AUSTIN, Texas - A Texas inmate convicted of killing a Houston police officer is scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection on Wednesday evening.
In May 1999, Jeffrey Williams, now 37, was driving a stolen Lexus when policeman Troy Blando stopped him in a motel parking lot and tried to arrest him.
Williams shot Blando in the chest and fled, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Blando got back into his car and radioed for help, but he died from the gunshot wound.
Williams was arrested near the scene wearing one handcuff, according to an account of the case from the Texas attorney general's office.
He told police that he did not know that Blando, who was in plain clothes, was a police officer, and that he thought Blando was trying to rob him, according to the attorney general's account.
Williams, who said he has mental disabilities, has appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, saying that he had ineffective trial lawyers.
The lethal injection is scheduled to take place after 6 p.m. local time at a prison in Huntsville, Texas.
If the execution is carried out, Williams would be the sixth inmate executed in Texas this year and the 12th in the United States, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. - Reuters