Texas set to resume executions after delay brought on by coronavirus
A Texas inmate convicted of fatally stabbing an 85-year-old woman more than two decades ago is scheduled to die by lethal injection Tuesday, as the U.S. state that most zealously applies the death penalty prepared to resume executions following a four-month delay because of the coronavirus crisis.
Prosecutors said Ruben Gutierrez, 43, was attempting to steal more than $600,000 that Escolastica Harrison had hidden in her home in Brownsville, located in Texas’ southern tip, when he killed her in 1998. Gutierrez’s attorneys have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stop his execution after an appeals court last week overturned a stay.
If Gutierrez’s execution is carried out, he would be the first inmate in Texas to receive a lethal injection since Feb. 6 and the second U.S. inmate to be put to death since parts of the country began to reopen amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Missouri resumed executions May 19.
Gutierrez would be the third inmate put to death this year in Texas and the seventh in the U.S.
In Texas, the number of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations continues to increase. State officials have said hot spots such as prisons and meat-packing plants have been responsible for the rising numbers.
But state prison officials said safety measures they have put in place, including taking the temperatures of participants and providing them with personal protection equipment, allows executions to resume.
“The agency can carry out the process safely for those participating and witnessing the execution,” said prison system spokesman Robert C. Hurst.
In three weeks, Chuckawalla Valley State Prison has gone from having zero confirmed cases of COVID-19 to 993, the worst coronavirus outbreak to hit the California prison system to date.
Six executions scheduled in Texas for earlier this year were postponed by an appeals court or judges because of the outbreak. A seventh was delayed over claims of intellectual disability.
Gutierrez’s attorneys had also sought a coronavirus-related delay but were turned down Friday by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.
Also Friday, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a stay in the case tied to Gutierrez’s request for DNA testing that he says could exonerate him and to his claims that his religious rights are being violated because the prison system won’t allow a chaplain to accompany him in the death chamber.
Gutierrez’s attorneys Monday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to halt his execution over religious rights violations. The Texas prison system last year banned clergy from the death chamber following a Supreme Court ruling that halted the execution of another inmate, Patrick Murphy, who had requested a Buddhist advisor be allowed in the chamber. A trial in Houston federal court on Murphy’s case is still pending.
“Through hundreds of previous executions, the state of Texas has recognized that people being executed have the right to be in the presence of religious advisors when they face the end of their lives,” said Shawn Nolan, one of Gutierrez’s attorneys. “Mr. Gutierrez has that same right.”
Singapore has sentenced a drug suspect to death at a hearing held on the videoconferencing app Zoom because of the city-state’s coronavirus lockdown.
The Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops has filed a brief with the high court in support of Gutierrez.
“To deny a prisoner facing imminent execution access to spiritual and religious guidance and accompaniment is cruel and inhuman,” said Bishop Daniel Flores of Brownsville.
Gutierrez has long maintained that he did not kill Harrison. His attorneys say there is no physical or forensic evidence connecting him to the killing. Two others were also charged in the case.
Authorities said Gutierrez befriended Harrison, a mobile home park manager and retired teacher, so he could rob her. Prosecutors said Harrison had a mistrust of banks and hid her money underneath a false floor in her bedroom closet.
Cameron County Dist. Atty. Luis Saenz has called Gutierrez’s appeals “delay tactics.” Prosecutors have said that the request for DNA testing is a “ruse” and that Gutierrez was convicted on various pieces of evidence, including a confession.
“It is time for justice to be served for Mrs. Harrison,” Saenz said.
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