EDITORS NOTE: Claudia Van Wyk is a senior staff attorney with the ACLU Capital Punishment Project. She spent 14 years with the Capital Habeas Unit of the Federal Community Defender Office in Philadelphia, where she met Richard Tabler, who had been convicted of murder and was challenging a death sentence. At the ACLU, Claudia continued to work on Richard’s legal appeals, including a petition in October 2024 asking the Supreme Court to review Richard’s case.
On February 13, 2025, I traveled to Texas’s death row at the Polunksy Unit in Livingston, Texas, to perform my last service for my client, Richard Tabler: helping him to die.
I’ve spent more than four decades working on death penalty cases, supporting people through the hardest and darkest times of their lives. Still, nothing is quite like the surreal experience of saying goodbye to someone who is perfectly healthy but preparing to die at the hands of the state.
That morning, my colleague Quinton and I arrived early at the Polunsky Unit. Richard had asked his family to say goodbye at 11 because he didn’t want them to see him led away for the last time at noon. We watched from the car as a guard escorted his family out. Then it was our turn.
Quinton had seen Richard for an hour the day before, so this was mostly my half-hour to say goodbye. Just as I would do in preparing to argue an appeal before a court, I picked the three most important things I wanted to say to Richard ahead of time. First, I conveyed love and support from various people we’d heard from. Richard always loved sending and receiving messages to and from absent people at every visit or call. Today was no different.
Second, I asked the officer to take photos of us.
Credit: Claudia Van Wyk
Last, with Richard’s consent, I recited the Litany at the Time of Death from the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer. He met my eyes intently and seemed moved, although those who knew Richard will find it amusing that he was also mentally checking each of the very conventional Christian petitions against his own theology, giving a little surprised nod each time. He seemed surprised, too, that I can recite the Lord’s Prayer from memory without looking at the page. I have always stayed very general with Richard and other clients about my faith—earning their trust in my common human empathy and legal skill and zeal can get complicated enough without wading into theological disputes. In any case, I think it gave him some comfort to share prayer with me. It comforted me, anyway.
Richard looked terrible, like he hadn’t slept all night, and didn’t want to eat or drink anything. But somehow he seemed almost upbeat and laughed his high-pitched laugh a few times. We had a few minutes left after I had finished my three-item agenda, but Richard asked us to leave early of our own accord rather than wait for our escort to come and make us do it. I could appreciate that sentiment. All three of us put our hands to the glass. I blew a kiss and then waved as we rounded the corner with heads high. And that was it.
An officer walked us out of the prison and all the way to our car. The officer instructed us to leave, so we set off for Huntsville prison, where the execution would take place.
We spent the afternoon at Hospitality House, a nonprofit almost across the street from the prison. It is affiliated with the Baptist church and offers free housing on weekends to family members who come to visit incarcerated people. On the day of an execution, which always happens during the week, they make their space available to family and legal team members of the condemned person while they wait for the 6 p.m. execution.
The warmth of the space stood in sharp contrast to the grim reality that had brought us there. It was full of upbeat touches: cute decals on the bathroom doors, cheery handmade quilts on the beds for the weekend family visitors, a room full of children’s toys, a hand-made rocking horse and rocking Harley-Davidson motorcycle, a small pantry stocked with canned goods like Campbell’s soup and LeSeur peas, and art by incarcerated people on the walls. At several points that afternoon, I felt overwhelmed by the incongruous contrast between the décor and the situation. At one point, the prison allowed Richard to make final calls to loved ones. We passed around the phone and said our goodbyes.
Shortly after 5 p.m., the chaplains gathered up those who would witness the execution—Richard’s family, a lawyer and a paralegal, and his spiritual adviser Jay Dan Gumm—and they left for the prison. Those of us left behind valiantly continued chatting. At 6 p.m., when we knew the execution drugs would start flowing, Quinton and I found our way to the small chapel, where I settled into a cozy rocking chair and sobbed for a bit about the cruel, ridiculous waste of capital punishment and tragedy of Richard’s life and death.
Later that night, we all gathered at a funeral home that had agreed to dress Richard in the suit his mom had brought, lend a coffin for a celebration of life, and later cremate his remains for the family. A number of community people from different Texas prison ministries who knew Richard attended. Four “Bikers for Christ,” who I think ride up from Galveston every month to visit the Polunsky Unit, sat in their embroidered biker jackets in the third row.
Jay Dan played a piece of music that he thought embodied Richard’s spirit, “Hard-Fought Grace.” That seemed about right to me. He and David, one of Richard’s lawyers, both spoke about Richard’s anguished remorse and dramatic personal growth over the years. I tried to describe in a few words how “hard fought” his legal fight was, and to express my gratitude that he liked me enough to give me nicknames: Short Stuff and My Little Friend. In a move unique in my experience of funerals, Jay Dan read a pre-written message from Richard. Mostly he voiced his spiritual hope and faith, but he also told David that from his vantage above in heaven he could see the bald spot on the top of David’s head. He thanked his mom for the warm socks he was wearing in his coffin.
We flew out of Texas the next day exhausted, grieving, and angry, but proud for Richard’s sake. First, his anguished statement of remorse carried conviction. In his final statement, he told the victims’ families, "There is not a day that goes by that I don't regret my actions. . . And if you feel that this is what you need to get you closure, I pray it helps you have that closure. I am deeply sorry.” While of course no words can ever atone for a murder or satisfy the victims’ loved ones, Richard seems to have touched at least one family member. The Associated Press published a story that included a quote from a victim family member who seemed convinced of his sincerity. I think Richard would have taken some comfort in that.
Second, in the last weeks before the execution, Richard’s team struggled with whether to challenge his ability to make a rational choice to forgo some remaining avenues of litigation. His long history of severe mental illness, which had him repeatedly changing his mind about “waiving,” made deciding what to do very hard. Ultimately we concluded that fighting his wishes at the very end would have almost no chance of succeeding and jeopardize our ability to support his hard work of preparing to die a good death. And, beginning with the Supreme Court’s denial of review, he remained firm to the end about what he wanted, and did die a good death.
It was an honor to support him and remains an honor to carry on the fight against the death penalty in memory of Richard and so many others.
Published October 10, 2025 at 06:25PM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/lNhJT2j
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