications," said Paul Andrews, clinical and forensic psychologist in Tyler who has worked with Smith County juvenile treatment programs.
He pointed to the story of Clifton Williams, who was sentenced to death this fall for killing a 93-year-old Tyler woman. Andrews said Williams suffered from schizophrenia and was receiving as many as three visits per week from mental health case workers. Funding cuts later ended those visits.
"He stopped taking his medicine, and 90 days later he killed a person. We have two people dead because of funding cuts," Andrews said. "Not everyone ends up with a crime of homicide, but a lot of people end up with no services or a lack of services ... and they end up in jails, in courts or in prison. I think the greatest way to prevent that would be more money for community health on an outpatient basis."
More than half of Texas prison inmates suffer from some form of substance abuse, Andrews says, and very few are treated in the criminal justice system so they often revert to old behavioral patterns when released from prison.