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Thread: Rigoberto Avila, Jr. - Texas Death Row

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    Rigoberto Avila, Jr. - Texas Death Row




    Facts of the Crime:

    On February 29, 2000, in El Paso, Avila was babysitting a 19-month-old boy, Nicholas Macias, and his sibling at their residence. Avila struck Nicholas in the abdomen, causing the death of the child.

    Avila was sentenced to death in El Paso County in July 2001.

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    On February 17, 2009, Avila was denied a Certificate of Appealability by the US Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

    The ruling also overturned a Federal District Court decision granting him a new sentencing hearing.

    Opinion is here:

    http://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions...28-CV0.wpd.pdf

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    February 18, 2009

    HOUSTON — A federal appeals court has upheld the conviction of an El Paso man sent to death row for stomping his girlfriend's baby to death but reversed a lower court's ruling that could have resulted in a new sentence.

    In a second case, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected an appeal from the convicted killer of two people in Montgomery County because the appeal was filed one day too late.

    In the El Paso case, Rigoberto Avila, 36, was condemned for the slaying of 19-month-old Nicolas Macias. The child was one of two children Avila was baby-sitting the night of Feb. 29, 2000. He called 911 to report the child had stopped breathing and told authorities that Nicolas' 4-year-old brother had covered the baby's mouth while the two were playing.

    Evidence, however, showed the child had been kicked in the stomach and the blow was equal to the force of someone jumping from a car traveling at 60 mph. A physician testified at Avila's trial in 2001 that the pressure from the kick ripped the organs of the child from his spine.

    In a statement to police, Avila said he stomped on the child because he was jealous of the attention the mother was giving him.

    In Avila's appeal, lawyers argued prosecutors switched pathologists to testify as experts at his trial and that an autopsy report from the original physician, whom they describe as a member of the prosecution team, wasn't used because it said the child could have been kicked only once. The opinion of other physicians was that the child had been kicked several times, which was the theory prosecutors delivered to jurors.

    Prosecutors later submitted affidavits insisting the original doctor never said it was his opinion the child could have sustained just one blow. The physician, however, later provided his own affidavit saying he did communicate his single-blow theory to prosecutors. The appeals court, in its ruling late Monday, said the affidavit submitted long after the trial "does not constitute clear and convincing evidence."

    The court also said the doctor wasn't part of the prosecution team but only a pathologist.

    Avila's lawyers said the distinction about the injury was crucial because the single-blow theory could have persuaded a juror to decide Avila was guilty of an offense less than capital murder.

    Attorneys made the same argument to a federal district judge who ruled Avila should get a new punishment hearing because of the discrepancy in medical opinions and the possibility that different legal strategies might have been used by Avila's trial lawyers if they knew of the original doctor's opinion.

    Avila's trial attorney later gave an affidavit that indicated he would not have changed strategies, and that at trial he hoped to show jurors the attack was a "spur-of-the-moment" incident and "total aberration in Avila's life" and that Avila was not a cold-blooded killer who likely would be a continuing threat.

    Avila's appeal also argued his trial attorneys were inadequate but the New Orleans-based court also rejected that claim.

    http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/6303201.html

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    November 2, 2009

    El Pasoan's Death Penalty Appeal Denied

    EL PASO, Texas -- Rigoberto Avila will die for killing a 19-month-old boy.

    Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court refused Avila's appeal, as well as appeals from two other Texas death row inmates.

    Avila, 37, was sent to death row nearly 10 years ago after being found guilty of killing his girlfriend's toddler son by stomping the child to death. Medical experts testified the force of the blow to the boy's abdoment dislodged the boy's organs from his spine.

    Avila testified he killed the child because he was jealous of the attention his girlfriend gave the young boy.

    The high court also refused to review the case of Gerald Cornelius Eldridge, 45, who faces execution Nov. 17 for the deadly shootings of his former girlfriend and her daughter in Houston almost 17 years ago.

    The justices also rejected an appeal from John Balentine, 40, who was condemned for the slaying of three teenagers in Amarillo almost 12 years ago.

    http://www.kfoxtv.com/news/21500101/detail.html

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    On February 8, 2010, in a new opinon by the Fifth Circuit, the court reversed a district court judge's decision to grant habeas relief to Avila for the sentencing phase due to a Brady claim.

    Opinion is here:

    http://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions...28-CV0.wpd.pdf

  6. #6
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    As per the TDCJ, an execution date of December 12, 2012 has been set for Rigoberto Avila.

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    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    And the article..

    An El Paso man convicted of killing his girlfriend's 19-month-old child has received an execution date.

    Rigoberto Avila Jr. faces lethal injection Dec. 12 in Huntsville for the February 2000 beating death of Nicolas Macias. Testimony showed the child was one of two he was babysitting in February 2000 while the children's mother was attending a college class.

    Evidence at his trial in 2001 showed he kicked and stomped the toddler so badly the boy's organs were torn from his spine. In a statement to police, he said the attack was in response to too much attention his girlfriend of four months was giving the child.

    The 40-year-old Avila is among at least nine Texas death row inmates with execution dates scheduled for the coming months.

    http://www.tribunenews.com/index.php...execution-date
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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    Senior Member Member chris35721's Avatar
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    new date for execution posted by TDCJ today. 04/10/2013

  9. #9
    bem17356
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    Ok! Why was it changed to April?!

  10. #10
    Senior Member Member chris35721's Avatar
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    Could not answer that. just changed it for some reason

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