In less than three weeks, the execution of
Texas death row inmate Ivan Cantu is scheduled, but not without a fight with the help of Martin Sheen and Sister Helen Prejean and the public policy advocacy group MoveOn.
Sister Prejean and Sheen held a press conference on Monday, Feb. 12, to raise public awareness and civil action to stop his execution. In recent weeks, their determination to reach out to the public and celebrities has produced 60,000 signatures, 4,000 letters and hundreds of calls to Collin County District Attorney Greg Willis for a call to hear new evidence and hold a new trial in Cantu's case.
“This execution is not signed, sealed, and delivered just yet,” Prejean said. “Even people that believe in the death penalty also believe in fairness, and that has not happened in Ivan’s case.”
Cantu was convicted in Collin County in 2001 for the murder of his cousin, James Mosqueda, and his cousin’s fiance, Amy Kitchen, in 2000. Cantu has maintained his innocence for 24 years.
Cantu is now facing his third execution date on Feb 28.
“Our goal is for Collin County to utilize the resources available within their department and take a look at the case,” Prejean explains. “The Collin County District Attorney Office has an Integrity Unit within its department. I want that department to honor the new facts in this case instead of putting him to death.”
Last April, when Cantu was facing his second execution date, his defense team filed a clemency petition. One of the issues the state argues is procedural in response to time limits.
In late August, the court ruled that the new evidence should have been included in Cantu’s 2004 habeas filing. However, the court would not award a new trial in his case because the new evidence did not meet the bar for a new trial and was not provided within the appropriate time frame.
However, the new evidence was unavailable in 2004.
Since 2004, one of the two-star witnesses that led to Cantu’s conviction recanted his testimony. The other has since died and has been proven to have lied during the trial. Both witnesses, who are siblings, struggled with heavy addiction issues and have proven to have lied during testimony with critical findings on the gun used during the crime and Cantu’s bloody clothes linking him to the murder, according to private investigator Matt Duff.
Duff created a podcast, “Cousin by Blood,” diving into all the new evidence and his findings within the case.
Three jurors during the trial have gone on record stating they would not have given Cantu the death sentence if they had seen all the evidence in the case.
“While Ivan’s situation is dire in response to his approaching execution, there are also more people involved,” Prejan explains, “The three jurors now have this execution on their conscience and made a decision without all facts, and that also matters because, in essence, they feel they were lied to.”
“The thing about the death penalty is it’s literally life or death,” Sheen said. “If anyone is willing to end a life, they look death right in the face, and it's a different experience than many understand and why many veterans from war struggle as they do.”
“I don’t think many people understand the death penalty because they have not witnessed an execution first hand,” Prejean added. “What the eyes don’t see, the heart can't feel.”
The advocacy group and Sister Helen Prejean and others plan to hold a press conference on Feb. 22 at the Collin County courthouse to ask state leaders to give Cantu a fair hearing before killing him.
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