NEW BOSTON, Texas-Opening statements and testimony are expected to begin this morning in the capital murder trial of a Texas prison inmate accused in the July 2015 death of a correctional officer at the Barry Telford Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
The fate of 39-year-old Billy Joel Tracy lies in the hands of 12 Bowie County citizens. If the seven men and five women on Tracy's jury find him guilty of capital murder in the July 15, 2015, beating death of Timothy Davison, 47, they will then be tasked with deciding if he should receive the death penalty or a sentence of life without the possibility of parole.
At a pretrial hearing last week, 102nd District Judge Bobby Lockhart said he expects the guilt-or-innocence phase of Tracy's trial to take about a week.
Commencement of the punishment phase of trial has been tentatively scheduled for Nov. 1, in the event Tracy is convicted.
Davison, an officer with less than a year on the job, was escorting Tracy back to his cell in administrative segregation when the inmate slipped his left hand free of its cuff and attacked. When Davison was on the ground, Tracy allegedly grabbed his metal tray slot bar and used it to pummell him. The attack was captured from multiple angles on video surveillance. Davison was pronounced dead the same morning at a Texarkana hospital.
Tracy has voiced his objections to being held at the Telford Unit during his trial. The next closest TDCJ unit to New Boston is several hours away, making it impractical to house him elsewhere. Personnel from TDCJ will be present in the courtroom, dressed in street clothes so as not to give the appearance to the jury that Tracy is an especially dangerous man. Tracy also will be dressed in street clothes rather than prison garb. Beneath his clothing, Tracy is expected to wear a locking leg brace and a device capable of delivering an electric shock.
Tracy has been behind bars for more than half his life.
In 1995, he was sentenced to a three-year term for retaliation in Tarrant County, Texas. Three years later, Tracy was sentenced to life with parole possible, plus 20 years for burglary, aggravated assault and assault on a public servant in Rockwall County, Texas. In 2005, Tracy received an additional 45-year term for stabbing a guard with a homemade weapon at a TDCJ unit in Amarillo, Texas. Tracy was sentenced to 10 years in 2009 for attacking a guard at a TDCJ unit in Abilene, Texas.
Assistant District Attorney Kelley Crisp has filed notice of her intent to call a long list of witnesses who are expected to provide first-hand accounts of Tracy's violent past.
The last time a death sentence was sought in Bowie County was in 2004, when Stephon Lavelle Walter was tried for the 2003 Labor Day weekend murders of three employees of Outback Steakhouse in Texarkana, one of whom was in her third trimester of pregnancy. A Collin County jury declined to sentence Walter to death, opting for a sentence of life instead, after a change of venue was granted in the case. At that time, Texas law did not include life without parole as a possible sentence for capital murder, as it does today. Walter, 25 at the time of the murders and now 38, will be eligible for parole Sept. 4, 2043, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
The last time a death sentence was pronounced in Bowie County was in March 2001. James Scott Porter was already serving time for murder when he killed a fellow inmate at the Telford Unit with a shank and a rock in May 2000. He was executed Jan. 4, 2005.
The month before Porter was sentenced to die, a Bowie County jury sentenced Deon James Tumblin to death for the June 2000 murder of a 75-year-old woman.
Tumblin hanged himself in his cell on death row in 2004. Lee Andrew Taylor was sentenced to death by a Bowie County jury in 2000 for the 1999 murder of a fellow inmate at the Telford Unit where he was serving time for aggravated robbery. He was executed June 16, 2011.
Tracy is represented by Mount Pleasant lawyer Mac Cobb and Texarkana lawyer Jeff Harrelson. Assistant District Attorney Lauren Richards is assisting Crisp with the state's prosecution.
Check the Gazette's print edition or website, texarkanagazette.com, and our Facebook page, facebook.com/texarkanagazette, for continuing daily coverage and updates on the trial.