On Tuesday, the Supreme Court ordered a stay of execution for a Texas man only 20 minutes before he was due to receive a lethal injection. The inmate has long claimed that DNA testing would help prove he was not responsible for the fatal stabbing of an 85-year-old lady during a 1998 home burglary.
The nation’s highest court imposed the indefinite stay minutes before inmate Ruben Gutierrez was scheduled to be transported to the Huntsville, Texas, death chamber for the chemical injection.
The 47-year-old inmate was convicted of stabbing Escolastica Harrison, 85, at her Brownsville home in 1998. Gutierrez has long requested DNA testing, claiming it will help prove he played no role in her killing.
He has long claimed he did not kill Harrison, and his lawyers have stated that there is no physical or forensic evidence linking him to the killing. Two more people were charged in the case.
The high court’s brief order stated that the stay of execution would be in force until the justices decided whether to hear his appeal request. If the court dismisses the request, the execution reprieve will be automatically lifted.
Earlier, Gutierrez’s counsel petitioned the Supreme Court to halt the execution, claiming that Texas had refused his right under state law to post-conviction DNA testing, which would have revealed he was not eligible for the death penalty.
His defenders contend that various materials collected from the crime scene, such as Harrison’s nail scrapings, a loose hair wrapped around one of her fingers, and blood samples from her residence, have never been analyzed.
“Gutierrez faces not only the denial of (DNA testing), which he has repeatedly and consistently requested for over a decade but also the execution for a crime he did not commit.” “No one has any interest in a wrongful execution,” Gutierrez’s lawyers stated in their plea to the Supreme Court.
Prosecutors said the request for DNA testing was a delay tactic, and Gutierrez was convicted based on a variety of evidence, including a confession in which he acknowledged plotting the heist and being present when she was killed. Gutierrez was convicted under Texas’ law of parties, which states that a person can be held accountable for the actions of another if they aid or encourage the commission of a crime.
In response to Gutierrez’s Supreme Court petition, the Texas Attorney General’s Office and the Cameron County District Attorney’s Office stated that state law does not provide “for postconviction DNA testing to show the innocence of the death penalty, and, even if it did, Gutierrez would not be entitled to it.”
“He has continually failed to demonstrate his right to postconviction DNA testing. Thus, his sentence is appropriate, and his death will be legal,” prosecutors stated.
Gutierrez’s lawyers have also argued that his case is comparable to that of another Texas death row convict, Rodney Reed, whose case was remanded to a lower court after the Supreme Court ruled in 2023 that he should be allowed to argue for DNA testing. Reed is still pursuing DNA tests.
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Lower courts have previously refused Gutierrez’s request for DNA testing.
Last Monday, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles ruled against reducing Gutierrez’s death sentence to a lesser punishment. Members also opposed extending a 90-day respite.
Gutierrez’s execution date has been delayed multiple times in recent years, including due to concerns about having a spiritual counsel in the death chamber. Gutierrez was just an hour away from death in June 2020 when the Supreme Court granted him a stay.
Authorities claimed Gutierrez befriended Harrison to rob her. Prosecutors claimed Harrison buried her money behind a fake floor in her bedroom closet.
Rene Garcia, Pedro Gracia, and Gutierrez have all been charged by police in this case. Rene Garcia is serving a life term in a Texas prison, but Pedro Gracia, who police say was the getaway driver, is still at large.