When a terrible crime occurs – for example, a multiple killing – people often hold two contradictory reactions in their minds simultaneously. They ask, “How could any normal person do this? There must be something wrong with them.” And they hold the perpetrator responsible, as though they are perfectly sane.
Many death row cases illustrate this illogic. One such case is that of Richard Tabler, who is scheduled to die on Feb. 13 for shooting two men outside a Killeen nightclub in 2004. Tabler’s attorneys argue that his mental illness kept him from receiving the usual review of his sentence after he was convicted. They say Tabler suffers from Klinefelter syndrome (meaning he was born with an extra X chromosome), first diagnosed in 2015, when Tabler had already been on death row for eight years. The genetic condition can decrease impulse control and mood regulation, making it difficult to follow through on plans.
These symptoms caused Tabler to repeatedly waive and then try to reinstate the appeals of his sentence that death row inmates are allowed to make in state and federal courts, his attorneys say. Court documents show that after his conviction in 2007 and throughout 2008, Tabler vacillated on whether to pursue the appeals. He ordered the attorneys then representing him to drop them on at least five occasions so his execution would come sooner. Each time, he changed his mind.
“He suffered tantrums and wild mood swings, like a toddler, long after he had stopped being a toddler.” – Richard Tabler’s attorneys
As Tabler went back and forth, the attorneys received a report from psychiatrist Kit Harrison. Harrison wrote that Tabler suffered from “a deep and severe constellation of mental illnesses” that had affected him since early adolescence. “He demonstrates full-blown manic and euphoric ideation which is evident during interview,” Harrison wrote, “coupled with obvious rapid-cycling depression, suicidality, intermittent explosiveness, and surging anger with a moment’s notice. [He has] a highly paranoid and delusional worldview of chronic duration. He gets so expansive, euphoric, and grandiose with drugs, or without drug intoxication, that he loses touch with reality.”
Harrison concluded that Tabler showed evidence of severe bipolar disorder, intermittent explosive disorder, ADHD, cognitive disorder, adjustment disorder with anxiety, borderline personality disorder, and antisocial personality disorder with schizoid features. He noted that Tabler had experienced multiple traumatic brain injuries, had tremors, and repeatedly cut himself.
Despite this evidence of mental illness – or maybe because of the difficulties it created in working with him – Tabler’s appellate attorneys eventually submitted to his wish and left the case, something his current attorneys characterize as an abandonment of their client. In 2015, the new attorneys found an explanation for Tabler’s behavior, learning that he had been born with two independent congenital birth defects – Klinefelter syndrome and fetal alcohol syndrome.
“Both prevented his brain from developing normally in utero,” his attorneys wrote in a 2022 appeal, “and each triggered other hormonal, developmental, and physical problems. He grew extremely tall, although his father and brothers are short men. His voice never changed and his beard never developed. He had early, severe, dental problems. Most significantly, Richard displayed from his earliest years a profound inability to control emotions or impulses. He suffered tantrums and wild mood swings, like a toddler, long after he had stopped being a toddler.”
Tabler’s mental illness would help explain his crimes to the average person, but it won’t stop the state from executing him. For that to occur, Tabler would, by law, have to be unable to understand why he was being executed. So his attorneys are seeking other strategies to stop the execution. They didn’t want to publicly disclose them as of press time.
This article appears in February 7 • 2025.
