WE NEED YOUR HELP!

THE ONES WITH THE LINES IN THEM Yesterday, I sat across from Jamaal Howard on death row in Texas. The State intends to execute him on October 7. If he is executed, I will be by his side. He and I have known each other for a while now, and one thing is always abundantly clear...he is a beautiful person. For two hours, we talked through the glass about all sorts of ins and outs of life, loss and other things. But throughout our visit, he kept pointing at things that were not there. Gesturing toward corners of the room. Interacting with a world that only he could see. This is not unusual in my interactions with Jamaal.

Somewhere in the middle of our visit, I asked him about his interests. Did he like art? He said no. Then he stopped. He doubled back. “Actually...there is one type of art that I really like. You know...the books. The ones with the lines in them.” I had no idea what he was talking about. “You know,” he said, “The ones with Sonic and Mario in them.” The therapist gave them to me. Then, it hit me. He was talking about coloring books.

Jamaal Howard is forty-six years old, and spends much of his days coloring in books designed for children. I will not tell you what that means. I shouldn’t have to. Countless doctors already have.

THE DOCTORS

Before his trial in 2001, Dr. Fred Fason examined Jamaal and diagnosed him with schizophrenia, concluding he lacked a rational understanding of the charges against him. Dr. Duncan, a court-appointed doctor, placed his intellectual functioning in the 65-to-70 range. Buried in the records sat a wound the jury never heard about. At seventeen, Jamaal was shot in the head. Within months of his death sentence, Texas transferred him to the Jester IV psychiatric unit, where the diagnosis settled into permanence. Chronic schizophrenia. Maximum doses of the strongest psychotropic drugs. For twenty-five years, the State has diagnosed, documented and medicated the very illnesses and disabilities the courts have repeatedly declared Jamaal did not have.

The Constitution draws two separate lines around this case. Atkins v. Virginia forbids executing people with intellectual disability, and Jamaal’s test scores sit inside that protection...yet his claim was denied under Ex parte Briseno, the notorious Texas standard the Supreme Court struck down in 2017 as constitutionally intolerable. No court has fully and exhaustively revisited Jamaal’s case for intellectual disability under currently valid law. The second line forbids executing a man who cannot rationally understand why he is being killed...and Jamaal recently told a pen pal he is scheduled to die because Vickie Swartout reached out and accidentally caught one of his bullets out of the air. In his mind, there was no murder. She just accidentally grabbed something out of the air that she shouldn’t have. I am not asking anyone to decide either legal question from an essay. I am asking for something much simpler.

THE ASK

Judge Steven Thomas of the 356th District Court in Kountze, Texas is the primary judge before whom Jamaal’s competency can be raised before his scheduled execution on October 7. We are asking him for one thing. Not a ruling. Not an outcome. A hearing. And the clock is merciless. Under Article 46.05 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure, the trial court keeps jurisdiction over Jamaal’s competency...but the statute cuts off appellate review of any competency motion filed on or after the twentieth day before an execution. Jamaal is set to die on October 7. That makes September 17 the deadline that matters.

THE COLORING BOOK CAMPAIGN - a nationwide campaign to send unmarked coloring books to the judge primarily responsible for questions of Jamaal Howard’s competency to remind him of the limited nature of Jamaal’s intellectual ability.

We are asking people to send coloring books to Judge Thomas. Blank ones. No messages inside. No legal arguments. No notes. The books themselves are the message. *Do not worry. We are going to make our message very clear in the local media. We simply need you to send unmarked coloring books. One coloring book arriving at a Texas courthouse is only slightly out of the ordinary. Hundreds arriving from every corner of the United States become a visible measure of injustice that will be hard to ignore.

Send the coloring books here... Judge Steven Thomas 356th District Court Hardin County Courthouse 300 West Monroe Street Kountze, TX 77625

Our first one hundred books are already in the mail. We need you to send the next hundred. Send one. Send ten. Ask your church to send a box. Ask your children to pick one out...and tell them why. Understand what you are holding when you drop that envelope in the mail. The books are the protest. No march. No permit. No bullhorn. Just coloring books converging on one courthouse from every direction...a demonstration that arrives by post, one that no one can disperse and no one can ignore. *Again…do not worry…we will carry Jamaal’s story to the media so everyone knows exactly who is sending the coloring books and who Texas is preparing to kill. Our demand will remain the same: Hold a hearing for Jamaal Howard.

TRUTH

Vickie Swartout lost her life in 2000, and nothing in this campaign asks anyone to forget her. She deserves to be honored with truth. The truth is that executing a man who functions like a child will not restore her and will not express society’s considered moral judgment...because that judgment has never been rendered.

Somewhere on death row tonight, Jamaal Howard is sitting in the floor coloring. Careful...always careful...to stay inside the lines.

Now is the time for us to stand with Jamaal. Send the books…the ones with the lines in them.