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Thread: Arturo Daniel Aranda - Texas Death Row

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    Arturo Daniel Aranda - Texas Death Row


    Officer Pablo Albidrez, Jr.





    Arturo Aranda


    Summary of Offense:

    On July 31, 1976, Aranda Arturo shot Laredo Police Officer Pablo Albidrez, Jr. to death during a drug bust. Aranda and his brother were carrying 500 pounds of marijuana when stopped by undercover agents.

    Aranda was sentenced to death in Victoria County in May 1979.

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    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    San Antonian still on death row after 31 years

    He gunned down a Laredo police officer in 1976

    By Denise Blaz
    The Laredo Morning Times

    Arturo Daniel Aranda wakes up alone in his 60-square-foot cell on death row in Huntsville, yet another mind-numbing day stretching before him just like the 11,000-plus he's already seen.

    “It's hell in here,” said Aranda, a San Antonio felon who was out on parole when he was convicted of killing Laredo Police Officer Pablo Albidrez Jr. after a short chase in July 1976.

    At 62, he has been awaiting execution for half his life: 31 years.

    There's no TV in a death row cell. Aranda's typewriter, one of the few items he's allowed to have, is on the fritz. His only human contact is with prison guards; he hasn't had a hug or even so much as a handshake from family members since he was sentenced in 1979.

    Aranda says he doesn't deserve to be in prison; Albidrez's friends and family say he should've been executed long ago.

    ‘One spot of blood'

    Albidrez was about two hours into his 11 p.m. shift when Candelario Viera, an undercover Laredo police officer assigned to help a Drug Enforcement Administration task force, caught sight of two men loading something into a 1959 Ford station wagon in a downtown parking lot on the banks of the Rio Grande. That “something” turned out to be 500 pounds of marijuana.

    Driving an unmarked car, Viera started tailing the men: Arturo Aranda and his brother, Juan Jose Aranda.

    “They snapped on really quick because at that time there was not much traffic, so they knew I was following them,” recalled Viera, now 73 and a retired sergeant, during a recent interview at his home in Laredo.

    Just before 1 a.m. on July 31, 1976, Viera asked for backup from uniformed officers, and Albidrez volunteered to help Viera.

    Albidrez stopped the station wagon by parking six feet in front of it, blocking it.

    “Police officers! Get off the vehicle, step out of the car!” yelled Viera at the station wagon, making sure he had his 9 mm Browning pistol in hand.

    Despite Viera's commands, there appeared to be no activity from the station wagon. Carefully, the two officers started to approach the station wagon.

    A gunshot rang out, shattering the still night.

    “Pablo jerked, and he got his gun out and by that time I got on the ground,” Viera said.

    “(Pablo) drew his weapon out and started shooting, ‘Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom' and he started running back toward the back of my unit,” Viera recounted. Arturo was shot in the left shoulder and left hand. He and Juan Jose were arrested as Laredo police and Texas Department of Public Safety troopers swarmed the scene.

    Just before the arrests, however, Viera had the shock of his life.

    “When I looked back on the sidewalk, as I was running toward the alley, I saw Pablo in the back of the door of my unit and he was kneeling,” Viera said, his voice choking. “And I thought, oh, (expletive), and I ran back to him. And what I saw, really, I had never seen this before.”

    Albidrez was in a crouched position, leaning on Viera's car. He had been shot through his police badge, which was blown off his chest and flung five feet away from the station wagon.

    “He just had one spot of blood on his shirt. One spot,” Viera said.

    The officer was bleeding internally, and he was dead on arrival at Mercy Hospital.

    ‘It wasn't me'

    “It wasn't me,” said Arturo Aranda in his first death-row interview since his conviction 31 years ago. “I'm innocent ... It was Candelario Viera.”

    Talking through an acrylic partition at a prison in Huntsville, Aranda's face looks weathered and worn. His hair is thinning, and he has a constant cough, the result of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

    His brother, who also was convicted of murder in Albidrez's death but was sentenced to life instead of receiving a death sentence, agrees.

    “Viera was the one that started all that up,” Juan Jose Aranda said. “I know he killed Mr. Albidrez by accident, but he don't want to admit it. If they would have convicted us for the marijuana or the firearms or the attempted capital, they would be right. It would be an accurate right thing to do.”

    But the evidence contradicts the brothers' stories.

    Medical personnel attending Arturo found a .38 caliber snub-nosed revolver in his crotch. There were six spent shells, and one unfired round remaining in the Colt. Ballistics proved that the bullet that killed Albidrez came from that weapon.

    Viera had only his 9 mm Browning, which he had emptied at the scene.

    Juan Jose was armed with a 12-gauge shotgun, and spent casings were found in the street and in nearby brush. Officers found two live rounds stuffed in his pants pocket after he was arrested.

    Since the day he was released in February 1991, Juan Jose has kept his record clean. He's an ideal parolee, checking in regularly with his parole officer as required and keeping a steady job. For the past seven years, he has been a construction worker. And he says the right things.

    “I've been trying to do my best,” he said in an interview at his modest duplex on San Antonio's West Side. “I'm the same old me, just been trying to help people out.”

    Juan Jose lives alone in his childhood neighborhood, just minutes away from Escobar Junior High School, where he dropped out after the seventh grade.

    ‘Nice memories'

    When Albidrez was killed, he had been back on the Laredo police force less than a week after a two-year stint with DFW Airport security.

    Still, he kept his options open and had applied to the DPS.

    “He had a lot of jobs, but nothing filled his heart, and he would say, ‘This is not for me, not for me,'” recalled his wife, Sipriana Albidrez.

    The day Pablo Albidrez was buried, a letter was delivered from the DPS that would have informed him that he had qualified to join the highway patrol.

    Sipriana Albidrez's husband was a family man, proud of his two young daughters. She remembers that he loved to go out to the ranch.

    “He was always a kind person and loving with his children and myself,” she said.

    Their oldest daughter, Patricia Elena Albidrez, was 4 when her father died.

    “I have nice memories of my dad,” she said. “I remember playing with the wooden blocks and building stuff, or riding the bike with him, playing ball.”

    Their second child, daughter Rebecca Ann Gamez, who was 2 at the time, said most of her knowledge of her father has come from her family and his friends.

    ‘We have a problem'

    Originally, the two brothers were going to be tried together in Laredo. But Arturo became ill, and the cases were severed.

    Juan Jose was tried first in the 49th State District Court in late 1978. The jury trial lasted more than a month. At the end, the jury found him guilty of capital murder, and he was sentenced to life in prison on Dec. 4, 1978.

    But thanks to good time and other credits, he was out in little more than 12 years.

    Arturo was tried in the 24th State District Court in Victoria in early 1979. The change of venue was granted due to widespread publicity about the case in Laredo.

    Arturo's jury trial lasted barely two weeks. He, too, was convicted of capital murder, but he was sentenced to die by lethal injection.

    Through several failed appeals, Arturo has remained on death row. His last execution date was in 1988, and it has yet to be reset.

    For former assistant district attorney Donato Ramos, that makes no sense.

    “If after all these years he's still on death row, we have a problem,” he said.

    No one is quite sure why Arturo Aranda is still alive.

    Arturo has served 11,630 days since he was received by the Texas Department of Justice.

    It's unclear why there has been such little action in the case, which currently resides in the court of U.S. Judge Ricardo Hinojosa, chief justice of the Southern District.

    Hinojosa's staff said the judge does not comment on open cases. The Texas attorney general's office, which handles death row cases, also had no comment.

    Aranda's attorney of record, James Kearney, had little to say.

    “It is a matter of public record, the status of the proceeding, but beyond that I really would not be able to offer you factual information as to the reasons why it has been pending. ... It would be speculation,” he said.

    Albidrez's family has said they forgive Aranda, but that justice should be done.

    “When we see the newspaper, national or statewide news that someone else has been executed, it always brings back, ‘Wow, this person was executed, and they've been in jail on death row for eight years, or 12 years, whatever it may be,'” said Pablo Albidrez's youngest daughter, Rebecca Gamez. “I actually just accessed a website, and you can see everyone scratched off, and I wonder why he hasn't (been).”

    Her older sister Patricia said she hopes her father's killer will show remorse.

    “If he has a conscience, he's thought about what he's done for the past 31 years,” she said. “It's his own torture.”

    http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/loc...317.php#page-1

  3. #3
    Senior Member CnCP Legend JLR's Avatar
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    It's quite bizarre how he has lasted so long in Texas without any reversals.
    If I'm right, he should in the right time period to make a Penry claim that would grant him another penalty phase. This case doesn't look to be nearly over yet.

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    Moderator Bobsicles's Avatar
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    Where is this guy appeal-wise? He has to be close right?

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    Moderator Ryan's Avatar
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    Aranda is going through the system like all other death row offenders. When Aranda is eligible for execution, we will update accordingly!
    "How do you get drunk on death row?" - Werner Herzog

    "When we get fruit, we get the juice and water. I ferment for a week! It tastes like chalk, it's nasty" - Blaine Keith Milam #999558 Texas Death Row

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    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    Aranda's case status is a mystery, Victoria county has only had two people who were sentenced to death in the county executed. How he has survived for so long without a large legal trail is a mystery.
    Last edited by Mike; 06-27-2020 at 05:22 PM.

  8. #8
    Moderator Bobsicles's Avatar
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    On June 4, 2020, Aranda filed an appeal to the US Court of Criminal Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

    https://dockets.justia.com/docket/ci...s/ca5/20-70008
    Last edited by Bobsicles; 07-05-2020 at 06:02 PM.
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    Moderator Ryan's Avatar
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    Aranda is now 72 years old and been on death row since May 1979 for killing a Laredo Police Officer. He will be potentially one of the oldest death row inmates facing execution in the modern day era.
    "How do you get drunk on death row?" - Werner Herzog

    "When we get fruit, we get the juice and water. I ferment for a week! It tastes like chalk, it's nasty" - Blaine Keith Milam #999558 Texas Death Row

  10. #10
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mastro Titta's Avatar
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    Maybe his lawyers had a rumor that Victoria County DA wants to seek an execution date, so they started with the appeal circus.

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