Hamilton on Victoria's efforts to divorce the University of Houston, Ramshaw on a disagreement between right-to-life groups over laws governing when life ends, E. Smith's TribLive interview with Sen. Kel Seliger and Rep. Burt Solomons on redistricting, Aguilar's interview with the mayor of Juárez, Tan on the continuing hunt for money to buy down budget cuts, Grissom on a psychologist who found more than a dozen inmates mentally competent to face the death penalty, Stiles and yours truly on the House redistricting maps and Galbraith on cutting or killing a tax break for high-cost natural gas producers: The best of our best content from April 11 to 15, 2011.

A psychologist who examined 14 inmates now on Texas’ death row — and two others who were subsequently executed — and found them intellectually competent enough to face the death penalty has agreed never to perform such evaluations again. 

The U.S. Supreme Court issued a 30-day stay for death row inmate Cleve Foster, who was scheduled tonight to become the first Texas inmate executed using the state's new three-drug lethal injection cocktail.

Texas laws more strictly regulate euthanasia of animals than the lethal injection of death row inmates, according to a report released Sunday by the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Texas and the Center for International Human Rights at Northwestern University Law School.

Travis County District Court Judge Stephen Yelenosky this afternoon denied the request of two death row inmates to temporarily halt executions with Texas' new lethal injection drug. Lawyers for Cleve Foster and Humberto Leal said they would immediately appeal the judge's decision.

Texas' decision to change one of the drugs used for lethal injections has sparked a lawsuit, calls for federal investigation of the criminal justice department and pleas from the drugmaker not to use its product for executions. 

Two death row inmates sued the state today, arguing that the decision to use a new lethal injection drug was made too secretly and too hastily.

Jim Willett had not intended to spend the better part of his adult life working in Texas’ sprawling prison system. But the business student turned prison guard worked 30 years in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and oversaw 89 executions. 

Cleve Foster will be the first Texas inmate to receive the anesthetic drug pentobarbital — instead of sodium thiopental — in the three-drug cocktail that will be used in his execution on April 5.

The next execution is scheduled to take place April 5 — less than a month from now — but the Texas Department of Criminal Justice has not yet decided which drug it will use to replace sodium thiopental, one of three used in the state's execution protocol.

Rev. Carroll Pickett holds the world record for witnessing the most state executions as a chaplain. He saw 95 men die by lethal injection during his career as the death house chaplain.

The onetime death house chaplain on what it was like to witness the most state executions of anyone in his job (95, by lethal injection), what changed his mind about the death penalty and why lawmakers should continue to fund the chaplain program.

Today, a week before his son is scheduled to die, Columbus Adams and a host of religious leaders asked the state to forgive Timothy Adams. His son, he said, never committed a crime before the day he lost control during an argument with his wife and killed their son.

Health care in Texas prisons is already so abysmal it borders on being unconstitutional, according to a report released today by the Texas Civil Rights Project. The cuts lawmakers are now considering, they said, will almost certainly spark lawsuits that could cost Texas more money than it would spend to simply improve the system.

The short answer is yes — and no. It's still around, and would work if it was plugged in. But it can't be used for executions in Texas anymore. 

Before prison officials administer the lethal cocktail of drugs used to carry out executions, the condemned may say their final piece. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice keeps a record of these last statements.

Texas officials have enough execution drugs to carry out the death sentences of two inmates scheduled for lethal injection in February. But they will have to find another sodium thiopental supplier or a different drug to use after March.

Ramshaw on how hard it is to sue over emergency room mistakes, Galbraith on paying for roads in an era of fuel-efficient vehicles, Aguilar on a disagreement about gun regulation, my interview with tort reformer Dick Trabulsi, Grissom on Perry's parsimonious pardoning, Hu and Chang interactively look at House committee chairs, M. Smith on an election challenge and who'll settle it, Ramshaw and Stiles on Dallas County's blue streak and Hamilton on a Valley school district that leads the nation in preparing kids for college: The best of our best from Dec. 20 to 24, 2010.