Barring a stay of execution, Douglas Feldman is scheduled to die in nine days. His petition for a state writ of habeas corpus based on ineffective assistance of counsel has gone nowhere. He claims his trial attorney failed to investigate the role his alleged bipolar disorder played in the murders. Now he's running out of road, but Feldman is in no hurry to become the 503rd Texas inmate to meet the end. So, he filed his own petition with a federal district court last week.
It's handwritten and a little messy, but Feldman is no dummy. His petition is also lucid and articulate. He was, after all, once a financial analyst. Then, in 1998, he was out for a night ride on his Harley when he claimed an 18-wheeler nearly ran him off the road. He gunned his motorcycle alongside the truck and emptied his clip into the cab, killing Robert Everett, the driver.
On his way home, he pulled off at an Exxon fueling station and shot tanker driver Nicholas Velasquez in the back. A week later, he shot Antonio Vega outside of a Jack-in-the-Box because he was standing next to a big rig. A jury sentenced him to die. Last year, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to vacate his death sentence. Earlier this year, he wrote a letter to Gawker, pondering the sociological inequities he'd identified on death row and requesting "LSD Hydrate" to help him cope with some heavy existential anxiety.
Now, he's taking a run at the federal district court himself and claiming some abhorrent treatment in the Polunsky Unit. Among other things, he says he's had his head shaved, been subject to round-the-clock searches, been forced to sleep naked on the bare concrete floor and been denied toilet paper. All of this, he claims, without having been "convicted of any disciplinary offense."
But Unfair Park reached out to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and was just stunned to discover that Feldman isn't exactly Nelson Mandela. About a month ago, he granted an interview to a reporter. Before it could begin, TDCJ spokesman Jason Clark says, the inmate tried to tear a telephone from the wall.
Feldman, Clark says, has a lengthy disciplinary history. He's been caught with a razor, which officers believed could be used as a weapon. He has filled bottles in his cell with feces and urine. He has "attempted to assault a corrections officer by slipping out of his cuffs."
Clark couldn't comment on Feldman's pending litigation.
