|
Only have a minute? Listen instead
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear an appeal from Death Row inmate Ruben Gutierrez, who has long sought post-DNA testing of evidence he claims would exonerate him.
The Supreme Court stayed 47-year-old Ruben Gutierrez’s execution 20 minutes before it was set to be carried out on July 16. Gutierrez was scheduled to be executed for the 1998 murder of 85-year-old Escolastica Harrison at her Brownsville trailer home on Sept. 5, 1998.
Gutierrez has unsuccessfully sought post-conviction DNA testing in state and federal courts for approximately 15 years.
He has repeatedly claimed that he was not in Harrison’s residence when she was murdered and has said he falsely confessed to his role in the crime.
“Today, the United States Supreme Court granted certiorari and agreed to consider Texas death row prisoner Ruben Gutierrez’s claim that he should be allowed to pursue his legal rights to conduct DNA testing,” his attorneys said in a statement. “Mr. Gutierrez was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death in 1999 even though no physical or forensic evidence connects him to the crime.”
The Cameron County District Attorney’s Office disputes this claim and disputes claims that his conviction was based on a false confession.
The statement from his attorneys claims he falsely confessed “after police threatened to arrest his wife and take away their children, and on an unreliable eyewitness who could not even identify Mr. Gutierrez in the courtroom at trial.”
“For over a decade, Mr. Gutierrez has been seeking access to the extensive forensic evidence collected at the crime scene—including clothing, fingernail scrapings, and blood—that has never been tested,” the statement read. “DNA testing could confirm that Mr. Gutierrez did not kill the victim, as he has long maintained.”
The statement said that the Supreme Court will review a decision from “a divided Fifth Circuit panel that Mr. Gutierrez did not have standing to seek post-conviction DNA testing.”
“As the dissenting judge explained, the Fifth Circuit majority’s decision conflicts with the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Reed v. Goertz,” the statement read. “The majority’s ruling also created a split among the federal circuits.”
The decision to hear the case means Gutierrez’s stay of execution is extended.
Shawn Nolan, an attorney for Gutierrez, said the decision is a relief.
“We are relieved the Supreme Court has agreed to address the Fifth Circuit’s refusal to follow Reed v. Goertz, which is indistinguishable from Ruben Gutierrez’s case,” Nolan said. “Granting certiorari and extending the stay of execution brings us one step closer to finally doing the DNA testing that will overturn Ruben’s wrongful conviction and death sentence.”
In a statement issued Friday afternoon, Cameron County District Attorney Luis V. Saenz said his office anticipated that the case would end up at the Supreme Court.
“We have already been in contact with the Texas Attorney General’s Office who will handle our brief and arguments. We look forward to the Supreme Court’s decision that will finally resolve this matter once and for all,” Saenz said in the statement. “We remain hopeful that the Court will rule in favor of our victim and her family who have anguishly waited for twenty-five years for the defendant to be held accountable for his heinous violent act.”
Editor’s note: This story has been updated with a statement from the DA.
