A 53-year-old East Texas man sent to death row for strangling his mother, then stealing her car and draining her bank accounts, has lost a federal court appeal.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals says Tracy Lane Beatty isn't entitled to pursue appeals that argue he had poor legal help at both the guilt-innocence and punishment phases of his capital murder trial for the 2003 slaying of his 62-year-old mother, Carolyn Click.
Evidence and testimony showed the pair had a rocky relationship and that Click had kicked him out of her Smith County mobile home the day she was killed.
After she was strangled, court documents say Beatty "crudely" buried his mother behind her home.
Beatty does not yet have an execution date.
Copyright AP - Associated Press
