Amos Wells is on death row because the system failed.
Amos Joseph Wells III has been on death row in Tarrant County, Texas since November 2016.
He was sentenced to death for killing three people, including his pregnant girlfriend. That crime was devastating. The grief it caused is real.
Before that night Amos spent 22 years living with mental illness that ran through three generations of his family. Documentation confirmed Amos suffered with mental illness that was undiagnosed and untreated, but most of it never reached the jurors who decided whether he would live or die.
What is also real: the lawyers appointed to defend Amos’ life told the jury he was genetically programmed to be violent. His own defense attorneys called him a defect. They called him a gangster. They opened the door for the prosecution to point to those defense lawyers and tell the jury: even his own legal team admits he will always be dangerous.
At sentencing, what the jury didn’t get was the complete picture.
This site exists because the process that sentenced
Amos Wells to death failed at nearly every level.
Overcome by remorse, Amos turned himself in to the police.
The prosecutor told the jury Amos never shed a single tear. The video of him sobbing, asking to apologize to the victims’ families, was excluded from trial. This is the video the jury never saw.
How the System Failed
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Amos’ lawyers used junk science to argue he was born violent.
Amos’ defense attorneys introduced testimony from a psychiatrist who told the jury that Amos Wells was 4.5 times more likely than the average person to be violent in the future, because of a gene variant – a theory that scientists had already discredited. The research behind that theory was conducted almost entirely on white men. Amos Wells is Black. The prosecution used that testimony to argue that Amos was likely to be dangerous in the future, a condition which is required to win the death sentence. His own lawyers handed them the argument.
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A video that showed his remorse was hidden from the jury.
Within hours of the shootings, Wells turned himself in, sobbing, asking officers to shoot him, begging to apologize to the victims' families. That footage was excluded from trial. The prosecutor then told the jury Amos had “never shed a tear.”
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A juror who said he would always vote for death sat on the panel.
A prospective juror wrote in his questionnaire, three times, that anyone guilty of capital murder should receive the death penalty. Normally, the defense would prevent anyone holding this view from taking a jury seat. But Amos’ lawyers did not strike this prospective juror from consideration. Instead, they let him sit on the jury that sentenced Amos to die.
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The jury never heard who Amos Wells actually was and what he had endured.
More than 20 people who could provide important context about Amos - family, neighbors, a jail guard he protected from attack - were never contacted by his lawyers. As a result, The jury never heard vital information that could have influenced its decision.
Current Legal Status.
In December 2025, Amos' new, post-conviction defense lawyers petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to review whether his trial lawyers' defense strategy violated Amos’ right to effective counsel. Three amicus briefs supported the petition, including one from the Legal Defense Fund (an outgrowth of the NAACP).
On March 30, 2026, the Court declined to take the case. That closed the federal appeals process, but it did not answer the questions this case raised.
As legal options are dwindling for Amos, there is still a path forward that runs through clemency. A clemency petition asks the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and the Governor to do what the courts would not: look at everything the jury never saw, and recognize that this sentence was reached through a process that failed Amos Wells at nearly every level. As we follow Amos’ case we need your voice at every step to advocate for him and for his life.
Take Action.
You do not have to think Amos Wells is a good person to believe the process that sentenced him to death was broken.
A death sentence built on bad science, hidden evidence, and lawyers who gave the prosecution its winning argument is not justice. It is a system failure.
Defense attorneys are preparing a clemency petition for Amos Wells. Add your name now to be among the first to sign when it's ready, and to help build public awareness in the meantime. Sign up to be notified using the form below.
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