Days ahead of the scheduled execution of Melissa Lucio, advocates continue to pressure Cameron County District Attorney Luis V. Saenz to rescind the execution warrant.
So far, he’s resisted impassioned appeals from Lucio’s family, advocacy groups, state representatives, state senators, petitions, celebrities, and a bishop. He’s stated he trusts the system of appeals, courts and boards, and will use his authority to request a recall of the execution warrant only if necessary.
That moment could come as soon as Monday, as Lucio is scheduled to be executed at 6 p.m. Wednesday in Huntsville.
Yet, just north of the Rio Grande Valley, a wholly different scenario played out recently in another death row case when the Nueces County district attorney in Corpus Christi rescinded an execution warrant in a case with no public outcry in favor of the death row inmate.
It’s a tale of two Texas district attorneys who have undertaken vastly different approaches in a state that ranks highest in executions in the United States.
Earlier this month, an execution date was set for John Henry Ramirez, a former kitchen laborer who entered death row on Feb. 13, 2009 for robbing and killing a Hispanic man in 2004. Then, just days after a judge approved an execution warrant request from Nueces County in that case, the county’s own District Attorney Mark Gonzalez took action April 14 to rescind the execution warrant, granting Ramirez a reprieve from his scheduled Oct. 5 execution.
The formal action surprised many, making national news and flooding Gonzalez with interview requests as the public tried to understand the prosecutor’s decision.
He told The Brownsville Herald that his decision had nothing to do with mercy for Ramirez.
When Gonzalez became district attorney, he did not have a set position about the death penalty.
“As I got educated and wanted to learn about the death penalty, I started to evolve my stance on it,” Gonzalez said.
The former defense attorney has now started his sixth year as the county’s top prosecutor. During his first term, he litigated a capital murder trial, and although the case was “one of the most heinous cases I had ever seen, both as a prosecutor and as a defense attorney,” the jury chose life without parole rather than the death penalty. The defendant was convicted of brutally torturing and killing the mother of his unborn child, causing both the death of the woman and the child she was carrying, Gonzalez said.
“He tortured her for quite some time, over the course of eight to 12 hours,” Gonzalez said.
The jury’s decision gave him pause to more fully consider his professional duties regarding capital murder prosecutions. Today, he cites jurors’ resistance to issue death penalty rulings and “many other reasons,” such as the efficiency of litigating death penalty cases, the years or decades spent on appeals, statistics about “who it is imposed on,” how executions are carried out, and failings in the criminal justice system that include instances of innocent people being accused and convicted.
“Because of that, I used that as an opportunity to make the decision that our office wouldn’t be going forward on the death penalty anymore,” Gonzalez said. “Since my office will no longer be seeking the death penalty, I thought it would be pretty hypocritical that I would ask for a date of execution, if that makes sense. Because of that, that’s why I asked to withdraw that motion asking for a date of execution.”
Advocates have been pressing the Cameron County District Attorney’s Office to do the same for Lucio, but for different reasons. Following a 2020 documentary, “The State of Texas vs. Melissa,” groups have pressed Gov. Greg Abbott and Saenz to watch the film, which presents a narrative that raises doubts about the events that transpired in 2007 for many who have viewed the video, available on streaming platforms.
In Lucio’s case, paramedics were dispatched Feb. 17, 2007, to a Harlingen apartment, where they found an unresponsive 2 1/2-year-old child who subsequently died. Physical trauma on Mariah Alvarez’s body was presented as evidence of horrific abuse that led to the arrest and conviction of Lucio, the child’s mother. The defense countered that the death was caused by the toddler falling down a flight of stairs.
Lucio, who maintains her innocence, has been on death row since Aug. 12, 2008 where she will have spent 13 years, eight months and 15 days if executed Wednesday.
To be clear, the community is divided on the matter. A number of people in the Valley have voiced outrage at the idea of letting Lucio go free. Yet, vocal opposition to Lucio’s execution intensified after Saenz filed a warrant of execution Jan. 13. It was approved the next day in the 138th state District Court. Support now includes celebrities Kim Kardashian and Dolores Huerta, a famed Latino civil rights movement leader, labor activisit and co-founder of the United Farm Workers Association.
Calls have continued this weekend for Abbott and Saenz to “watch the film,” the call to action for protestors in rallies planned Saturday for at least 16 cities across Texas and beyond, according to Abraham Bonowitz, executive director of the nonprofit advocacy group Death Penalty Action.
In Austin, the support for a stay has resonated with lawmakers.
“Struck by the sentencing disparity and grave doubts about the reliability of Melissa’s conviction, a bipartisan group of more than 80 members of the Texas House of Representatives and a bipartisan group of 20 members of the Texas Senate oppose Melissa’s execution,” states a news release issued Thursday from LULAC’s Johnny Mata. “Hundreds of Texas anti-domestic violence groups, Baptist, Evangelical and Catholic leaders, Latino organizations, exonerees of wrongful convictions, and Melissa’s children are urging the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and Governor Abbott to grant Melissa clemency.”
Of the 12 people who sat on the jury that condemned Lucio, one juror has died. Six of the remaining jurors have not wavered from their guilty verdict, but five others have expressed misgivings with the guilty verdict since January.
According to Death Penalty Action, more than 8,000 letters have been sent to the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles.
Among the letters, Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr., D-Brownsville, and 20 other senators wrote in support of a commutation or reprieve: “The death penalty is the ultimate punishment in Texas, and our state has an absolute obligation that it never executes an innocent person. With eyewitness accounts of Mariah’s accidental fall, and no eyewitness acounts that point to murder … Lucio’s case is one that gives even proponents of the death penalty pause.”
On Friday, Sen. Lucio, of no relation to the inmate’s family, prayed a rosary over members of her family in Harlingen, including Melissa Lucio’s mother, Esperanza Correa Trevino.
The pardons board must vote by 1 p.m. Monday on any recommendation to the governor for a stay or commutation in the case, and Gov. Greg Abbott could then act on the board’s recommendation.
Or, advocates maintain, the Cameron County district attorney could request a stay of the execution.
During a contentious hearing April 12 in Austin, Saenz told a state committee he did not believe Lucio would be executed April 27.
“This (case) has not been finally decided,” Saenz told the committee. “We have at last count about 15 live pleadings that have yet to be heard. Seven in state court. Four with the court of criminal appeals. One in a federal district court, and then one proceeding with the Board of Pardons and Paroles.”
Members of the Texas House of Representatives’ Criminal Justice Reform, Interim Study, committee initially asked Saenz if he believed he had the authority to halt Lucio’s execution. The district attorney did not directly answer.
“At this time, even if I have that authority,” Saenz said. “I won’t do that.”
That’s when the dynamics of the hearing shifted to tones of contention between the lawmakers and the prosecutor. Committee chair Rep. Jeff Leach, R-Allen, who had been leading the arguments for Saenz to “press the pause button,” was now telling Saenz his firm stance was “shocking and disappointing.”
“I’m just going to state it,” Leach said. “You have the power, right now, single-handedly, tonight to withdraw this request. To press the pause button on her execution so exactly what you said could take place. We could have new evidence, and there could be opportunity for cross examination. So that Melissa Lucio could get what all of us are entitled to and what I know you care so much about — and that is a fair trial.”
However, Saenz was not fully swayed, and he told Leach that a stay of execution could still happen through the court process. Further, he raised his own questions for the committee to consider.
“Do you know that Baby Mariah was taken from her mother when she was days old?” Saenz asked the representatives. “And Baby Mariah was returned to her mother almost two and a half years later, and from day one that she was returned to the defendant’s custody of care and control, 88 days later she was dead.”
At that, Leach told the prosecutor the committee would not be relitigating the case.
“Oh, now you’re not going to relitigate it?” Saenz responded.
Saenz told the committee that he trusted the legal system and insisted that “this case is not over.”
Before his testimony concluded, he had vowed to rescind the execution warrant before Wednesday, if appeals and defense motions required more time to be considered by courts. However, a technical issue also formed an obstable for the district attorney to act any sooner, as the committee wanted, he said. The order would have to be rescinded through the same court that issued the execution warrant, according to Saenz, and yet the defense attorneys had filed a motion to recuse the judge in that court.
“So said judge would not be able to act on my particular request unless that issue has been put to rest by that time, by that day,” Saenz said.
It was not immediately clear Saturday if that motion to recuse has since been withdrawn.
Committee members asked Saenz to own his decision not to rescind his request for an execution warrant immediately — especially if he risks waiting too late to act in time.
Based on his experience, he told the group, executions rarely occur on the first date that is set.
“If defendant Lucio does not get a stay by a certain day, then I will stop it. I am owning it,” the district attorney told the committee.
Doing anything on his part before then, he argued, would not result in moving the case forward with instructions from a court about what constituted new evidence or whether even a new trial would be necessary. Further, he argued such actions on his part might undermine the authoritity of courts who have already ruled on the case throughout the appeals process.
“What harm could it possibly do to a single Texan to press the pause button now?” Leach questioned. “(Compare to) the grave harm, the irreversible harm, the unmistakable harm that would be done not only to Melissa but to our entire system of justice if her execution is allowed to go forward and we find out later that, wow, she was innocent.”
Saenz focused on the system — and told the panel they might still get the results they have been seeking.
“I think that’s where, with all due respect, you are wrong,” Saenz told Leach, “Because this case is still being litigated, we may still have the decision that you are waiting for, but for me to sit here unilaterally and just pull the plug on it, then what do I say to the other 195 poor souls who are on death row right now, who are also, by the way, ‘innocent’?”
The audience responded with rumbles of anger.
Committee members asked Saenz for a timeline of when he believed a court could issue a possible stay.
“I expect the courts to rule either this week or next week,” Saenz said.
As of Saturday, that week and the following had passed without any court rulings to disrupt Wednesday’s scheduled execution.
Saenz has declined to comment to media in regard to this case in recent weeks.
Today, 197 inmates sit on death row in Texas — after the 198th was killed by lethal injection Thursday. Only six of these inmates are women, including Lucio, who is the first and only Hispanic woman to be convicted of capital murder in Texas.
Lucio is not the only death row inmate on that list from Cameron County:
>> Gustavo Tijerina Sandoval, a former mechanic from Mexico, was convicted and sentenced to death in 2019 for the 2014 shooting death of a U.S. Border Patrol agent.
>> John Allen Rubio, a former laborer, sits on death row for the March 11, 2003, decapitations of his co-defendant’s 2-month-old daughter, 1-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter in Brownsville.
>> Ruben Gutierrez, a former forklift operator and laborer, is on death row for the Sept. 5, 1998, killing of an 85-year-old woman during an attempt to rob her, records show. “The victim was struck repeatedly and stabbed multiple times in the head, causing her death,” stated the Texas Department of Criminal Justice website, adding that Gutierrez and his co-defendants allegedly took a minimum of $56,000 from the victim.
>> Jose Alfredo Rivera, a former construction worker, is on death row for the July 9, 1993, sexual assault and strangulation of 3-year-old Daniel Blanco in Brownsville.
However, Lucio is the only inmate now on death row because of the prosecutorial efforts of former district attorney Armando Villalobos, convicted and sentenced to 13 years in federal prison for bribery and extortion.
“Evidence presented at (Villalobos’) trial revealed that from Oct. 2, 2006, through May 3, 2012, Villalobos and others were involved in a scheme to illegally generate income for themselves and others through a pattern of bribery and extortion, favoritism, improper influence, personal self-enrichment, self-dealing, concealment and conflict of interest,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office Western District of Texas states on its website. “Jurors found that Villalobos solicited and accepted over $100,000 in bribes and kickbacks in the form of cash and campaign contributions in return for favorable acts of prosecutorial discretion, including minimizing charging decisions, pretrial diversion agreements, agreements on probationary matters and case dismissals.”
(Delcia Lopez/The Monitor)
The fact that Villalobos and his office prosecuted the case has added to arguments that Saenz should seek a stay of execution, anti-capital punishment advocate Charles Keith told media Friday. Keith believes that Villalobos’ legacy further casts doubt on the case.
“Armando Villalobos… this is a name that keeps getting left out,” Keith said. “Because DA Saenz, this was not his case. He inherited this case, all the things, all the ills, all the shenanigans, all the corruption, everything had already been done.”
The 2020 documentary also raised those concerns.
Gonzalez, who had not watched the film but planned to do so, cautioned people that a film cannot adequately present the complete truth in a capital murder case — nor could any documentaries replace the importance of sitting on a jury through the course of an entire trial.
Documentaries express a single perspective, he said.
“If someone with the same amount of money and resources could make a documentary condemning her, then you could take this one and that side by side, and go from there,” Gonzalez said.
In his testimony April 12, Saenz expressed the importance of avoiding litigating a case through politics and “the court of public opinion.” Despite the political pressure presented by the committee on April 12, Saenz continued on his course of trusting the courts, justifying his approach because it can reveal the “problematic issues” of the case.
Though their overall trust in the system differs in matters of the death penalty, both Saenz and Gonzalez seem little swayed from their recent divergent paths, at least not based on politics and the court of public opinion.
Gonzalez agreed neither factors should not guide a prosecutor’s handling of a case. Yet, each case brings the potential for political fallout and scrutiny.
“I would say there are politics involved in most decisions,” Gonzalez said. “I don’t use that as anything to impose upon my decisions. I make my decisions based on what I feel is right. I don’t ever take into account politics at all. Unfortunately, that gets me sometimes in the national news or local news or in places where I wish I wouldn’t be. I’m very vocal on what I feel is right, and I’m not going to let politics decide what I do or don’t do — even if it’s unpopular.”
Gonzalez, who owns a second home in Brownsville, said, “the beauty of this is I’m not seeking reelection.”
The political environment is different for the Valley than in Corpus Christi, Gonzalez said. From Brownsville to McAllen, the area tends to vote Democratic rather than the roughly 50-50 split in Nueces County between Democrats and Republicans. Yet, the Valley is more conservative, he said, based on what he’s experienced in his visits. “I would say a lot more conservative than above the checkpoint (at Sarita),” he said.
Regardless, every district attorney differs in their approach, based on their available resources, backgrounds and beliefs about the justice system in regard to the death penalty, he said.
“But I say that if we have an opportunity to step back,” he said, “and it’s in our discretion and power, then why wouldn’t we do that?”
Based on his testimony, Saenz seemingly places his faith in a court system that can bring about justice when both the defense and prosecution act competently. However, Gonzalez is less optimistic about how successfully that faith pans out for death penalty trials and appeals.
“To be honest with you, our system isn’t set up in fairness,” Gonzalez said. “We would want it to be that way. We would hope that in practice it would be that way. But it’s not.”
To support his statement, he argues that qualities of fair trials are constantly evolving — in such a way that a good trial decades ago might not be considered a fair trial today, with evolving standards and understandings about evidence and testimony.
“Just because someone had a great trial in the 1950s when DNA wasn’t around, doesn’t mean that now they shouldn’t have that opportunity,” Gonzalez said. “I’ve just seen so many things that are unfair, and I think the DA is the biggest gatekeeper to make sure that all those things are, in fact, fair.”
Decisions about how to prosecute these cases will fall on the district attorney, Gonzalez said, “just like it would have fallen on me for Dec. 5, 2022,” if he had not rescinded the execution warrant in that case.
“Technically, maybe I’m just buying Mr. Ramirez time,” Gonzalez said.
Gonzalez has committed to not seeking reelection past his current, second term, and he concedes that the next prosecutor elected to his position could bring death penalty prosecutions back to Nueces County and file a warrant to have Ramirez killed.
“I know that’s a possibility,” said Gonzalez. “Everybody knows that’s a possibility, but as DA, I’m not going to do that.”
