HOUSTON (AP) - Condemned inmate Richard Tabler, who used a smuggled cell phone to threaten a state senator from death row, has won a reprieve from his scheduled May execution.
Texas prison officials say they've received an order from U.S. District Judge Walter Smith in Waco that blocks Tabler from being taken to Huntsville for lethal injection May 20. Smith's order was issued Thursday. The Texas Attorney General's Office didn't oppose the delay.
The 31-year-old Tabler was convicted of fatally shooting two men in Killeen on Thanksgiving weekend five years ago. He's achieved more recent notoriety for using the illegal cell phone from his death row cell to threaten state Sen. John Whitmire. Those calls in October 2008 resulted in an unprecedented sweep of all Texas prisons, uncovering hundreds of contraband items.
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