Tomas Gallo: Texas: (A discredited Psychologist George Dembowski case)…Major (Welcome) Development: Texas has taken intellectually disabled Tomas Gallo off of death row - resentencing him to life imprisonment for the murder of his girlfriend's 3-year-old-daughter, death row, William Melhado reports in the Texas Tribune - in a story refering to false testimony by Dr. George Dembowski, "a psychologist who examined the defendant, as evidence that Gallo should be removed from death row…"The Texas State Board of Examiners of Psychologists sanctioned Denkowski and barred him from evaluating people on death row in 2011 after his testing methods were criticized as unscientific."

PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Denkowski’s assessment of Gallo concluded that the defendant's IQ score should be higher than the test scores he obtained, in part, because Gallo is Hispanic, according to court filings. In his testimony, Denkowski argued Gallo’s score should be inflated due to his “low socioeconomic antisocial lifestyle,” and thus he could not be properly assessed by mainstream IQ tests. Ellis described Denkowski's evaluation as “entirely racist and not acceptable.” Dembowski evaluated over a dozen en on Texas' death row, several of whom were executed. Since the psychologist was reprimanded in 2011, Texas courts have sought to resolve the cases Dembowski was involved in.  In a 5-4 vote, the criminal appeals court narrowly approved the first claim of the filing, that Gallo's intellectual disability exempted him from execution. The court dismissed another claim, that Dembowski's false testimony violated Galllo's due process rights."

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PASSAGE TWO OF THE DAY: "Wednesday’s decision was the second time this year that the criminal appeals court removed a man from death row based on intellectual disability claims. In March, Randall Mays was re-sentenced to life in prison for the murder of two sheriff's deputies in Henderson County."

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STORY: "Texas takes intellectually disabled Tomas Gallo off death row," by Reporter William Melhado, published by The Texas Tribune, on April 17, 2024. (William Melhado is an Austin-based general assignment reporter. He originally joined the Tribune in 2022 as a Poynter-Koch fellow. He previously worked as a staff writer at the Santa Fe Reporter, an alt-weekly newspaper in New Mexico. Before pursuing a career in journalism, William worked as an educator for five years and taught science at a public high school in the Bronx, New York and taught at international schools in Tanzania and Nepal.)

SUB-HEADING: "The court re-sentenced Gallo to life in prison for the murder of his girlfriend’s 3-year-old daughter."

GIST: "Texas’ highest criminal court re-sentenced death row inmate Tomas Gallo to life in prison Wednesday, ruling that he is too intellectually disabled to be executed.

A Harris County jury sentenced Gallo to death for murdering his girlfriend’s 3-year-old daughter. After Gallo babysat Destiny Flores, the young girl was found with a skull fracture and had been severely sexually assaulted.

During his 2004 trial, Gallo’s defense tried to convince jurors that he was intellectually disabled. The U.S. Supreme Court in 2002 banned the use of the death penalty on people with intellectual disabilities based on the Eighth Amendment’s restriction of cruel and unusual punishments.

But decades later, in a rare instance of cooperation between the defense and prosecutors, both parties filed a findings of fact and conclusion of law together claiming Gallo’s intellectual disability precludes him from the death chamber.

Richard Ellis, Gallo’s lawyer, told The Texas Tribune that the cooperation of the Harris County District Attorney’s office was crucial to Wednesday’s decision from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.

“They recognized this was an injustice,” Ellis said. “They recognized the long and overwhelming documentation that was provided to show Mr. Gallo’s intellectual disability.”

The joint filing also cited false testimony by Dr. George Denkowski, a psychologist who examined the defendant, as evidence that Gallo should be removed from death row. The Texas State Board of Examiners of Psychologists sanctioned Denkowski and barred him from evaluating people on death row in 2011 after his testing methods were criticized as unscientific.

Denkowski’s assessment of Gallo concluded that the defendant's IQ score should be higher than the test scores he obtained, in part, because Gallo is Hispanic, according to court filings. In his testimony, Denkowski argued Gallo’s score should be inflated due to his “low socioeconomic antisocial lifestyle,” and thus he could not be properly assessed by mainstream IQ tests. Ellis described Denkowski's evaluation as “entirely racist and not acceptable.”

Dembowski evaluated over a dozen en on Texas' death row, several of whom were executed. Since the psychologist was reprimanded in 2011, Texas courts have sought to resolve the cases Dembowski was involved in.  

In a 5-4 vote, the criminal appeals court narrowly approved the first claim of the filing, that Gallo's intellectual disability exempted him from execution. The court dismissed another claim, that Dembowski's false testimony violated Galllo's due process rights.

Wednesday’s decision was the second time this year that the criminal appeals court removed a man from death row based on intellectual disability claims. In March, Randall Mays was re-sentenced to life in prison for the murder of two sheriff's deputies in Henderson County.

The entire story can be read at

:https://www.texastribune.org/about/staff/william-melhado/

PUBLISHER'S NOTE:  I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. 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:

https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985

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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;

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YET ANOTHER FINAL WORD:

David Hammond, one of Broadwater's attorneys who sought his exoneration, told the Syracuse Post-Standard, "Sprinkle some junk science onto a faulty identification, and it's the perfect recipe for a wrongful conviction.

https://deadline.com/2021/11/alice-sebold-lucky-rape-conviction-overturned-anthony-broadwater-12348801

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