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Thread: Ruben Gutierrez - Texas Death Row

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    Ruben Gutierrez - Texas Death Row


    Escolastica Harrison


    Ruben Gutierrez after entering death row



    Updated mugshot of Ruben Gutierrez


    Summary of Offense:

    On September 5, 1998, in Brownsville, Gutierrez and codefendants, Rene Garcia and Pedro Gracia Garza, Jr., killed an 85-year-old woman, Escolastica Harrison, in her home. The victim, the owner of a mobile home park, was in her mobile home, which she also used as an office at the time of the offense. Gutierrez and his co-defendants entered into the victim's office with the intent to rob her of money she kept in a safe. When Gutierrez and co-defendants entered the office, the victim was struck one time in the head with the intent of knocking her out. When she struggled, she was repeatedly struck in the head multiple times with blows from fist and steel toe shoes. She was also stabbed multiple times in the head with a screwdriver. Autopsy reports indicate that multiple head bashing resulted in broken cheekbones and damage to the brain, resulting in death.

    Gutierrez was sentenced to death in Cameron County in May 1999.

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    Edited:

    In a second death penalty case Wednesday, the appeals court affirmed Cameron County's refusal to allow DNA testing requested by 33-year-old Ruben Gutierrez. He was convicted in 1999 and sent to death row for beating and using a screwdriver to kill 85-year-old Escolastica Harrison during a robbery of $56,000 from her home in Brownsville.

    Gutierrez also wanted an attorney appointed to help him obtain the DNA testing. That request was denied by the trial court, a decision the appeals court upheld. Gutierrez does not have an execution date.

    http://www.dailyjournal.net/view/sto...cution-Appeal/

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    Appeal for DNA test denied death-row inmate

    The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has denied a request for additional DNA testing by a Brownsville man on death row for the 1998 stabbing death of a mobile home park manager.

    Ruben Gutierrez had asked the higher court to appoint an attorney to assist him in filing a motion for DNA testing. His request was denied.

    Gutierrez, 33, remains on death row at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s Polunsky Unit in Livingston, following his 1999 conviction for murdering 85-year-old Escolastica Harrison at Harrison Mobile Home Park on Morningside Road.

    He was 21 when he committed the crime.

    In part the court states "granting DNA testing in the case would ‘merely muddy the waters.’"

    Authorities said Gutierrez befriended Harrison so he could rob her of some $600,000 in cash that she had hidden in her trailer home. According to police statements, Harrison didn’t like banks so she kept her money in suitcases at her home.

    An autopsy revealed Harrison had been stabbed 13 times with two different screwdrivers and was also beaten. During his 1999 trial, authorities said Gutierrez masterminded her killing.

    Gutierrez has repeatedly disputed his involvement in the crime, stating that there was no evidence that he directly caused Harrison’s death. In his appeal, he also said no evidence was presented that indicated he was in her house at the time she was killed.

    He also alleges he was denied his 14th Amendment right to equal protection. Gutierrez said Brownsville police coerced multiple statements from him and that the statements were involuntary. He says the trial court denied his motion to suppress his statements.

    Gutierrez’s capital murder trial was tried before 107th state District Judge Benjamin Euresti Jr. A jury found him guilty and sentenced him to death.

    It is not known whether a date has been set for his execution.

    http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/new...ow-denied.html

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    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    On November 5, 2013, Gutierrez filed an appeal in the US Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals over the apparent denial of his habeas petition in Federal District Court.

    http://dockets.justia.com/docket/cir...s/ca5/13-70036

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    Senior Member CnCP Legend FFM's Avatar
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    COA denied yesterday by the 5th Circuit:

    http://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions...13-70036.0.pdf

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    On January 2, 2015, the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit DENIED Gutierrez's petition for en banc rehearing.

    http://www.supremecourt.gov/Search.a...es\14-9175.htm

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    In today's orders, the United States Supreme Court declined to review Gutierrez's petition for certiorari.

    Lower Ct: United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
    Case Nos.: (13-70036)
    Decision Date: November 13, 2014
    Rehearing Denied: January 2, 2015

    http://www.supremecourt.gov/search.a...es/14-9175.htm

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    U.S. Supreme Court Refuses Appeal of Texan Who Murdered 85-Year-Old Woman

    The U.S. Supreme Court refused earlier this week to hear an appeal filed by a Brownsville, Texas, man accused of stabbing an 85-year-old woman to death. Ruben Gutierrez, 38, was 21 at the time of the capital murder.

    Gutierrez was convicted of murdering Escolastica Harrison in 1999. The case was tried before Cameron County District Court Judge Benjamin Euresti, Jr. The evidence presented was that the woman was stabbed 13 times with two different screwdrivers. The elderly woman was also severely beaten. She managed the Harrison Mobile Home Park.

    According to The Brownsville Herald, authorities said that Gutierrez befriended the woman because he planned to rob her of some of the $600,000 in cash she hid in her trailer home. He robbed her of $56,000. Harrison did not like banks so she kept the money in her home according to statements of law enforcement officers. Most of the money was later recovered.

    Gutierrez argued no evidence linked him to her death and no evidence put him in her home at the time she of her murder. He admitted to helping plan the robbery but said someone else murdered the woman.

    On appeal, Gutierrez asserted that he was denied his Fourteenth Amendment right to equal protection. Gutierrez claims that the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress his statements made to Brownsville law enforcement officers because the statements were coerced and involuntary.

    Gutierrez awaits execution on death row at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s Polunsky Unit in Livingston, Texas.

    No date has been set for his execution.

    http://www.breitbart.com/big-governm...ear-old-woman/

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    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    Supreme Court won't review case of Texas inmate condemned for Rio Grande Valley woman slaying

    HOUSTON — The U.S. Supreme Court won't rehear an appeal from a 38-year-old convicted murderer on Texas death row for robbing and fatally stabbing an 85-year-old Rio Grande Valley woman.

    The high court Monday rejected the request from Ruben Gutierrez. His lawyers asked the justices to reconsider their October ruling where they refused to review his case.

    Gutierrez was convicted of the 1998 slaying of Escolastica Harrison and robbery of $56,000 from her Brownsville home. Evidence showed she managed and owned a mobile home park from her home and likely was fatally stabbed with screwdrivers.

    Among their arguments, Gutierrez's attorneys contended police improperly questioned him, jurors at his trial engaged in misconduct, DNA evidence wasn't timely disclosed and evidence didn't support his conviction and sentence.

    Gutierrez doesn't yet have an execution date.

    http://www.therepublic.com/view/stor...ecution-Appeal
    "There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche

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    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    Brownsville man convicted of stabbing 85-year-old woman with screwdriver gets execution date

    By Keri Blakinger
    Chron.com

    A Brownsville man convicted of murdering an 85-year-old woman with a screwdriver now has a date with death.

    Ruben Gutierrez, who has long professed his innocence and is still fighting for DNA testing, is scheduled to die by lethal injection on Sept. 12 - the 20-year anniversary of his arrest.

    The Cameron County man was sent to death row following the 1998 slaying of trailer park owner Escolastica Harrison. The elderly woman didn't trust banks, so she'd stowed roughly $600,000 of cash inside her home.

    Gutierrez knew Harrison through her nephew and, according to prosecutors, befriended her just to rob her. In September 1998, authorities say he teamed up with two accomplices - Pedro and Rene Garcia - in hopes of carrying out their plan and making off with the cash.

    Afterward, Harrison was found face-down in a pool of blood, severely beaten and stabbed repeatedly.

    After talking to Pedro and Rene Garcia, police zeroed in on Gutierrez as the killer. When investigators questioned him, Gutierrez offered different versions of events, at one point admitting he was present but not the killer during the deadly robbery.

    In 1999, a jury sentenced him to death. But two decades after the killing, he still maintains his innocence.

    "According to him he wasn't present - the other two guys went on their own, in what was supposed to be a burglary became a robbery," said Margaret Schmucker, the attorney representing Gutierrez in his appeals. "He says he told them about the money, but has always said he wasn't with them."

    Though he lost out in the Supreme Court in 2015, his attorney has since been fighting for forensic testing on the scrapings from under the slain woman's fingernails.

    "We're still trying to get DNA testing," she said, noting that there are still filings in front the state court. "But we've been denied every time we've tried."

    https://www.chron.com/news/houston-t...d-12839230.php

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