Texas | Prosecutor moves to stop execution of inmate whose religious freedom case reached U.S. Supreme Court
Declaring the death penalty “unethical,” a local prosecutor has moved to stop the scheduled execution of John Henry Ramirez, who was convicted of killing and robbing a convenience store clerk in Corpus Christi in 2004.
Ramirez, 37, received a last-minute execution reprieve last September, when the U.S. Supreme Court halted his execution with hours to spare. The point of legal contention then was religious freedom. In an 8-to-1 ruling last month, the court directed Texas to allow Ramirez’s Baptist pastor to lay hands on him and pray with him as he was put to death, as the inmate had requested.
The new issue is the prosecutor’s views on the death penalty — not Ramirez’s guilt or his desire for a pastor to attend to his execution.
Nueces County District Attorney Mark A. Gonzalez recently filed court documents requesting the courts withdraw a previous order that set an Oct. 5 date for the execution, by lethal injection.
In the filing, Gonzalez said it was his “firm belief that the death penalty is unethical and should not be imposed on Mr. Ramirez or any other person” while Gonzalez is in office. He also asked for a recall of the death warrant signed by the county district clerk, authorizing the execution.
Just days before this filing, a judge had set Ramirez’s execution date for Oct. 5, upon the request of a prosecutor in Gonzalez’s office. Gonzalez said an assistant district attorney in his office had been unaware of his position and did not consult him prior to moving forward on an execution date.
Ramirez’s victim, Pablo Castro, was working the night shift at the Times Market convenience store on July 19, 2004, when Ramirez and an accomplice approached him with a knife. Ramirez stabbed him 29 times, searched his pockets, and made off with $1.25. Castro died immediately, leaving behind 9 children and 14 grandchildren. Ramirez escaped to Mexico, and eluded capture until 2008, when he was arrested near the Mexican border.
The victim’s son Ferdinand Castro told The New York Times that Gonzalez’s decision angered him, saying he would “like to talk to this guy face to face and give him a piece of my mind.”
Gonzalez, a Democrat and a criminal defense attorney who had styled himself “a Mexican biker lawyer covered in tattoos,” was elected district attorney in 2016, a sharp departure for his conservative-leaning district. He had defended members of the Calaveras, a motorcycle gang, and the club’s founder asked him to become a member; local police had entered his name into a database of gang members, according to a 2018 profile in Politico.
Source: The Texas Tribune, Staff, April 17, 2022
Days After Setting an Execution Date, a Texas Prosecutor Reverses Course
When a judge in South Texas signed an order this past week setting an execution date of Oct. 5 for John Henry Ramirez, it seemed like the end of the road.
Mr. Ramirez was convicted in 2008 for the murder of a convenience store worker, a crime he has acknowledged committing. He was sentenced to death and appealed his case to the Supreme Court — not to stop his execution, but to prepare for it. He asked to have his Baptist pastor pray out loud and lay hands on him in the execution chamber, a request that brought his case national notoriety. Last month, the court ruled in his favor, clearing the path for his execution to proceed as long as the state of Texas complied with his request.
But in a surprise turn of events on Thursday, District Attorney Mark Gonzalez of Nueces County filed a motion withdrawing the death warrant for Mr. Ramirez, citing his “firm belief that the death penalty is unethical and should not be imposed on Mr. Ramirez or any other person.” His own office had requested the execution date just days earlier, but Mr. Gonzalez, a Democrat, wrote in his motion that an employee in his office had done so without consulting him.
In a broadcast from his office on Facebook Live on Thursday afternoon, Mr. Gonzalez, whose district includes Corpus Christi, where the crime occurred, explained his decision.
“For a while now, I’ve said that I don’t believe in the death penalty,” he said. “My office is not going to seek the death penalty anymore.” He said he would be a hypocrite if he advanced Mr. Ramirez’s execution even as he instructs his office not to pursue the death penalty in new cases. Mr. Gonzalez and his office did not respond to requests for comment.
The motion by Mr. Gonzalez does not address the merits of Mr. Ramirez’s conviction or his religious liberty case. Whether it is approved is at the discretion of Judge Bobby Galvan, who set Mr. Ramirez’s execution date and presided over his original jury sentencing.
Mr. Gonzalez’s term ends in 2024, and any district attorney who succeeds him in office would have the option of reinstating the death warrant.
Mr. Ramirez was convicted of repeatedly stabbing Pablo Castro in a 2004 robbery that prosecutors said netted him $1.25. He evaded law enforcement for 3 years, during which he fled to Mexico and started a family. His guilt is not in question; Mr. Ramirez has called his crime a “heinous murder.”
Reached on Friday afternoon, one of Mr. Castro's sons, Fernando, called the district attorney’s move “outrageous.” He was 11 when his father was murdered and strongly supports the execution. “I’d like to talk to this guy face to face and give him a piece of my mind,” he said of Mr. Gonzalez.
Mr. Castro, who lives in Florida, described the expense, stress and emotional upheaval of traveling to Texas several times in recent years as execution dates were set and then rescinded.
Mr. Ramirez’s lawyer, Seth Kretzer, said that he was pleased by the decision and that it came out of the blue. Given that Mr. Gonzalez’s office had issued three previous death warrants on Mr. Ramirez before the one this past week, Mr. Kretzer said he was mystified by what had changed.
“Once an office has made a decision to do one course of action, usually they don’t undo it helter-skelter,” he said.
District attorneys generally have the authority to decide whether to pursue the death penalty in states that allow it. In some cases, prosecutors have attempted to revoke death sentences, though that usually involves doubts about the guilt of the convicted person, allegations of misconduct in the case or concerns about mental health.
Mr. Gonzalez, who has described himself as a “Mexican biker lawyer covered in tattoos,” is part of a wave of progressive prosecutors who represent a shift away from an aggressively punitive approach to justice.
Mr. Gonzalez was elected in 2016, defeating a fellow Democrat in a long-shot primary. His views on the death penalty were muddled during the race, and several years into his tenure, he was still publicly conflicted on the issue, frustrating some advocates when he deferred to a jury on the question of whether to seek the death penalty in another high-profile murder case.
But his opinions about capital punishment have been evolving. Early last year, he was one of almost 100 elected local prosecutors, attorneys general and other criminal justice leaders who signed a letter to the Biden administration urging it to end the death penalty in the United States. The U.S. attorney general, Merrick B. Garland, imposed a moratorium on federal executions last summer.
In his Facebook Live broadcast, Mr. Gonzalez explained his shifting approach.
“I have to deal with my own growth and my own rationale and thinking and logic,” he said, apologizing to anyone upset by the decision. “I did this because I thought this would be the right thing to do.”
He encouraged viewers to research the pros and cons of the death penalty, arguing that it has a disproportionate impact on people “of color, low economic status or even low intellect.”
In prison, Mr. Ramirez got to know Dana Moore, the pastor of Second Baptist Church in Corpus Christi. Mr. Ramirez became a member of the church, and Mr. Moore visits him regularly to pray and talk. In August, Mr. Ramirez filed a federal lawsuit against prison officials for denying his request to have Mr. Moore pray out loud and lay a hand on him in the execution chamber.
The Supreme Court ruled 8 to 1 in his favor, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. writing for the majority that while a state may limit the activities of spiritual advisers in the execution chamber, it ought not ban them.
Mr. Moore said he heard about the reversal on Thursday. He was confused, since he had been with Mr. Ramirez “feet from the death chamber” last fall and they had heard nothing from Mr. Gonzalez’s office at the time. Mr. Ramirez received a last-minute reprieve from the Supreme Court at that time so the court could hear his religious freedom case.
On Friday, the pastor said he was relieved for Mr. Ramirez, but he was also thinking about Mr. Castro’s family. “Whatever happens, I pray they find peace,” he said.
Source: New York Times, Staff, April 17, 2022
🚩 | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com.
 |  |
Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE!
"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde