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The Texas Parole Board on Monday denied a request for clemency for Ramiro Gonzales, who has been sentenced to death. He is scheduled to be executed on Wednesday for a 2001 murder, even though a key expert no longer stands by his testimony in the trial.
Gonzales, 41, had asked the Board of Pardons and Parole to recommend a pardon that would allow Republican Gov. Greg Abbott to commute the inmate’s sentence for the 2001 sexual assault and murder of 18-year-old Bridget Townsend to a lesser penalty, such as life in prison without parole. Gonzales and his lawyers cited his traumatic childhood and his rehabilitation – exemplified by his Christian faith – as reasons to spare his life, according to the petition.
The panel voted 7-0 against recommending a commutation or a 180-day reprieve. His lawyers were “deeply saddened and disappointed” by the decision, they said in a statement.
“If Ramiro is executed on Wednesday, the world will be a darker place without him,” the lawyers said.
Without the panel’s recommendation, Abbott is subject to state law to grant a one-time 30-day grace period.
Otherwise, Gonzales’ hopes rest on the courts: On Monday, he asked the U.S. Supreme Court for a stay of execution, shortly after the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rejected an appeal. In that appeal, the inmate argued that the jury’s finding that he continued to pose a dangerous threat – a prerequisite for the death penalty in Texas – was based on the testimony of an expert witness who relied on data that later turned out to be false. And that finding was ultimately false, his lawyers argued, as demonstrated by Gonzales’s redemption behind bars and his previous attempts to donate a kidney.
Therefore, Gonzales should not be executed, his lawyers argued, and his execution would violate his constitutional rights under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. In addition, they argued that Texas violated the Eighth Amendment by requiring a determination of “future dangerousness” for a death penalty without providing an opportunity to review that determination in post-conviction proceedings.
Gonzales and his lawyers made similar arguments in their appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court, asking the Court to review the Texas Court of Appeals’ decision and intervene.
The planned execution of Gonzales, who was originally scheduled for July 2022 before the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals granted a stay, is one of two executions scheduled this week in the United States. On Thursday, Oklahoma plans to execute Richard Rojem, who was convicted in 1984 of kidnapping, raping and murdering his 7-year-old stepdaughter Layla Cummings, court records show. Last week, Oklahoma’s Board of Pardons and Parole voted against recommending a pardon for Rojem, who maintains his innocence, CNN affiliate KOCO reported.
If both Gonzales and Rojem are executed, they would be the eighth and ninth executions in the United States this year, respectively, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. The nonprofit organization monitors and analyzes information on the death penalty and criticizes its execution.
Both would be the second person to be executed in their respective states in 2024. According to the center’s data, 13 prisoners were already executed in the United States during the same period last year.
In the Texas case, the Medina County District Attorney’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. CNN has attempted to reach members of Townsend’s family for comment.
One day in January 2001, Gonzales called the home of his drug supplier, who was Townsend’s friend, according to a 2009 appeals court opinion upholding the inmate’s conviction and death sentence.
Townsend responded, the statement said, and told Gonzales her boyfriend was at work. Gonzales then went to the house looking for drugs, stole money and bound Townsend’s hands and feet before kidnapping her. He then drove her to a location near his family’s ranch, where he raped and shot her, the court statement said.
In October 2002, while in a county jail for raping another woman, Gonzales confessed to Townsend’s murder and led authorities to her body, court records show.
In his petition for clemency, Gonzales says he was 18 years old when he murdered Townsend. He was in the grips of a drug addiction that was “exacerbated by the trauma and neglect that characterized his childhood,” the petition says.
Gonzales’ mother drank and used drugs during her pregnancy and gave her son to his parents after he was born. She had two other children whom she raised, the petition says. but she did not recognize Gonzales as her son. The petition also states that Gonzales was sexually abused throughout his childhood, starting at age six.
Gonzales began using drugs in his teens after his aunt – with whom he was close friends – was killed by a drunk driver, causing him “inconsolable grief.” says the petition.
“In the years that followed, Ramiro’s life spiraled out of control,” it says.
During his years on death row, Gonzales became “living proof of the power of rehabilitation and the human capacity for growth and change,” his lawyers argued in his appeal to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals this month. He became “deeply religious,” “committed no criminal acts of violence,” and tried to atone for his crimes – including by trying to donate a kidney.
Before his final execution date, Gonzales had requested a 30-day reprieve so he could perform an altruistic kidney donation. But the Texas Department of Justice deemed him ineligible under its health policy, a spokesperson told CNN at the time, because an organ transplant would involve an “uncertain timeline” that could conflict with an execution date.
Gonzales’ lawyers said this was just one example of Gonzales’ “development and rehabilitation.” They also pointed to his commitment to his faith and his advocacy for other death row inmates, according to the recent appeal.
Taken together, Gonzales’s lawyers said, this evidence showed that the inmate no longer posed a danger to society, overturning a jury finding at trial that would have been a prerequisite for the death sentence.
In addition, Gonzales’s lawyers argued that the evidence the jury relied on to determine future dangerousness was incorrect: A state expert testified during the sentencing phase of the inmate’s trial that he had diagnosed Gonzales with antisocial personality disorder and that “a great deal of data” suggested that sex offenders were likely to continue to commit crimes, citing in part data on recidivism.
That data has since been found to be inaccurate, and the expert examined Gonzales in 2021 and recanted his testimony, including the diagnosis, Gonzales’ appeal states. The expert told The Marshall Project he had never changed his mind on a capital crime before, calling it “the exception, not the rule.”
When the appeals court stopped Gonzales’s final execution, it sent the case back to the trial court, which reviewed the expert’s testimony and determined whether it influenced the jury’s decision. Gonzales’ appeal states that the state recommended denying the execution and the lower court agreed without a hearing. The appeals court ultimately denied the execution in June 2023.
CNN’s John Fritze contributed to this report.
