Murder suspect Randall Wayne Mays is taken from ETMC to the Smith Co. Jail in May 2007. (Staff file photo)

ATHENS  (AP) – A judge has determined a man on death row for a shootout that left two East Texas sheriff’s officers dead is competent to be executed.

Visiting State District Judge Joe Clayton of Tyler has made the ruling in the case of convicted killer Randall Wayne Mays.

The 58-year-old Mays was condemned for the May 2007 slaying of Henderson County sheriff’s deputy. A second officer also was killed. 

Mays, 58, was sentenced to die by lethal injection for the deaths of Tony Price Ogburn, 61, a five-year veteran from Log Cabin, and Paul Steven Habelt, 63, a 13-year-veteran from Eustace, after they came to the aid of a fellow officer.

Mays also shot and injured deputy Kevin Harris during the ordeal, which began as a domestic dispute between Mays and his wife.

The shootings occurred after Mays barricaded himself in his house in Payne Springs, about 55 miles southeast of Dallas.

Mays’ attorneys contended he’s mentally incompetent for execution.

In 2015 the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals gave Mays a reprieve two days before his scheduled execution and then ordered he undergo a mental health evaluation.