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Thread: Ramiro Felix Gonzales - Texas Execution - June 26, 2024

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    Ramiro Felix Gonzales - Texas Execution - June 26, 2024


    Bridget Townsend


    Ramiro Felix Gonzales


    Summary of Offense:

    On January 15, 2001, in Medina County, Gonzales kidnapped Bridget Townsend, 18, sexually assaulted her and fatally shot her.

    Gonzales was sentenced to death in September 2006.

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    June 17, 2009

    HOUSTON — A man condemned for the fatal shooting of an 18-year-old woman whose remains were found west of San Antonio almost two years after she vanished lost an appeal of his conviction and death sentence at the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Wednesday.

    Ramiro Gonzales, 26, had received two life sentences for the abduction and rape of another woman in Bandera County and was awaiting transfer to prison when he told authorities in October 2002 he knew where they could find Bridget Townsend. She was reported missing from her Bandera County home in January 2001.

    He led them to her skeletal remains in a remote area of his family's ranch in adjacent Medina County and confessed to robbing, raping and killing the woman.

    Lawyers for Gonzales had raised 10 error points from his 2006 trial in Hondo, about 40 miles west of San Antonio, including claims that his confession was not sufficiently corroborated by independent evidence. They also challenged testimony from a forensic psychiatrist who told jurors Gonzales would be a continuing threat, one of the questions a jury must decide when considering a death sentence.

    Other challenges were raised about the propriety of instructions the trial judge gave to the jury.

    One appeals court judge, Paul Womack, dissented from the court majority saying he believed there should have been more research about the reliability of predicting behavior "before we accept an opinion that a capital murderer will be dangerous even in prison."

    Another judge, Cheryl Johnson, joined him in his dissent. The other seven judges, however, agreed the psychiatrist's testimony was proper under existing law.

    Gonzales, a seventh-grade dropout who built fences and also worked as a welder, led authorities to a remote hillside where they found a human skull and other bones that had been scattered by animals. They also found jewelry and clothing belonging to Townsend.

    Gonzales first told deputies he let Mexican Mafia members use the ranch after they told him they needed a spot to dispose a body. Then he changed his story to say he was there when others killed Townsend.

    He subsequently told a Texas Ranger details that were consistent with the evidence gathered during the investigation, that he went to his drug supplier's house to steal cocaine because he knew the man's girlfriend, Townsend, was there alone at the time. He said he abducted Townsend after taking some money and drugs from the house and after she tried to call her boyfriend, drove her to his family's ranch, retrieved a high-caliber deer rifle and drove her to the spot where her remains were found.

    He said the frightened woman offered him money, drugs or sex if he wouldn't hurt her. He had sex with her, then shot her and went home. Her boyfriend later called police to report her missing.

    At his trial, the woman Gonzales had been convicted of abducting and raping told jurors she believed she also would have been killed if she hadn't been able to escape from a cabin where he left her bound with tape.

    His trial lawyers blamed his behavior on childhood neglect, drugs and sexual abuse.

    Gonzales does not have an execution date. He still has federal appeals he can pursue.

    http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/6484664.html

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    Gonzales was denied a writ of habeas corpus by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on September 23, 2009.

    Opinion is here:

    http://www.cca.courts.state.tx.us/OP...PINIONID=18788

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    On February 25, 2010, Gonzales filed a habeas petition in Federal District Court.

    http://dockets.justia.com/docket/tex...v00165/410370/

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    Gonzales was remanded to the trial court today.

    http://www.cca.courts.state.tx.us/OP...PINIONID=22052

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    On February 11, 2014, Gonzales filed an appeal before the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit over the apparent denial of his habeas petition in Federal District Court.

    http://dockets.justia.com/docket/cir...s/ca5/14-70006

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    COA denied today by the 5th Circuit.

    http://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions...14-70006.0.pdf

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    Ramiro Gonzales v. William Stephens

    In today's opinions, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals DENIED Gonzales a certificate of appealability to appeal the district court’s denial of his federal habeas corpus petition, filed pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254 challenging his state criminal conviction for capital murder and sentence of death.
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

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    The article

    Gonzales' latest appeal denied

    By Judith Pannebaker
    The Bandera County Courier

    A federal appeals court has denied the latest in a string of challenges from a man who currently waits on Texas' death row for the murder of an 18-year-old Bandera County woman.

    On Friday, April 10, judges on the United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Antonio denied Ramiro Felix Gonzales' claims of procedural errors in his original trial in Medina County for the shooting death of Bridget Townsend.

    The court's decision nudges Gonzalez a step closer to his execution. He is currently being held in the Walls Unit at the Texas State Penitentiary in Huntsville.

    Gruesome backstory


    According to court documents, on Jan. 15, 2001, Gonzales, then 18, went to the home of his drug supplier in Wharton's Dock to steal cocaine - fully aware that only Townsend, his supplier's girlfriend, was at the residence. Additionally, Gonzales and Townsend were acquainted. They had been classmates in middle school before Gonzales dropped out in the eighth grade.

    Nevertheless, according to court documents, Gonzales pushed Townsend down, dragged her into a bedroom, tying her hands and feet with nylon rope from a closet. He also stole between $150 and $500 in cash. After carrying the still-bound Townsend to his pickup truck, Gonzales drove to a large ranch in Medina County off FM 1077 in northern Medina County, where he lived; retrieved a high-powered .243-caliber deer rifle equipped with a scope; and forced the girl to walk into the deserted brush.

    When Gonzales loaded the rifle, Townsend began begging for her life. In response to her offer of sex in exchange for her life, Gonzales unloaded the rifle, took her back to the truck where he raped her. After Townsend redressed, he walked her back into the brush and shot her, leaving her body where it fell.

    Returning to his grandparents' house, Gonzales removed the empty shell casing from the rifle and threw the casing away. He returned the rifle to his grandfather's ranch truck from which he had originally retrieved it and proceeded to interact with his family as though nothing had happened.

    Given death penalty

    However, during the September 2006 trial, it was revealed that Gonzales had repeatedly returned to the scene of Townsend's murder. Court records also stated that as a youth, Gonzales "on numerous occasions shot animals and then watched their bodies decay over time."

    These facts were never disputed during the trial. At that time, Gonzales' was the first death penalty case held in Medina County in more than two decades.

    Ultimately, Gonzales was convicted of intentionally causing Townsend's death by shooting her with a firearm during the course of committing or attempting to commit aggravated sexual assault, kidnapping, or robbery. The jury took just a little over 34 minutes to find him guilty of capital murder and approximately three hours to sentence him to death.

    Previously, Gonzales had been found guilty in 2002 of kidnapping and aggravated sexual assault with deadly weapon of another Bandera County woman. For those crimes, he was sentenced to serve two life sentences.

    Confessed to murder

    While in the Bandera County Jail waiting to be transported to prison, Gonzales told then-Sheriff James MacMillan that he had information about Townsend, who had been reported missing almost two years earlier.

    Accompanied by Gonzales and a jail administrator, MacMillan drove to the ranch where Gonzales and his family lived, eventually walking to a remote cedar-covered hillside where Gonzales indicated they would find Townsend's remains. At the site, the sheriff and the jail administrator discovered a human skull and other bones that had been scattered by wildlife, as well as jewelry that had been previously described by Gonzales. Townsend's body was discovered Oct. 7, 2002. She was positively identified using dental records.

    During Gonzales' murder trial, then-Texas Ranger Skylor Hearn testified that Gonzales' final account of the murder was consistent with evidence discovered during a subsequent investigation. Additionally, Gonzales had given law enforcement officers an audio-taped and transcribed statement, which he signed. Hearn read the statement at the trial and the audiotape was played as well.

    In an earlier pre-trial hearing, 38th Judicial District Judge Antonio Cantu had denied motions to suppress Gonzales' written confessions.

    The case was tried in Medina County because that was where Townsend's remains had been found - although the decision was rife with controversy at the time.

    Mitigating circumstances?


    During the trial, Gonzales' defense attorneys blamed their client's behavior on childhood neglect, drugs and sexual abuse. According to court records, his mother had used drugs during her pregnancy then abandoned him at birth, leaving him to be raised primarily by his grandmother. Additionally, as a child, Gonzales had been sexually abused by a male relative and was using alcohol and drugs by the time he was 12.

    Speaking after the murder trial, Gonzales' second victim, who had been taken to the same ranch in Medina County, told the court she believed Gonzales would also have murdered her had she not been able to escape from a cabin where she, too, had been bound and imprisoned.

    Most recent challenge

    During Gonzales' most recent appeal, his attorneys challenged testimony from a forensic psychiatrist who had testified that there was a serious risk that Gonzales would continue to commit acts of violence in the prison setting.

    However, at the time, the psychiatrist had also acknowledged that predictions of future dangerousness were "highly controversial" and that the American Psychiatric Association had taken the position that such predictions are unscientific and unreliable.

    Additionally, Gonzales' court-appointed defense attorneys charged "ineffective assistance of counsel" during the original trial because his attorney failed to present evidence that Gonzales might have suffered from Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD).

    According to the appellate court's finding: "Defense council presented substantial evidence at trial that Gonzales's mother abused alcohol, marijuana and inhalants while pregnant with Gonzales. There is insufficient persuasive evidence that Gonzales actually suffers from FASD."

    To Gonzales' claim that his trial counsel failed to secure an abuse expert, the court countered that Dr. Daneen Milam, a neuropsychologist and sex offender treatment provider, had testified for the defense on the psychological consequences of the neglect, abuse and drug use on Gonzales. "Beyond Dr. Milam's extensive testimony, additional testimony by an abuse expert would most likely have been cumulative, and Gonzales does not show otherwise," the court stated.

    For these reasons and more, the appellate court denied Gonzales' most recent appeal.

    A local attorney opined that many more appeals would be filed with higher courts. One of Gonzales' previous appeals went all the way to the United States Supreme Court before being denied. "He's doing this simply to avoid the death penalty and to prolong the process," the attorney said.

    http://www.bccourier.com/Archives/Ne...ontentId=20020

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