After his sentencing in 2007, Richard Tabler was incarcerated on
death row at
Allan B. Polunsky Unit, where the state's death row is located. At one point, Tabler was temporarily moved off death row and transferred to the
Jester IV Unit after a
suicide attempt in October 2008. After the end of trial proceedings, Tabler spent the following decade or so
appealing against his two death sentences for the Thanksgiving double murder, and during this period, he committed more crimes while in prison. Despite these developments, Tabler had more than once proclaimed his intention to waive his right to appeal and asked to be executed, although he would later change his mind and continue appealing. The first time he did so was on October 17, 2008, when Tabler asked to drop his appeals and wanted to die. The second time was on May 8, 2010, when he sent a letter to a judge to withdraw his appeal and called for his immediate execution, although his decision to stop appealing was questioned at one point and a hearing was held in 2011 to determine if he was mentally competent to forgo his appeals. On October 15, 2012, Tabler reiterated his death wish. In September 2013, Tabler again expressed his intention to not appeal, which was met with strong objections from his lawyers, who argued he was not in a mentally competent state to drop his appeals.
Appeal process Tabler appealed against the trial verdict on December 16, 2009, but the
Texas Court of Criminal Appeals dismissed his appeal. Tabler was originally scheduled to be executed in February 2010, but a stay was issued. In August 2011, it was reported that Tabler had appealed that his first decision to waive his appeals were not made voluntarily as some prison officials allegedly threatened him to not proceed with his appeal against the death sentence. On October 3, 2014, the
5th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Tabler's appeal. A follow-up appeal from Tabler was also rejected by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals on January 27, 2015, although some of Tabler's grounds of appeal were remitted back to the lower courts for re-hearing. On June 10, 2021, the
U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas turned down the appeal of Tabler. On October 7, 2024, the
U.S. Supreme Court refused to allow Tabler's final appeal and therefore confirmed the death penalty in his case.
Phone smuggling crimes In October 2008, it was reported that Tabler was caught for having made threatening phone calls to State Senator
John Whitmire, claiming that he knew the names of the legislator's daughters and the residential address, and wanted to go after them. After his arrest, Tabler was found to have used a smuggled mobile phone to make these calls, and it was further uncovered that Tabler had shared the same phone with nine other prisoners in his block, and about 2,800 calls were made on it during the past 30 days. A prison lockdown was therefore initiated for security reasons upon the revelation of the smuggled phone case. After investigations found that Tabler's mother, Lorraine, had procured the phone and some air time for the phone calls, a warrant of arrest was issued. During that same month, Lorraine Tabler was arrested at an airport in Texas shortly after she arrived to visit her son, charged with smuggling prohibited items into the prison. Tabler was charged with making threats and use of prohibited items in prison custody in May 2009, and therefore sentenced to ten years' imprisonment for these charges.
Death threat letters Apart from the phone smuggling, Tabler had sent threat letters to Whitmire since 2008 and made death threats on the politician (one of these threat letters was also sent to a reporter). Another occasion in 2009, Tabler persuaded a Methodist prison chaplain to smuggle letters out of the prison, and these letters were sent out to Whitmire, which contained threats to the politician. During that same year, he also made a web blog to once again threaten the life of Whitmire. In 2012, Tabler once again sent threat letters to Whitmire. ==Execution==