SCOTUS Stays Texas Execution With 20 Minutes to Spare
by Matt Clarke
After granting a rare stay of execution minutes before a condemned Texas prisoner’s date with death, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) agreed on October 4, 2024, to hear his challenge to a state law that prevents him from seeking DNA testing to reduce his sentence.
Ruben Gutierrez, 47, was convicted of the 1999 murder of Escolastica Harrison, 85, at the Brownsville mobile home park she owned; Harrison, who distrusted banks, had $600,000 in cash stashed in her trailer, which Gutierrez discovered while doing odd jobs for her. He and two accomplices charged in the killing, Rene Garcia and Pedro Gracia, admitted to planning a robbery, but each said the other two fatally stabbed Harrison with screwdrivers. Garcia pleaded guilty and is serving a life sentence. Gracia disappeared and is still at large.
Gutierrez made contradictory statements to police; he first claimed an alibi that placed him elsewhere at the time of the murder. But when the alibi failed, he said that he waited outside the home during the killing—and then later admitted he went inside and saw the other two men stabbing Harrison. After his conviction and unsuccessful appeals, Gutierrez filed a habeas corpus petition pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254 in federal court for the Southern District of Texas, which stayed proceedings to permit exhaustion of pending state claims.
One of those was a motion for DNA testing of evidence, made under Chapter 64 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure (CCP). The motion was denied, and denial was affirmed by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) because Ch. 64 does not authorize testing unless it might prove innocence, rather than reduce a sentence for guilt. See: Ex parte Gutierrez, 337 S.W.3d 883 (Tex. Crim. App. 2011). The federal district court then denied the habeas petition, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit denied an appeal. See: Gutierrez v. Stephens, 590 F. App’x 371 (5th Cir. 2014).
Gutierrez then filed a federal civil rights action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, challenging (1) the constitutionality of Ch. 64’s exclusion of his DNA testing request and (2) a prohibition against having a chaplain or religious minister present in the death chamber. SCOTUS stayed execution in June 2020 so that the Fifth Circuit might consider the prohibition, after which Texas changed its policy to permit spiritual advisors in the death chamber.
The other claim was that Ch. 64 improperly limited rights granted in another Texas statute, Article 11.071 § S(a)(3), CCP, allowing successive habeas applications to challenge a death sentence. The federal district court agreed and entered partial summary judgment, reasoning that Texas may not “grant[] the right to file a second habeas petition” only to render the right “illusory” under Ch. 64, which “denies the petitioner access to DNA evidence by which a person can avail himself of that right.” See: Gutierrez v. Saenz, 565 F.Supp. 892 (S.D. Tex. 2021).
Defendant state officials appealed, and the Fifth Circuit vacated the judgment, finding that Gutierrez lacked standing to bring suit; since CCA had already found that a jury could still recommend the death penalty if he secured favorable DNA results, “there is not a substantial likelihood that a favorable ruling by a federal court on Gutierrez’s claims would cause the prosecutor to order DNA testing.” See: Gutierrez v. Saenz, 93 F.4th 267 (5th Cir. 2024).
Aided by Assistant Federal Public Defenders Shawn Nolan and Anne Fisher, Gutierrez petitioned SCOTUS for a writ of certiorari, alleging that the Fifth Circuit’s analysis went far outside the standing test set forth in Reed v. Goertz, 598 U.S. 230 (2023). SCOTUS stayed the execution on July 16, 2024, just 20 minutes before Gutierrez was scheduled to die. It then decided to schedule arguments in his case, and PLN will update developments as they are available. See: Gutierrez v. Saenz, 2024 U.S. LEXIS 3069.
Additional source: Texas Tribune
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