Death row inmate Ruben Gutierrez has filed a federal lawsuit against the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, alleging his civil rights are being violated because a priest will not be allowed to be with him in the death chamber on his Oct. 27 execution date.
Gutierrez, 44, was found guilty of the 1998 brutal death of 85-year-old Brownsville widow Escolastica Harrison at her trailer home. According to records, he attempted to steal $600,000 that she had hidden inside her home. He has been on death row ever since.
Named in the lawsuit are Byran Collier, executive director of the TDCJ; Bobby Lumpkin, director of the TDCJ Correctional Institutions Division; and Dennis Crowley, warden of the TDCJ.
“Mr. Gutierrez will be executed under the conditions that violate the First Amendment and substantially burden the exercise of his religious beliefs as protected by the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000,” a portion of the lawsuit reads.
The lawsuit was filed Aug. 25.
“Mr. Gutierrez’s request through the requisite TDJC administrative channels for a reasonable accommodation -to have a Catholic spiritual advisor (a) pray aloud, (b) perform Viaticum, and (c) touch his shoulder in the execution chamber until he is pronounced dead- has been denied,” the lawsuit states.
The lawsuit calls for relief so that Gutierrez is executed in a manner that does not violate his religious beliefs and his rights guaranteed under the First Amendment.
The state does allow an inmate’s spiritual advisor to meet with them on their execution date prior to the start of their execution procedures.
The Texas Attorney General’s Office on May 20 notified Gutierrez’s attorney that the TDCJ would not allow Gutierrez’s spiritual advisor to place his hand on the inmate’s shoulder once it was time to administer the legal injection.
Gutierrez had been scheduled to be put to death on June 15. Cameron County District Attorney Luis V. Saenz on June 25 announced on his Facebook Page Gutierrez’s final execution date, stating that waiting “almost 22 years, 5 months, and 15 days since the jury’s verdict, justice will be finally served.”
In a statement released on Monday, Saenz said, “The Court has disposed of this claim, furthermore the Court has found that his effort to secure the touch of his religious advisor at the time of execution a dilatory tactic and disingenuous. The court denied his request to amend his complaint to advance said claim.”
Saenz further said: “The convicted murderer (I am not saying his name because he does not deserve recognition) has wronged our community in a horrid way and deserves no celebrity for his crimes. Mrs. Escolastica Harrison, the victim of his crime, was an 85-year-old widow who was kind, generous, and lived a good life. And in late 1998 she was taken from this world because her murderer wanted to steal from her and ended her life by stabbing her thirteen times in her face and neck.
“The convicted murderer continues to deny responsibility, shows no remorse, nor has he ever sought any form of atonement.”
Saenz also said: “I had hoped that justice for Mrs. Harrison would have happened sooner. Her last surviving sister, Estella Cuellar Perez, had been holding on hope to see the sentence carried out. But, alas, it was not the case, and now we wait for October 27, 2021, the day that has been assigned to carry out justice. 22 years, 5 months, and 15 days since the jury verdict, justice will finally be served.”
A summary of incident statement on the Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s website pertaining to Gutierrez’s case reads, “On September 5, 1998, in Brownsville, Texas, Gutierrez and two co-defendants entered the home office of an 85-year-old Hispanic female with the intent to rob her of the money she kept in a safe. The victim was struck repeatedly and stabbed multiple times in the head, causing her death. The subject and co-defendants fled the residence with a minimum of $56,000.”
Rene Garcia and Pedro Garza are listed as co-defendants in the case. Garcia, 44, received a life sentence. No information on Garza is available.
Prosecutors argued Gutierrez and two accomplices planned to rob Harrison of her savings, killing the woman when the theft didn’t go according to plan. Gutierrez has maintained his innocence, pursuing multiple appeals at the state and federal level seeking to have crime scene evidence tested for DNA. All of his appeals were denied.
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