In Texas, execution for association; Robert Garza is scheduled to die for belonging to the same gang as a killer

This piece originally appeared on Waging Nonviolence.

Robert Garza is scheduled to die on September 19. The state of Texas has not attempted to prove that he killed anyone. When a young Latino male in the Rio Grande Valley - the long-impoverished, southernmost tip of the state - is accused of gang involvement, the question of who actually pulled the trigger does not give pause to Texas' well-oiled killing machine.

Garza was convicted of involvement in the shooting of 4 immigrant women in a car in Donna, Texas, 11 years ago. The killings were carried out by members of the gang to which Garza belonged, allegedly to protect the gang from criminal charges from a witness to a previous crime. He was convicted under a controversial law in the state known as the Law of Parties, which does not require the prosecution to prove that the defendant killed anyone, or even intended to kill, but only that she or he had a certain level of involvement in a felony that led to a murder. Under this law, for example, someone who drives a culprit to a convenience store and waits outside, intending to drive the get-away car after an armed robbery, can be charged with murder if the other person kills someone inside the store.

In 2007, Kenneth Foster, Jr., was facing execution in Texas under the Law of Parties, and his case had been subject to much media attention and protest. Just hours before his execution, Foster's sentence was commuted by Governor Rick Perry - who is not known for skepticism about capital punishment - from death to life imprisonment. Following the commutation of Foster's sentence, a bill was proposed in the state legislature to remove the application of the death penalty to Law of Parties cases; the bill failed to pass, however, and it is still possible to receive a death sentence under the Law of Parties.

Garza contends that he did not participate in shooting the women whose murder has landed him on death row, and that he was not even at the scene of the crime. However, he does not eschew all blame for the deaths of the 4 women that day in 2002; he admits that he knew the crime was going to occur and that he did not act to prevent the killings. But after 11 years of incarceration, he speaks of repentance, of having become a devoted Christian. He now deeply regrets his involvement in gang activity and wants to speak out against gang violence. (Garza's mother, Sylvia Garza, has also become an active advocate of an end to gang violence.) This is a long journey from Garza's troubled youth. He left school after 8th grade, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, and he spent time in the juvenile corrections system while still a teenager.

Source: Salon.com, September 13, 2013