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Biden Commuted Their Death Sentences. Now What?

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As three men challenge their commutations, others brace for imminent prison transfers and the finality of a life sentence with no chance of release. In the days after President Joe Biden commuted his death sentence, 40-year-old Rejon Taylor felt like he’d been reborn. After facing execution for virtually his entire adult life for a crime he committed at 18, he was fueled by a new sense of purpose. He was “a man on a mission,” he told me in an email on Christmas Day. “I will not squander this opportunity of mercy, of life.”

Texas death-row inmate Ivan Cantu loses Supreme Court appeal

Ivan Cantu
Ivan Cantu
The U.S. Supreme Court declined to review an appeal from a Dallas man who shot and killed his cousin in a botched 2000 robbery and is now on death row.

Ivan Cantu, 44, had argued that his legal help during his 2001 trial was ineffective and didn't present evidence that proved his innocence.

The Supreme Court made no comment Monday regarding its decision.

Cantu was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death on Oct. 16, 2001, for the slaying of his cousin, James Mosqueda, 27, in Far North Dallas.

He also was indicted in the slaying of Amy Kitchen, 22, Mosqueda's girlfriend.

During the trial, one of Cantu's former girlfriends, Amy Boettcher, testified that he had told her of his plans to kill Mosqueda and showed her the bodies after the act.

Boettcher also said that when she saw Cantu on the night of the murder, his socks and pants were bloody. Tests showed that the blood on his clothing belonged to Mosqueda.

Additionally, police found Mosqueda's car at Cantu's apartment complex. Investigators also found the murder weapon — with Cantu's fingerprints on the magazine — at the home of another of Cantu's ex-girlfriends.

Sources: Dallas News, Associated Press, June 19, 2017

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