Randall Wayne Mays, Appellant v. the State of Texas

Summary

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed Randall Wayne Mays' conviction for capital murder and his death sentence. The court rejected Mays' fourteen points of error, holding that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in jury polling, that execution of a severely mentally ill person is not prohibited by the Eighth Amendment, and that the trial judge's jury instructions on mental‑illness, mistake of fact, justification defenses, and other matters were proper. The court also found the evidence sufficient to support the jury's finding of future dangerousness and upheld the admission of victim‑impact testimony.