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

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20 Minutes to Death: Witness to the Last Execution in France

The following document is a firsthand account of the final moments of Hamida Djandoubi, a convicted murderer executed by guillotine at Marseille’s Baumettes Prison on September 10, 1977. The record—dated September 9—was written by Monique Mabelly, a judge appointed by the state to witness the proceedings. Djandoubi’s execution would ultimately be the last carried out in France before capital punishment was abolished in 1981. At the time, President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing—who had publicly voiced his "deep aversion to the death penalty" prior to his election—rejected Djandoubi’s appeal for clemency. Choosing to let "justice take its course," the President allowed the execution to proceed, just as he had in two previous cases during his term: Christian Ranucci , executed on July 28, 1976 and Jérôme Carrein , executed on June 23, 1977. Hamida Djandoubi , a Tunisian national, was sentenced to death for killing his former lover, Elisabeth Bousquet. He was execu...

Iran to execute first woman linked to mass protests after ‘forced confessions’

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Singapore executes man for trafficking 1kg of cannabis

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Florida death row is shrinking as executions accelerate

During the last 10 years, the number of death row inmates from Brevard county dropped from 12 down to three and soon it will likely be two. Chadwick Willacy, formerly of Palm Bay and who has spent 36 years on death row for the murder of his 58-year-old neighbor Marlys Sather, is set to be executed by lethal injection on April 21. Willacy is 56. Gov. Ron DeSantis has been setting records trying to clear as much of the death row roster as possible ― in 2025, Florida executed 19 inmates, more than twice the number of the previous high of eight in 2014. But the dwindling roster of Brevard death row inmates can also be traced to a misinterpretation by the Florida Supreme Court of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2016 requiring unanimous jury recommendations regarding the death penalty.

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