PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Gonzales was one of several inmates whose death sentences were overturned because of testimony from a prosecution expert who had said that race could be considered a factor in determining whether someone should receive the death penalty."
ENTRY: "Texas: Michael Dean Gonzalez gets reprieve," published by The Death Penalty News, on March 4, 2022.
GIST: "A Texas inmate who was scheduled to be the first to be executed by the state this year received a reprieve from an appeals court on Thursday.
Michael Dean Gonzales had been set to receive a lethal injection on Tuesday evening for fatally stabbing an elderly couple during a burglary of their West Texas home nearly 30 years ago.
But the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals granted a request by his attorneys to stay his execution.
“I’m very pleased,” said Richard Burr, one of Gonzales’ attorneys, said of the execution delay.
The Texas Attorney General’s Office, which is handling the prosecution of the case, did not immediately return an email seeking comment on Thursday.
The appeals court ordered that Gonzales’ case be sent back to the trial judge in Odessa to review claims he is intellectually disabled and to review allegations that prosecutors withheld evidence in the case. TThe Supreme Court has barred the execution of intellectually disabled people. Gonzales’ attorneys allege his 1995 trial was marked by prosecutorial misconduct, including the hiding of the alleged misconduct by the lead investigator.
Gonzales, 48, who was a member of a gang called “Homies Don’t Play,” has claimed he did not fatally stab 73-year-old Manuel Aguirre, and his 65-year-old wife Merced, during a break-in at their Odessa home in April 1994. Merced Aguirre was stabbed at least 57 times while her husband was stabbed 11 times, according to court documents.
Attorneys for Gonzales, who lived next door to the slain couple, say new evidence points to the real killers, two other gang members.
His attorneys are asking that recently discovered evidence — including possible bloodstains on a shirt worn by another suspect and fingerprints — should be tested.
‘’Without this opportunity (to test new evidence), there is a strong likelihood the state will execute an innocent person,” Burr said earlier this week.
But prosecutors say Gonzales was found to have items stolen from the couple’s home, he had a knife consistent with causing the victims’ wounds and he confessed to a jail guard. Gonzales’ wife also testified that she helped him get into the couple’s home on the night of their deaths and when he returned, Gonzales had a knife and blood on his clothes.
“There is no evidence more damning than a first-hand account that a murderer returned to his house covered in blood holding a knife and bearing property taken from the neighbors he killed. (Gonzales’) new evidence does nothing whatsoever to undermine the evidence of identity or his guilt,” Erich Dryden, a prosecutor with the Texas Attorney General’s Office, said in court documents filed last month.
Gonzales was one of several inmates whose death sentences were overturned because of testimony from a prosecution expert who had said that race could be considered a factor in determining whether someone should receive the death penalty.
In a new trial focused only on sentencing, Gonzales was resentenced to death in 2009. Source: ksat.com, Juan A. Lozano, March 4, 2022.
The entire entry can be read at:
https://deathpenaltynews.blogspot.com/2022/03/texas-michael-dean-gonzales-gets.html
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog;
SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL:
FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."
Lawyer Radha Natarajan:
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
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FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;
